Resources
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Ode to a Fallen Sparrow
By Helen Leslie Sokolsky
I stand riveted
within a circle of sparrows
feeling like an immigrant
trespassing on their gathering.
Squalls of white swirl around us
the snow falling steadily
in an unchanging rhythm.
One sparrow starts wandering away from the others
limping slightly
making his way to the park benches
now camouflaged in winter's coat.
He seems to find comfort on those pillars
so many stories carved into the wooden slats
voices of summer's past.
I toss some crumbs, my alms to him
he sprinkles me with down
the two of us, twisted vines
pulled together across all this stillness.
Carefully steadying himself on his podium
hurt leg tucked in feathers
the sparrow begins to trill some half notes
and from that tiny frozen heart
a fugue clamoring to wake the earth
resounds in all its splendor
his resurrection symphony.
Open Culture
Educational media website Open Culture provides this archive of over 500 literary classics available as free e-book downloads for your computer or mobile device. Genres include poetry, literary novels, science fiction, philosophy, and children's stories. There are also links to other free e-book libraries.
The Lit Pub
Founded in 2011, The Lit Pub website features recommendations of new literary fiction and nonfiction books, with brief reviews. The Lit Pub also publishes three full-length prose books per year through their open submissions period in June. Manuscripts may be novels, novellas, memoirs, lyric essays, story collections, prose poems and/or flash fictions.
VIDA: Women in Literary Arts
Award-winning poets Cate Marvin and Erin Belieu founded this online community in August 2009 to address the need for female writers of literature to engage in conversations regarding women's work as well as the critical reception of women's creative writing in our current culture. Formerly known as WILLA: Women in Letters and Literary Arts.
The Joiner Institute for the Study of War and Social Consequences
A project of the University of Massachusetts-Boston, the Joiner Institute promotes research, curriculum development, public events, and educational, cultural, and humanitarian exchanges which foster greater understanding and innovative means of addressing the consequences of war. Their annual writers' workshop is taught by Iraq and Vietnam veterans and others whose works address issues of social justice, cultural, political, and community concern.
The Fear of Monkeys
The Fear of Monkeys is a literary e-zine for political and socially conscious writing. Editors say, "Its purpose is to provide an empty vessel into which we might pour the otherwise marginalized voices of those concerned with political and social responsibility." Previously published work accepted.
The Choosing America Project
Award-winning writers and filmmakers Ricky and Lia Friesem are compiling authentic dramatic anecdotes (1,500-3,000 words) from immigrants who chose to live in America. They hope to turn some of these stories into short films that will be shown in the movies and broadcast on TV. "We are looking for those special moments, encounters, surprises, experiences, disappointments, which vividly convey what it's like to be an immigrant in America. The good, the bad, the sad, the miraculous, the joyful—every anecdote is welcome as long as it's authentic and well told." See submission guidelines on website.
Sampsonia Way
Sampsonia Way is an online magazine sponsored by City of Asylum/Pittsburgh celebrating literary free expression and supporting persecuted poets and novelists worldwide. Each issue contains author interviews, critical essays, and excerpts from literature from many countries. Featured authors have included Toi Derricotte, Lynn Emmanuel, Horacio Castellanos Moya, and Nancy Krygowski.
Safer Society Press
Founded in 1982, Safer Society Press is a nonprofit press dedicated to providing resources for the prevention and treatment of sexual abuse. Their titles include fiction for youth and adults, and memoirs by abuse survivors, as well as scholarly books and clinical pamphlets.
Prisons Foundation
The Prisons Foundation is a nonprofit organization based in Washington, DC that promotes the arts and education in prison and alternatives to incarceration. Visit the gallery page of their website to view and purchase original work by incarcerated artists.
Prisoner Express
A project of the Durland Alternatives Library, Prisoner Express promotes rehabilitation by connecting prisoners to a community through literature. Prisoner Express began as a program for sending donated books to inmates. In addition to this service, they also coordinate pen-pal and distance-learning programs, and publish prisoners' writing on their website and in an anthology.
Pratt MFA in Writing Program
The Pratt MFA in Writing is a new and unique two-year program specifically designed to support and encourage intellectually rigorous and inspired writing practices that are philosophically, culturally and politically informed. The premise of the program is that writing can be transformative at all scales, from the personal to the social, and we aim to incubate such radically cosmopolitan, resolutely local, pleasure-filled, and potentially revolutionary poetic practices. Pratt is located in the historic Clinton Hill neighborhood of Brooklyn, NY.
Poets for Living Waters
Poets for Living Waters is a poetry action in response to the BP oil disaster in the Gulf of Mexico begun on April 20, 2010, one of the most profound human-made ecological catastrophes in history. See website for instructions for submitting your poems by email. Previously published work accepted.
Poetry of Resilience
'Poetry of Resilience' is a documentary by Academy Award-nominated director Katja Esson about six international poets who individually survived Hiroshima, the Holocaust, China's Cultural Revolution, the Kurdish Genocide in Iraq, the Rwandan Genocide, and the Iranian Revolution. These six artists present us with a close-up perspective of the "wide shot" of political violence. Each story is powerful, but the film's strength comes from its collective voice: different political conflicts, cultures, genders, ages, races – one shared human narrative.
Poetry 4 Palestine
Palestinian poet Hiyam Noir launched this website to bear witness to the suffering of Palestinians in refugee camps and work towards an end to Israeli occupation.
Plain View Press
Founded in the 1970s, this independent small press in Austin, TX publishes poetry and literary prose. Editors say, "Our books result from artistic collaboration between writers, artists and editors. Over the years we have become a far-flung community of activists whose energies bring humanitarian enlightenment and hope to individuals and communities grappling with the major issues of our time: peace, justice, the environment, education and gender. This is a humane and highly creative group of people committed to art and social change." Query by email first, and wait for a response before sending the full manuscript. Email queries should include a link to a website that features a selection of your work and information about you, or a short selection of work pasted into the message (no attachments).
Leeway Foundation
Based in Philadelphia, the Leeway Foundation offers grants to women and transgender artists in the Delaware Valley region who are creating social change.
International Cities of Refuge Network
ICORN is an association of cities and regions around the world dedicated to protecting freedom of expression by offering refuge to writers fleeing political persecution.
Hedgebrook Writers in Residence Program
Hedgebrook's motto is "Women Authoring Change". This retreat for women writers is located on Whidbey Island near Puget Sound, 35 miles from Seattle, WA. Each year, the retreat hosts about 40 women writers from all over the world for residencies of 2-6 weeks, at no cost to the writer.
For Southern Boys Who Consider Poetry (Saeed Jones)
Pushcart-nominated poet Saeed Jones, author of the chapbook 'When the Only Light is Fire' (Sibling Rivalry Press), blogs about writing, contemporary culture, and the potentialities and limits of the "black gay poet" identity.
Dora McQuaid
Poet, spoken-word artist, and activist Dora McQuaid raises awareness about domestic violence, child abuse, prisoners' rights, and other social justice issues.
Demeter Press
Based in Toronto, Demeter Press is an independent feminist press specializing in books about mothering and motherhood. They publish peer-reviewed scholarly work, fiction, poetry, and creative nonfiction by and about mothers, mothering and family issues. Demeter Press is the publishing arm of the Motherhood Initiative for Research and Community Involvement.
WordPress
Free blogging service describes itself as "a state-of-the-art semantic personal publishing platform with a focus on aesthetics, web standards, and usability." Users seeking a more sophisticated and professional-looking blog should check them out.
TypePad
Paid blogging service starting at $8.95/month. Higher tiers offer more data storage, bandwidth, number of blogs per user, and customization options.
The Internet Writing Journal’s Best Author Blogs
The editors of The Internet Writing Journal list their favorite individual and group blogs by accomplished writers. Represented genres include humor, romance, science fiction, horror, mystery, economics and technology. You will recognize many names on this list.
The Complete Review
Reviews for over 900 books new and old. Concise and opinionated. Good at calling attention to obscure but worthy books. Genres include poetry. We also enjoy their blog, the Literary Saloon.
Constant Critic
Sophisticated poetry reviews sponsored by Fence magazine. Any site that appreciates Gabriel Gudding's A Defense of Poetry gets our approval. Sign up for the mailing list to be notified of new reviews.
Modern American Poetry
A large, collaborative collection of critical essays. Background and analysis of many of today's most interesting American poems and poets. Submissions welcome. Click here for information.
Words Without Borders
50% of all the books in translation now published worldwide are translated from English, but only 6% are translated into English. Words Without Borders, a project of the PEN American Center and Bard College, aims to improve the balance with English translations of outstanding work from around the world. Recent themed issues include Literary Border-Crossings in Iran and Writing from North Korea. Read the issues free online, and sign up for the free email newsletter.
Transition Magazine
This literary and cultural journal was founded by Ugandan writer Rajat Neogy in 1961, and re-launched in 1991 by the W.E.B. Du Bois Institute at Harvard University. Transition publishes poetry, fiction, and essays from and about Africa and the African diaspora.
Three Percent
A project of the University of Rochester's publishing house Open Letter Books, Three Percent is a resource for international literature. Their blog features reviews of world literature in translation. They also offer the Best Translated Book Award with sponsorship from Amazon.com.
Poetry International Web
Editors from over 20 countries collaborate on this site showcasing the best contemporary poetry from around the world, plus literary essays and interviews.
Dalkey Archive Press
This independent publisher in Champaign, Illinois specializes in bringing translations of world literature to the US market. Their website features author interviews, information for bookstores and reviewers, critical essays on contemporary literature, and other resources of interest to translators.
CipherJournal
Online journal of literary translation seeks creative approaches to poetry and prose by classic and contemporary authors. The editors say: "We believe in the place of translation to inspire stronger literature; without cross-fertilization, no growth can last. We aim to focus on literary translation in its broadest sense, cracking open this often-neglected field by melding the invisibility of the translator with the identity of the artist. We will achieve this by publishing creative works of art & literature that call attention to the process of translation. We will also include reviews of translated literature—both new and old—with a special emphasis on the merits of the translation."
Cerise Press
This international online journal of literature, arts, and culture has published such authors as Tess Gallagher, Dorianne Laux, Yusef Komunyakaa, Victoria Chang, Richard Jackson, and Mahmoud Darwish (translated by Fady Joudah). They are open to submissions in photography, art, and poetry, including translations in French, Chinese, and Spanish. Send query by email before submitting prose.
Center for the Art of Translation
This California-based literary organization promotes the translation of world literature into English. Their main programs are TWO LINES, an annual journal that features English translations of creative and scholarly work side-by-side with the original texts, and Poetry Inside Out, a unique program offering schoolchildren the opportunity to write and translate poetry between two languages.
Wordnik
Crowd-sourced online dictionary allows readers to supplement existing definitions and suggest new words for inclusion. The site also tracks how words are being used in tags and captions at online photo- and video-sharing sites. Additional fun features include a random word-of-the-day generator and a counter for each word's value in Scrabble points.
Visual Thesaurus
Each word you enter links to other words in a fascinating, shifting web. Great brainstorming tool.
US Legal Forms
Clearinghouse for over 36,000 legal forms that are free or available for purchase online. Includes state-specific forms. Writers will appreciate the templates for contracts, rights assignments and intellectual property filings.
University of Toronto’s Glossary of Poetic Terms
Brief definitions of poetic forms and literary devices from Acatalectic to Zeugma.
The Reanimation Library
Unique online archive of quirky diagrams and illustrations from outdated reference books, which the library makes available for writers and visual artists to appropriate in their own work (within the bounds of copyright law). Interested in tennis manuals from 1948? How about 'Home Taxidermy for Pleasure and Profit'? For those with an offbeat sense of humor, the possibilities are endless. The library was started in 2002 by Andrew Beccone, contributing editor of the literary journal jubilat.
The Free Dictionary
Comprehensive general-interest and specialized dictionaries (e.g. medical, legal) plus a thesaurus and encyclopedia. Convenient cross-links help you bone up on a subject quickly. Culture and Fine Arts section includes introductions to poetry, literature, theater and the classics.
SharpWriter.Com
Links to dozens of online dictionaries, grammar and style guides, and copyright advice sites are among the most useful features of this website maintained by horror/suspense novelist John T. Cullen.
Poets’ Graves
The final haunts of your favorite poets, with special attention to those buried in England. Search by name or region. Includes short biographies and links to classic poems.
OWL’s Starting Points for Internet Research
Purdue's Online Writing Lab has plucked out some of the more interesting links to research sites on the web. The English and Journalism categories will be of special interest to writers. The Voice of the Shuttle is particularly well regarded for humanities research.
OnlineConversion.com
Conversion calculators for currency, clothing, cooking, computers, and weights and measures of all kinds. A gigabyte, for example, is 1,024 megabytes. The year MCMLXXXXIX is 1999. And in the kitchen, six drops make a pinch.
Online Etymology Dictionary
Find out the origins of thousands of English words. Discovering how different words are interconnected can prompt some creative juxtapositions in your writing.
OneLook Dictionary Search
Search nearly 1,000 online reference works at once. Get definitions, translations, rhymes, synonyms, antonyms, encyclopedia articles and more. Fast and practical. A good place to start any research project.
Morbid Anatomy Library
Located in Brooklyn, this research library and private collection surveys the interstices of art and medicine, death and culture. It makes available a collection of books, photographs, ephemera, and artifacts relating to medical museums, anatomical art, collectors and collecting, cabinets of curiosity, the history of medicine, death and mortality, memorial practice, art and natural history, arcane media, and more. The accompanying website includes links to other resources on these topics. (Photographs on the site may disturb the squeamish.)
Maps of War
Visual history of war, religion, and government. Animated maps show the rise and fall of empires over the centuries.
