Resources
From Category:
A Red Woman Was Crying
By Don Mitchell. Humorous, poignant, and enlightening, these linked short stories are set among the Nagovisi people of Bougainville Island in the Southwestern Pacific. The young American anthropologist in their midst learns as much about himself as about the villagers who have indulgently accepted him as an oddball member of their community. He mourns the collateral damage wrought on this small but culturally rich island by international wars and mining companies.
A Selection of Fine Poems from the Winning Writers Community: What Makes Them Great
PRAISE POEM by Stephen Derwent Partington
We praise the man who,
though he held the match between
his finger and his thumb,
beheld the terror of its tiny drop of phosphorus,
its brown and globoid smoothness
like a charred and tiny skull
and so returned it to its box.
So too, we hail the youth who,
though he took his panga on the march,
perceived it odd within his fist
when there was neither scrub
nor firewood to be felled,
so laid it down.
An acclamation for the man who,
though he saw the woman running, clothing torn,
and though he lusted,
saw his mother in her youth,
restrained his colleagues
and withdrew.
We pay our homage to the man who,
though his heart was like a stone
and though he took a stone to cast,
could feel its hardness in the softness of his palm
and grasped the brittleness of bone,
so let it drop.
We laud the man who,
though he snatched to scrutinise
the passenger's I.D.,
saw not the name—instead, the face—
and slid it back
as any friend might slide his hand to shake a friend's.
And to the rest of us,
a blessing:
may you never have to be that man,
but if you have to,
BE!
Copyright 2011 by Stephen Derwent Partington
This poem is reprinted from his collection How to Euthanise a Cactus (Cinnamon Press, 2010).
QUILTS by Thelma T. Reyna
Mother plugged up the coffee spout
with foil after dinner
to keep the cockroaches out
and laid a pile
of patchwork quilts on the chilly floor
for us to sleep on and urinate.
She hung them on the doors
next morning,
colorful, stinky banners hanging
room through room
to dry—rearranging
them next night so the most pissed
would be on the bottom of the stack
and we could sleep without the stench
of too much wetness.
Her black
coffee sometimes had a baby cockroach
drowned in its bitters. Got through the foil, I guess,
damned little fool,
got through the plug to mess
her brew, as we messed her quilts—
growing kids lying shoulder to shoulder
on the floor,
growing older,
still peeing, still wrapped in each other's arms
to keep warm.
Copyright 2011 by Thelma T. Reyna
This poem is reprinted from her collection Breath & Bone, which was a semifinalist in the 2010 New Women's Voices Chapbook Competition and was published in April 2011 by Finishing Line Press.
TWILIGHT OF THE SWORD SWALLOWER by Dana Curtis
The metal ground sharp and
sparks: a brand new constellation: "Fire
Opal," "Ruined Lizard," "Eye's
Inner Sanctum." In the sweet
illumination, I work at the saw
cutting fish out of silver
for jewelry or some soon to be invented
weapon. Everything is manipulated,
softened by heat, hair caught
in the polishing wheel, glitter
of new set jewels. Titanium,
treated with flame or electricity, turns colors
no bomb would wear: consumptive nova
bursting myriad blades. It takes skill
to split small things. Let the new sky
bless the new stars.
Evening, what is known
as golden hour, the film crew
rush to get the shot while Seraphim
walk their small mad dogs.
So attracted to the camera's
rigid intent blinking their watery eyes,
spoiled by wingspans: a sexy use
for archaic weapons. Visit me
at my pretty house where I'll serve
grapes and whisper
something no one remembers, hopes
never to hear. Not the inevitable
edge, the intimate comprehension
of swallow and remove, my presence
on a red cushion in the black and white
night. We cut our throats on
the new sky, old angels.
Copyright 2011 by Dana Curtis
This poem is reprinted from her new collection Camera Stellata, which was recently published by WordTech Communications.
COMPOSITE COLOR by Robert Savino
The night sky is black, perforated by bb holes
of light, sometimes under a blanket of doubt.
Perhaps it will change to African American night;
and Indian Summer to Native American autumn.
Why not...ask Crayola!
prussian blue changed to midnight blue
flesh is now peach
indian red, chestnut
and while green-blue, orange-red and lemon-yellow
were retired and enshrined in the Hall of Fame,
pink flamingo, banana mania and fuzzy
wuzzy brown were added to the list.
Segregation has become a tempered memory.
A double scoop of chocolate and vanilla,
once packed like fists of Sugar Ray
and Jake, now melts in handshakes.
Sammy and Frank; Martin and Bobby—
forging connections, a slow crawl
of tap dance steps to gigantean proportions,
a mixing bowl with no sense of separation.
Crayola brands, ice-cream stands,
playful minds, shaded hues of humanity.
Copyright 2010 by Robert Savino
This poem was first published in the Fall 2010 issue of North American Review.
NEWS OF THE NAMELESS by Veronica Golos
*
I climb marble steps worn to the shapes of waves.
I follow those with the loudest voices.
I am a dry broom
an old man sweeps his floor with; the sunlight speaks in Braille.
All Bethlehem is a child's tale: the crisis-crossed road,
the man in the white robe, the donkey,
the already dangerous dust.
Now the news is full of splinters.
Graffiti scars my palms, my wrists—
I walk through the library of forgetting.
I am my own news and nothing's
good.
*
Who was he, naked and bound on the ground?
He is gone now.
Disappeared into the crowd of other news,
disappeared into someone's home,
where he sits, hands flat on the table—
pierced by a brilliant sun.
Where is the solider, the helmet, the hands, the threat
that pulled him naked from his cell
held him
as the choker clicked like a timepiece?
Who carries the dead weight, the iron cuffs,
the chair in the center of the room,
the whisper behind the earlobe?
I hear particulates strung along air, vibrating:
What is his name?
What is his name?
Copyright 2011 by Veronica Golos
This poem is reprinted from her collection Vocabulary of Silence, which was released in February 2011 by Red Hen Press.
Critique by Tracy Koretsky
Some poems rise above. This month in Critique Corner we are happy to announce a new feature in this series: occasional essays in which we consider why this is so. Rather than revising a piece offered by a contributor, we will, from time to time, offer an appreciative reassessment of poems reprinted elsewhere in our pages, poems that have either won awards, or received significant publication, or been included in award-winning collections.
To launch these new appreciations—as well as bid farewell to 2011—let's take a look at five poems reprinted in the Winning Writers newsletter during this last year in our Recent Honors for Subscribers feature: "Praise Poem" by Stephen Derwent Partington (February 2011), "Quilts" by Thelma T. Reyna (March 2011 supplement), "Twilight of the Sword Swallower" by Dana Curtis (July 2011), "Composite Color" by Robert Savino (March 2011 supplement), and "News of the Nameless" by Veronica Golos (February 2011).
One characteristic common to all of these poems is their artfully selected and occasionally outstanding diction: the descriptive precision of "its brown and globoid smoothness/ like a charred and tiny skull" from "Praise Poem"; the emotional connotation added by the final word in the phrase, "a baby cockroach /drowned in its bitters" from "Quilts"; the economy of "consumptive nova" from "Twilight of the Sword Swallower"—such a big idea conveyed in just two words; the specificity of the proper nouns in "Composite Colors"; the punning "crisis-crossed road" (as opposed to criss-crossed) in "News of the Nameless".
Diction can always benefit through revision. Ask yourself if your verbs are active and interesting, if there are more specific or less prosaic ways to convey ideas, if your descriptions really help a reader visualize. Take the time to use a thesaurus, especially for adjectives. Words with connotative meanings add layers to a poem.
But beyond diction, each of these poems offers some insight into what works effectively.
Notice, for example, how repetition is used in "Praise Poem". In the April 2011 Critique Corner, I claimed that repetition is poetry's most powerful device, and warned that, because of its strength, it should be used with care. Partington's recurring construction "who,/though" demonstrates a light touch which unifies the piece and imparts a song-like quality without becoming overbearing. In part this is because it is merely a two-word phrase which occurs mid-sentence grammatically and is enjambed, as opposed to a complete sentence repeated verbatim. To save his poem from falling into predictability, Partington slightly varies the full phrase in the second stanza by choosing "youth" instead of "man". He also lets go of it in the final stanza—a way of signifying that it is, in fact, the final stanza.
As elegant as I find this particular use of repetition to be, I actually do not believe it is why this poem rises above. Rather it is its "generosity". In the October 2011 Critique Corner, I defined this quality, in terms of poetry, to mean a sharing of our common humanity. With this praise for a pacifist, Partington offers up a poem that can give voice to all of us.
Which is not to imply that a more personal poem cannot also be generous. Thelma Reyna's poem "Quilts" shows how this is done. As Jendi Reiter wrote about Jack Goodman's "Jubilate Agno" in the February 2011 Critique Corner, the poet "sticks to describing the action in concrete terms instead of editorializing." In other words, especially with its final line, this poet generously refrains from instructing the reader how to feel.
Though, of course, its generosity is not all that makes this poem rise above. Perhaps obviously in this case, what makes this poem outstanding is its sensory detail. I feel as if I can hear their "brew" percolate beneath the sounds of many kids waking up.
Less obviously, this poem is successful because it is tightly written, every part reused. The coffee comes back, its smell a foil to the stink of urine; the mess of quilts on the floor overlap like the limbs of the children. Yet, despite the clutter it depicts, this poem remains uncluttered in its focus. Reyna understands the capacity of her poem and so chooses to leave the hot plate and bare light bulb and the absence of dad for another piece. Furthermore, she has paid attention to form and selected one that propels the reading forward.
The same can be said of Dana Curtis's "Twilight of the Sword Swallower". Notice where the poet has chosen to end her sentences. Because she frequently does so mid-line, she can race the reading along in a way that either full stops or predictable grammatical phrase line-breaking would foreclose. In addition, she can take advantage of interesting and surprising enjambments, for instance "sweet/illumination" from lines four and five or "invented/weapon" from seven and eight. Since we don't expect "sweet" to modify light or "weapon" to follow "jewelry", the line breaks reinforce a sense of discovery in this poem, making it consistently fun to read.
Such challenges to our logic are a large part of what makes a poem a poem. The August 2010 Critique Corner addressed the difference between poetry and prose more fully. There, we noted that the word "verse" means to turn and that such turns are the essence of poetry.
To understand what such versing can lend to a poem, have a look at Robert Savino's "Composite Color". For the first three stanzas, this would seem merely to be a poem exploiting the rich diction family to be found in a box of crayons. What lends the poem its gravitas—as well as its generosity—is the leap in stanza four to the topic of racial segregation. By landing the reader in a new place, this poem rises above.
Veronica Golos's "News of the Nameless" uses a similar strategy, moving in its second stanza from a personal narrative to a meditation on an unknown soldier. But even before she gets there, Golos shifts perspective line by line moving from the subject of the poet in line three, to an old man in line four, to the city in line five, and so forth. Notice that in this poem, most of the lines end in either periods or commas. The few lines that don't are thereby imbued with an implied buffer of quiet, demonstrating how line breaking can be used as effectively to slow a reading as to speed it. Nevertheless, we find in this poem a sense of surprise similar to that in "Twilight of the Sword Swallower", on account of its many fresh images. "I am a dry broom" and "the sunlight speaks in Braille" are both original and evocative, elevating this poem.
As we have seen, each of these poems is excellent in several ways—not just one. In particular, it is evident that their authors gave some thought to the best form for their poems, the most effective way to shape the reading of the piece so that it might be faster, slower, or more song-like. Such choices are generally made in revision. Taking the time to reconsider our poems, perhaps to focus them by removing what is extraneous or to enliven the text with startling diction—this is what allows them to rise above.
These poems and critique appeared in the December 2011 issue of Winning Writers Newsletter (subscribe free).
A Small Hotel
By Robert Olen Butler. Through brilliant use of flashbacks and alternating perspectives, this intimate novel tells the story of Michael and Kelly Hays, a Southern professional couple who are divorcing after two decades of marriage, though it becomes apparent that they are both still painfully in love with each other. As soon as the reader starts to side with one character, a new twist reveals the other character's vulnerability and the dysfunctional family pattern that he or she is struggling to break. The novel winds toward a suspenseful climax as we wait to discover whether they will tell each other the truth before it's too late.
A Story Is a Promise & Deep Characterization
This readable guide to plotting a work of fiction helps you identify the human need that your story promises to fulfill, and the actions that will advance that goal. Johnson, a script doctor, uses examples from action movies like Rocky and The Hunt for Red October to illustrate the different elements of a story. Whereas many writing manuals focus on the micro-elements of the scene (dialogue, setting, characterization), Johnson looks at the macro-elements, the "why" rather than the "how", in a way that will help any novelist wondering which scenes to include in her next draft.
A Story Most Queer
Launched in June 2019, A Story Most Queer is a weekly podcast from Mischief Media featuring narratives by queer authors, in which the main characters are also queer-identified. "There is no limit on genre or style: fiction, nonfiction—hey, even fanfic, you know we'll read us some fanfic—are welcome. Send us your fluff, your coffee shop AUs, your high school angst, your interstellar explorations and existential quandaries—we want it all! If it's queer and well-written then it's absolutely a contender. There is no rating limit." Stories should be approximately 2,000-4,000 words, to fit into a podcast of 15-30 minutes. Previously published work is eligible, as long as the piece will not published be in audio format anywhere else for six months following the release.
A Thousand Acres
By Jane Smiley. Winner of the 1992 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, this American tragedy recasts the story of King Lear on an Iowa farm in the aftermath of the Vietnam War. When a tyrannical but enfeebled patriarch divides his farm unequally among his three daughters, their prosperous, provincial world is torn apart by long-simmering rivalries and recovered memories of incest. Not only does Smiley nail the dynamics of a family in denial, she believably ties the personal drama to the American diseases of patriarchal entitlement and the rape of the land.
A Thousand Nights at the War Window
By Judith Cody
Kashine hospital helipad
1967
Window rectangles seem to be everywhere
one over my DDT wet horse hair mattress
frames the same scenes night by night
flowing in over the ever-restless seas
snips of roaring warfare, cut bloodied
yells, running bent-in-half men running
like strange brown bunraku
to claim the night's cargo one by one
fresh flown in from Vietnam, broken
more or less some to go home
and...
my eyes clip down against
the lens seeking black
but down...
lands another
jumpy mechanical war-bug over
my bed out the window frame
down...
disgorging its bruised babies
still sweated from battle
into the sanctity of bandaging rooms
under the purity of scalpels.
2018
Yesterday, I looked away from
the soft summer day in 2018, I
looked away for but an instant
and out of the corner of my vision
the bent-in-half medics are
still running, running tending
stretchers strapped
outside the helicopter
there they are now taking the
wounded away on the backs of jeeps
O there is the roar of more
choppers circling not
far above me, waiting patiently
for the tiny airfield in front of
my bedroom window to be cleared for
their landing O there they are now
running in and out of the picture frame
that is the war window at Kashine:
someone left it open in 1967
no one has been able to tug it shut.
First published in Nimrod International Journal
A Thousand Summers
By Sue Gerrard
There were a thousand summers in the sun
to celebrate, to anticipate
to hold our breathe for, to welcome.
Looking forwards, always forwards, never backwards;
never caring to remember the days passed,
but time runs on and takes us with it,
until the summers have all gone
and the chill of perpetual autumn
mists our eyes and dulls our memories.
Reprinted from her collection Poems from the Cottage, a limited-edition book published by The Pear Tree Press (Auckland, NZ) in 2020
A Very Basic Primer for Reviewing Favorite Books Online
Carolyn Howard-Johnson is the author of the How to Do It Frugally series of books on marketing and editing for indie authors. Her blog The New Book Review reprints positive reviews submitted by authors and reviewers. In this blog post, she explains the basics of writing a helpful review on Amazon, Goodreads, or similar sites to promote your favorite books by other authors.
A Violence I Can Sing
By Lucia Galloway
My palms are open, cupped and fleshy,
moist—the petals of peonies that fall away
from the tight bud at their center.
My soul, an iris still sheathed in its bud,
a knot that angles the stem slightly
where it is freed from blade-like leaves.
Flowering is wildness even in the garden.
The mute cacophony of hollyhocks and freesia—
their riot of trumpets and peal of bells
chiming for something else entirely.
A Winner’s Advice: Jennifer Perrine
Award-winning poet Jennifer Perrine talks about how she prepares her work for publication, and what attracted her to particular contests at different stages of her career. This interview appears on G&A: The Contest Blog, a feature on the Poets & Writers website.
A Woman’s Write
The website A Woman's Write offers writing advice, editing and reviewing services, links to other useful sites for women writers, and an annual Good Read Novel Competition with a $500 prize for unpublished manuscripts. The contest fee includes a critique.
A Working Man’s Apocrypha
In this short story collection, tornados real and metaphorical rip through the lives of not-so-ordinary people, flinging them into unexpected intimacies and tearing away identities once thought airtight. Luvaas' poetic prose is powerful as the Santa Ana winds yet delicate enough to limn the silences that speak louder than words, as in the title story, where the bond between a widow and her dying handyman is too profound to risk actual words of love.
A Wounded Deer Leaps Highest
By Charlie J. Stephens. This exquisite coming-of-age story depicts a queer youth struggling to survive in the rural Oregon of the 1980s. In the human world, the narrator's life is defined by poverty, instability, and abuse from their mother's boyfriends. But to Smokey, a nonbinary child with a shamanic connection to animals, the human world is not the only or most important one. The adults are tossed around by delusion and impulse, even Smokey's mother, who is genuinely devoted but succumbs to her addiction to dangerous men. The child's view of reality is clear, compassionate, and attuned to beauty. This makes the book hopeful in a strange way, despite the tragedies that pile up.
A.Word.A.Day
Hosted by Anu Garg. Follow AWAD on Twitter.
A&U: America’s AIDS Magazine
Their annual Summer Reading Issues have featured cover story interviews with Tony Kushner, Gore Vidal, E. Lynn Harris, and others. Each month, they publish work by established and emerging writers including Emanuel Xavier, Patrick Donnelly, and Julie E. Bloemeke. See website for their Christopher Hewitt Literary Award, a free contest with small prizes for fiction, poetry, drama, and creative nonfiction.
ABC Tales
Visit the discussion forums to post poems, chat about literature, and exchange tips for getting published. Now offering free webpages for all its members, sponsored by eTribes, a leading UK blogging service.
Able to Choose
By Patrick T. Reardon
Let me honor your courage
to take your life. Oh, David,
why could you not find the
bravery to break out of your
prison before that, the penitentiary
Dad and Mom erected to keep
them safe from your raw life?
They could not live outside the
prison they made for themselves
and for you. And, in the end,
you couldn't.
Oh, David, I flew. I protected
myself. Why didn't you take to
the wing and grow your hair long
and really say fuck you to the church
and to Mom and Dad and find the raw
ripe life that always eluded you.
I am walking to Evanston through a
cold autumn afternoon, and my nose
runs as if I am crying on this trail of
tears and it almost seems that I am.
But I'm not, of course. You know,
David, that we learned early that
crying did us no good.
Oh, David, you were victimized and
victimized yourself. You tried to be
your deep self inside the world they
made so you could not find your
depth. It warped you, and, damn it,
David, it warped me and the others.
Oh, David, you sought to be strong but
fell under the their weight. The world
was so full, but you could never get to
it wearing their straitjacket. You thought
each book you read was right, had to be
right. She taught you there was only true
and false, right and wrong, and she was
the one who
decided.
Oh, David, I wish you could have heard
the music I heard. I wish you could have
risen up and out and beyond on the wings
of words and beauty and disturbing visions.
You could have. It could have happened.
Damn it, David. Why did I survive?
Our last talk,
hours before
the shot was
our most real.
I loved you in
that moment
as I love you
now as I have
loved you from
your birth. In
that moment, I
saw your depth,
and we stood
together, knowing
neither of us had
anything we could
do beyond what
we had been able
to choose.
Your smile was an
explosion.
Absolute Write Water Cooler
Absolute Write's Bewares and Background Check forum is invaluable for discussions of questionable agents and publishers.
Action, Spectacle
Action, Spectacle is a biannual online journal publishing art, comics, commentary, fiction, interviews, memoir, music, poetry, and reportage. Editors say, "The magazine exists at the intersection of the socio-political, the cultural, and the arts. We seek both debut and established writers and thinkers creating intriguing and original work, whether relatively conventional or extremely experimental, and we don't shy away from the idea of a text that might be 'difficult.'" Submissions are accepted year-round. Authors published in the journal include Anne Carson, Brandon Taylor, Douglas Kearney, and TC Tolbert.
Active Voice Magazine
Active Voice Magazine is a youth-led literary journal publishing creative writing that inspires progressive social change. The editors are American high school and college students, with poets A.B. Spellman and Eduardo Martínez-Leyva as adult advisors. See their website for submission periods and themes.
Adanna Literary Journal
Founded in 2011 by Christine Redman-Waldeyer, Adanna accepts unpublished poetry, short stories, essays, and reviews of books and visual arts. Enter by email. Editors say, "Adanna, a name of Nigerian origin, pronounced a-DAN-a, is defined as 'her father's daughter.' This literary journal is titled Adanna because women over the centuries have been defined by men in politics, through marriage, and, most importantly, by the men who fathered them. Today women are still bound by complex roles in society, often needing to wear more than one hat or sacrifice one role so another may flourish. While this journal is dedicated to women, it is not exclusive, and it welcomes our counterparts and their thoughts about women today. Submissions to Adanna must reflect women's issues or topics, celebrate womanhood, and shout out in passion."
Advice from Arthur Powers, Judge of the Tom Howard/John H. Reid Fiction & Essay Contest
As a past judge of the Tom Howard/John H. Reid Fiction & Essay Contest, I've been asked to provide some advice for contestants. I'm half-reluctant to do so as I don't really want to influence anyone's short story. Your story is your story, and you should write it the way you feel called to write it.
However, it's fair that you should know something about the way I think, so here goes:
Fiction
I love short stories. Writing them and reading them. I believe the short story allows a writer's craft to be honed in a special way, and I enjoy seeing the different ways that different writers approach their stories.
All the rules you have ever learned about writing are important. You should know them, master them, then work around them. People will tell you it is important to show, not tell; they are right—yet sometimes you should tell, not show. People will discuss whether to write in first or third person, from a specific or more omniscient viewpoint—all this is interesting but, in my experience, it is the story that tells the writer what viewpoint to write from, not the writer who tells the story. People (including me) will tell you never to write in the second person—yet I once wrote an entire novella in the second person and it worked (won an award and was published).
In his wonderful novel, My Name Is Asher Lev, Chaim Potok says much the same thing about painting: "This is a tradition...Only one who has mastered a tradition has the right to add to it or to rebel against it."
I tell my students that character is the most important element in fiction. You should know and love your characters. Plot is what happens when characters interact with one another or situations. This is true not only of psychological and literary stories, but of science fiction, thrillers, westerns, even mysteries (where the temptation to distort characters to fit the plot is particularly strong).
Atmosphere may also be important to a story—the way a place, a situation, and the story itself feel. Texture may be created through a few key phrases, through the words you choose.
Walter Pater said that all art strives toward music, and there is a great deal of truth in that. The rhythm of a story—pacing, timing, speed—is very important. I find it sometimes helps to think of my stories in terms of musical composition.
Avoid cliches—not only in words, but in thoughts. Try not to be too self-absorbed—take your craft seriously, but don't take yourself too seriously.
Essays
I do not want to overly influence any writer—it is the individuality of your work that makes it interesting. But here are qualities I am looking for in essays:
- Have something to say.
- Say it in a way that makes readers see differently or understand differently—that provides a new angle or a new insight, without necessarily doing acrobatics to try to be different.
- Say it with style—a style that has texture, that readers can savor.
- Make it memorable—words, phrases, thoughts, images that will stay in readers' minds for days—perhaps years—that will give them something to ponder.
- Develop it beautifully (whether the subject is beautiful or not)—with a quality that carries readers along with you, whether elegantly or on a bumpy (but meaningful) road.
May you break any of these guidelines? Of course. Surprises are always welcome. Write what you feel called to write the best you can. Enjoy writing—I'll enjoy reading it. Good fortune!
Advice from Ellaraine Lockie, Judge of the Tom Howard/Margaret Reid Poetry Contest
Winning Writers editor Jendi Reiter asks Ellaraine Lockie what she's looking for in the Tom Howard/Margaret Reid Poetry Contest
What, for you, makes a poem in traditional verse feel fresh and contemporary?
The trend in contemporary traditional verse is to interpret form rules loosely, sometimes to the point where the spirit of the form is there, but the body isn't. So I consider a traditional verse poem that takes some liberties with the original rules to be one way of making the verse contemporary. I should add here that as a judge, I will categorize a poem as free verse if it veers absurdly far from the classic form it represents.
There are also other ways that a traditional form can feel more up-to-date, such as using today's vernacular instead of obsolete language, such as thee, thou, whilst, etc. Or, the poet can introduce a modern slant on an historical event or person. There were several excellent examples of villanelles and sonnets that employed this approach in last year's Tom Howard/Margaret Reid Poetry Contest. Also, a modern happening or person can be placed in an earlier era through traditional verse. I haven't seen this as much, but it can be very effective, and it's a innovative way to make a poem feel fresh.
What poetic qualities do you look for in free verse, to differentiate it from prose?
In free verse, I look for conciseness and use of poetic devices, such as metaphors, similes, alliteration, assonance, and internal rhyme. I also look for sound and rhythm in the words, which delight the ears as much as the mind. Free verse, along with all other forms, often has more of an intensity, an excitement, than prose. It's the gelato where prose is the ice cream. In addition, there's a maverick quality to free verse, a willingness to break the rules of convention.
How can poets figure out whether our contest is a good fit for their work?
That's easy. Winning Writers Poetry Contests are a good fit for all poets. They are professionally and ethically run and have historically chosen fine poems as winners who receive high-end monetary prizes. Plus, the winning poems stay indefinitely on the Winning Writers website.
It could be important, however, to be sure that a poem is entered in the appropriate Winning Writers Contest. For example, strictly humorous poems probably would be better entered in Winning Writers' Wergle Flomp Humor Poetry Contest rather than in the Tom Howard/Margaret Reid Poetry Contest.
As a judge and reader, I'm not opposed to humor. There were many excellent rhyming humorous poems entered this last year, and I enjoyed them greatly. However, a solely humorous poem, no matter how good the form or its "funny factor", loses much of its effect after the first one or two readings, while poems that are multi-layered have the potential to become more meaningful with each reading. That to me is one of the more important qualities in a winning poem. Winning poems get multiple readings before ending placements are made.
Of course, it's possible to combine humor with more serious subject matter in the same poem, and that can create a powerful piece. These would be very competitive in the Tom Howard/Margaret Reid Contests.
Do you have any pet peeves as a contest judge? E.g. over-used themes, clichés, awkward line breaks...
I'm not a fan of poems that tell me directly, as a reader, what to think or feel. I want to see language used in a way that allows me to come to my own conclusions. This kind of writing can be summed-up by the commonly-used phrase, Show/Don't tell.
Impact will be far greater if the poet empowers the readers in this way. It's accomplished through the use of examples, action, and dialogue rather than through directives. Description also can be effective if there is minimal use of adjectives. In place of most adjectives, I like to see similes and metaphors that let the reader come up with the words beautiful, ugly, bossy, etc.
What are the greatest rewards of being a contest judge?
I like having a tiny influence on what defines good poetry in our time. I love poetry, so when I judge, I'm living right in the center of one of my greatest passions. Almost as important to me, though, is how much I learn during the process. When I evaluate a poem and come across a word, phrase, place, social custom or poetic form that's unfamiliar to me, I research it. In so doing, I often come away from a judging experience, especially after a big contest, feeling as though I've completed an intensive college class. This is especially the case with international contests such as Winning Writers and Voices Israel's Reuben Rose Poetry Competition.
And then there's the knowledge gleaned from the poems themselves; I've learned in depth about worlds I barely knew existed. I also feel a kind of kinship with each poet whose poem I read. I like that too. I have a tendency to talk out loud to the poets during or after a read, giving feedback, etc., and since I do much of my poetry-related activities at coffee shops, I imagine other customers think I'm slightly unbalanced. I do confess to laughing and crying over a lot of poems, both in and out of coffee shops.
Do you encourage writers to re-submit the same poems in future years (or revised versions thereof), or would you prefer new work each time?
Absolutely I'm open to reading repeat poems. Poetry contests are like perfect storms, in that so many variables have to fall into place for a winning poem to happen. And the quality of the poems as a whole will vary from year to year. A poem that didn't quite make it to the finals list one year may very well do so the following year, even with the same judge. Winning a prize is as much about who and what else has entered as it is about the quality of a poem.
I particularly like to see revised poems.
How do you know when a poem is "done"? What are the signs of over-revision?
Well, I never consider a poem finished. Recently, I made a minor change in a poem after its twelfth publication. I encourage this kind of growing a poem as we grow as poets. Why not? Our poems belong to us as long as copyrights have been returned.
But of course, we must have some way of knowing when to introduce a poem to the world. Here is the list of steps I take before I submit a poem for publication or contest consideration:
- Ask one or two trusted poets to read and honestly comment on the poem and then welcome constructive criticism. I trade new but final draft poems with a couple of poets whom I respect. Often we don't see our own mistakes when we proof because we read what we intended to write rather than what we actually wrote.
- Print the poem in a significantly different font and size from the usual one. It will look as though it's been written by someone else. I started this exercise when my poems came back in published journals, and I could immediately see problems that I hadn't seen when the poems were in my familiar format.
- Read the poem out loud several times. Doing so exposes problems, especially with rhythm. Musicality is as important, although not as formally dictated, in free verse as it is in other forms. Some computers have options where documents can be read out loud by different voices with varied accents. This can be helpful and also fun to hear your poem read by various computer voices.
- Then read the poem for an audience. This is important because it causes the reader to hear the poem through the ears of others. Syntax or awkward line-length problems will announce themselves as stumbling blocks.
I change something in a newly-written poem nearly every time I read it in front of people. This is one of the valuable benefits to participating in poetry readings. Of course it is possible to over-revise. To check for that, I read the poem and sometimes ask someone else to read it as well, to check for the following:
- Has the poem become boring or tedious to read?
- Is it too long or too filled with details that would be better saved for prose?
- Is it repetitive (outside of repetition used as a poetic device) or too explanatory?
Advice from Judy Juanita, Judge of the Tom Howard/John H. Reid Fiction & Essay Contest
My favorite bedtime reading is the great Irish writer Frank O'Connor. I never tire of his short stories or insights. Rather than pretending to have great advice, I defer to him because I have an affinity for what he terms "might-have-beens" or "outlawed figures wandering at the fringes of society." O'Connor said, "There is in the short story at its most characteristic something we do not often find in the novel—an intense awareness of human loneliness." (The Best of Frank O'Connor, Knopf, 2009). He also wrote extensively about childhood though he was an only child. He's said, "Children...see only one side of any question and because of their powerlessness see this with hysterical clarity." So that's a small essential for writing—look at marginalia, the smallest, youngest, the never-was, the never-will-be.
Tim O'Brien talks of the consoling power of stories: "If I'm lying in bed at night I'm a little less lonely in a lonely universe. Stories connect me not just to other people, but to myself." Is that another way of saying you need to write a feel-good story? It is not. When we manage to plumb the heart, we touch the reader's heart. It may sting, comfort, sadden, dishearten even, but the touch is the measuring rod.
Essays are a horse of a different color. Opaque doesn't work well in essays; a through line does. I want to follow the complexity of an argument but need markers along the way, like subheadings and bullets. The main lesson I've learned from writing a column is the necessity of moving from the personal to the universal/global. Being 100% personal reads as smug or self-indulgent and tries the reader's patience. Being transparent has enormous value, but the writer has to lead the reader from the deeply intimate detail, e.g. a family tragedy, through extrapolation to the deeper meaning in the detail.
Sometimes, the elements of an essay are like a family—they don't all get along. Some people suffer from too little or too much closeness to a relative. Nowhere is copy and paste handier than in essay writing. Set your essay with care like you would a family dinner. And, remember, you can't invite everybody to everything, even if they are family. You can't dump all your set pieces into one essay.
Learn more about our Tom Howard/John H. Reid Fiction & Essay Contest. Learn more about Judy Juanita.
Advice from Soma Mei Sheng Frazier, Judge of the Tom Howard/Margaret Reid Poetry Contest
Soma Mei Sheng Frazier offers her advice to poetry contestants at Winning Writers:
What, for you, makes a poem in traditional verse feel fresh and contemporary?
Poetry is as ancient and persistent as war, so I'll quote military strategist Sun Tzu:
There are not more than five musical notes, yet the combinations of these five give rise to more melodies than can ever be heard.
There are not more than five primary colours, yet in combination they produce more hues than can ever be seen.
There are not more than five cardinal tastes, yet combinations of them yield more flavours than can ever be tasted.
(Sun Tzu, The Art of War)
Being intimately familiar with the vast poetic terrain, a skilled traditional poet can adeptly navigate meter and structure—guiding readers unwaveringly toward the destination—in a singularly modern way. Thoughtful inclusion of today's events, perspectives, vernacular or themes can render even the strictest villanelle contemporary. And a slight, strategic bending of the rules can make a sonnet feel utterly fresh. Shakespeare took occasional liberties. Poet, so can you.
Consider Samsara Turntable, a crown of sonnets by Lois Elaine Heckman of Milan, Italy—winner of the Traditional Verse category of 2013's Tom Howard/Margaret Reid Poetry Contest. The sonnets span the arc of a mother-daughter relationship, traveling nimbly back and forth in time between two appearances of the one stunning, transforming line that opens and closes the work: "Her hand is cold and trembles into mine." With thoughtful manipulations of common language we hear every day, Heckman zooms in close on doctors in bleached white smocks; a grapefruit tree displaying its golden baubles—zooms out again to ponder the symbiosis of parenthood; the horrors and discoveries of dementia. These are not your great-grandfather's sonnets.
What poetic qualities do you look for in free verse, to differentiate it from prose?
Robert Mezey, poet and professor emeritus, once said to me: "Prose is an opening form. Poetry is a closing one." So in free verse, I look for linguistic closure: a finality of language—a satisfying precision, throughout the work and especially in the poem's last line—even if its narrative is left unresolved. Beyond that, I really expect poetry to follow the advice of another great teacher—my second grade teacher, Mrs. Brown. "Show, don't tell," she'd remind us when we wrote our wobbly-lettered stories. "Make it so I can understand and experience whatever you're writing about." Thank you, Mrs. Brown, for imparting the purpose of nearly every poetic device: metaphor, imagery, alliteration.
How can poets figure out whether our contest is a good fit for their work?
Here, I'll let the interviewer answer the question for the interviewee: check out Jendi Reiter's spot-on advice on selecting the right poetry competition. Once you have, you'll see why Winning Writers offers more than one contest category.
Because each category is adjudicated professionally and ethically, and Winning Writers has a long history of choosing winners who go on to produce more high-caliber work (and paying these winners well) each category receives hundreds, in some cases thousands, of entries from the US and beyond. So my advice for ensuring that your work is competitive in the Tom Howard/Margaret Reid Poetry Contest is this: read your poem aloud, listening as though it were being read by a stranger.
Imagine yourself seated in a sunlit café, on a rumbling train or in a doctor's waiting room and overhearing the poem read. Could you stop listening?
If you could, go back to the drawing board. Your work still needs revision. If you couldn't, your poem is ready for this contest.
Do you have any pet peeves as a contest judge? E.g. over-used themes, clichés, awkward line breaks...
I don't have pet peeves, and here's why: I've been called on to help screen/judge work for a number of literary contests, ranging from literary journals' competitions to the Kore Press Short Fiction Award to Youth Speaks poetry slams to the City of Oakland's Youth Poet Laureate competition. And at one time or another, every pet peeve I held as a judge was forcefully dispelled.
Never rely on general words that one might hear in a platitude (like "beautiful", "evil", or "tragic") I thought, till a poem said something extremely specific with general, flowery, oft-used words—turning those words on their heads to make me gasp audibly. Never write about writing, I thought, and particularly not in rhyme, till a rhymed poem about writing raised goosebumps down my spine.
So go on: write another poem about birds, or your last breakup. Create a natural-disaster-based metaphor. Use the image of a red rose in your work—albeit one that's so ubiquitous Rite Aid builds Valentine's Day campaigns around it. When you do it, though, do it well. Give me goosebumps. Give me gasps.
What are the greatest rewards of being a contest judge?
Like everyone these days, I've got a lot on my to do list: help shape and run my department at the college where I chair and teach; edit a multimedia publication; finish a novel; finish a screenplay; collaborate on a stage play; edit my second prose chapbook for release this spring. And beyond all that lie the demands of life and parenthood: drive my daughter here, drive my daughter there, keep her alive and feed her and such.
It's the nature of the world we live in.
What better, then, than mandated reading time; being forced—by my role as judge and responsibility to study each contest entry closely—to read and reread poems? This justified literary luxury is the greatest reward of being a contest judge, as I'm not only giving, but also receiving something unique from each submission I read. Inevitably there's an unfamiliar word, a mesmerizing line, a distinct or devastating image that grabs and rattles me; sparks emotion, research, dialogue or a poem in answer; pulls me back into the reading or pushes me out the door with some dawning realization. And I'll admit something, too: as the editor of a literary journal and the organizer of multiple literary events, sometimes I steal authors from contests. I look them up online and, if their information is public, contact them to solicit new work or a public reading.
Do you encourage writers to re-submit the same poems in future years (or revised versions thereof), or would you prefer new work each time?
Revisions, to me, are new work: I can't count the times I've sent a poem or story off to a contest, then edited the heck out of it and submitted it anew. Sometimes the revision is transformed beyond recognition. Other times, I've changed just a sentence or two yet in doing so altered the tenor of the entire piece. And it's paid off. I've had editors and judges pass on one version and reward another. So yes: I do encourage revised work.
Regarding resubmission of an earlier entry: I don't strongly encourage it, as I want to provide incentives for poets to keep writing; keep revising. But I don't discourage it either, as there are those times when a poem nearly makes the cut, but, due to some variable such as the quality of the other entries, doesn't quite. In those instances, it may have a good chance in another year's contest.
How do you know when a poem is "done"? What are the signs of over-revision?
There are myriad ways in which to strengthen a piece of writing; myriad alternate versions. So perhaps the closest a poem can come to "done" is to relay the intended experience to the target readership; deliver the right message to the correct recipients. I stop tinkering with my own work only once I've received satisfying feedback from four or five bluntly honest people who represent the audience I want to reach with a particular piece.
One of those people is myself. So I'll examine the poem in several fonts (the visual is potent, as any graphic poet knows: sometimes the unfamiliarity of larger, smaller, or sans serif lines will jar me into seeing something new). I'll ask someone to read it to me, then read it aloud myself (first sitting, then standing; first alone, then for others). If I've overworked it, it'll no longer ring true in my own ears. Then I'll set it aside. This is hard, but I do it. I leave it alone for a few days. When I come back to it, I know whether it's done.
Poems are tricky, aren't they? So in making this decision and all others—for my own work, and for that of the poets whose entries I judge—I've always got to look closely, and more than once. As I began with Sun Tzu, I'll end with Sun Tzu:
"To lift an autumn hair is no sign of great strength; to see the sun and moon is no sign of sharp sight; to hear the noise of thunder is no sign of a quick ear." (Sun Tzu, The Art of War)
Advice from the Judge of the War Poetry Contest
Jendi Reiter judged the War Poetry Contest sponsored by Winning Writers from 2002-2011 (the contest is currently inactive). She shares her advice on reading thousands of war poems.
Advice from the Judges of the North Street Book Prize
by Jendi Reiter and Ellen LaFleche
We started this contest for the same reason that you wrote your book: We love a good story. We believe that narrative writing, whether fiction or memoir, has a unique ability to awaken empathy and illuminate complex truths of human nature.
Rapid changes in technology and the book industry are blurring the lines between self-publishing, print-on-demand, and traditional publishing. More and more, experienced authors are choosing nontraditional routes to find readers. However, most prizes for published books still exclude the self-published, sticking them with an outdated stigma of amateurism. Through the North Street Book Prize, we hope to boost the visibility of excellent writers whose books simply didn't fit into the big conglomerates' marketing plans.
We're holding your books to the same standard as the best titles from conventional publishers: polished writing, believability, dramatic tension, a story structure that foregrounds the major plot elements, and characters worth following. "Originality" is, shall we say, not such an original thing to ask for. In any case, like happiness, it's not something you can aim at directly. That freshness we seek in a story is better described as urgency: a book that convinces us that it had to be written.
We're committed to running the most transparent and ethical contest possible. Some services marketed to self-published authors are overpriced and make inflated claims. We've carefully vetted our business partners to offer our winners a high-quality marketing support package, in addition to our sizeable cash prizes. All entrants receive a free ebook download from book publicity expert Carolyn Howard-Johnson. Unlike some contests that use anonymous "judging panels", the Winning Writers judges' names and credentials are up-front so you can make an informed decision about submitting your work.
Some notes on genre and the judges' tastes
We decided to judge "commercial" and "literary" fiction separately because, by and large, these categories assign different weight to artistic considerations versus entertainment, and are working within different traditions. What is innovative in a romance novel, for instance, is measured by reference to other romances, not Finnegan's Wake.
However, we feel that the standard list of genres considered "commercial" (mystery, horror, science fiction, romance, Western) unfairly privileges the bourgeois realist novel. Is Lonesome Dove not literature because it's about cowboys? Is Romeo and Juliet just a YA teen romance? No subject matter is inherently more literary than another.
In our view, commercial fiction is characterized by an emphasis on plot and action, a greater reliance on stock characters and clearly delineated heroes/villains, an intention to follow familiar conventions (e.g. a mystery novel ends with solving the crime), and a workmanlike writing style that prioritizes accessibility over lyricism. Young Adult books may be entered in either category. Depending on the mix of entries received, the judges reserve the right to re-categorize books that seem to straddle the commercial-literary divide.
For all kinds of fiction, our judges appreciate storytelling that shows critical awareness of our current cultural prejudices. The characters may have as many flaws and blind spots as you like, but the author should demonstrate a broader understanding. For example, the 1960s businessmen in the popular TV series "Mad Men" are gleefully, obliviously sexist, but the scriptwriters expect their contemporary audience to be shocked by the difference in pre-feminist corporate culture. The male characters objectify women, but the writers re-center the female characters as subjects deserving empathy and dignity.
We would rather not read lengthy graphic descriptions of violence. (Even in the horror genre, remember Stephen King's dictum that terror-inducing writing is a higher art form than "going for the gross-out".) While we do appreciate good writing about sexuality, please remember that sexual scenes or musings—like all other scenes and musings—should enhance and be integral to the narrative. If your book includes sexual violence or nonconsensual sex, please be aware that we strongly disfavor victim-blaming and "rape culture" myths. A good list of the latter can be found at the feminist blog Shakesville.
In creative nonfiction, we seek true-life writing with a personal angle—a memoir or a collection of personal essays. We prefer nonfiction that connects the individual's story to an issue of wider cultural relevance, or gives us an inside look at an interesting subculture or historical moment. That said, remember that the heart of your narrative is the people, not the data.
See the judges' list of favorite books in your genre for examples. We look forward to discovering our next favorite—yours!
Book Recommendations By Genre
Memoir
Martha Beck, Leaving the Saints
[A good example of the memoir that's also about a wider issue, in this case the troubled history of the Mormon Church and how some aspects of its culture contribute to child abuse.]
Trevor Noah, Born a Crime
[Entertaining and educational, this TV comedian's story of his early years is a model for how to structure a memoir that hits the high points of a multi-year time span, deftly interweaving personal anecdotes with background about the injustices and absurdities of apartheid in South Africa.]
Spencer Reece, The Secret Gospel of Mark
[Award-winning poet's memoir about overcoming family patterns of alcoholism through his devotion to writing and his discovery of his vocation to be an Episcopal priest.]
Richard Rodriguez, Hunger of Memory
[Mexican-American public intellectual tells his personal story about the tradeoffs of education, assimilation, and alienation from his Spanish-speaking family.]
Jennifer Rosner, If a Tree Falls: A Family's Quest to Hear and Be Heard
[Lovely "braided" memoir structure juxtaposes the author's experience raising deaf children, her quest to uncover family medical history, and her fictionalized reconstruction of the lives of her Jewish immigrant ancestors.]
Dan Savage, The Kid: What Happened After My Boyfriend and I Decided to Go Get Pregnant
[One of the first gay adoption memoirs depicts the funny and scary aspects of new parenthood in terms everyone can relate to, while also illuminating social changes in the definition of family.]
Jeannette Winterson, Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit
[Razor-sharp writing combines fantasy sequences and realistic satire in this lesbian coming-of-age story.]
Romance
KJ Charles, The Magpie Lord
[Paranormal historical gay romance with a well-developed magical system. Charles is a successful and prolific self-published author whose books feel true to their time period.]
William J. Mann, Where the Boys Are
[A group of gay friends try to balance true love and sexual freedom, while haunted by memories of friends lost to AIDS.]
William Masswa, Toughskins
[Romance between two young wrestlers explores issues of masculinity, healing from abuse, and the ethics of professional sports.]
Courtney Milan, The Brothers Sinister
[Set in Victorian England, this informative and heartwarming series features strong female characters and good representation of neurodiversity.]
Ann Victoria Roberts, Louisa Elliott and Morning's Gate
[Two-part historical romance with a paranormal twist, bringing together the stories of star-crossed lovers in Victorian England and their modern-day descendants.]
Thriller
Megan Abbott, The Turnout
[Set at a family-run ballet school, this modern Gothic novel is tense with generational secrets and self-punishing artistic discipine that breaks into violence.]
S.A. Cosby, Razorblade Tears
[Cosby's crime novels feature rural Southern Black men who try and don't always succeed to be honest business owners and family men in a violent world.]
Peter O'Donnell, Modesty Blaise
[Witty 1960s British spy series is refreshingly free of the sexism and gratuitous violence that often plague this genre.]
Mystery
James Lee Burke, Dave Robicheaux series
[Robicheaux, an aging policeman from New Iberia, Louisiana, is a Vietnam veteran and recovering alcoholic who narrates the stories. The descriptions of the Louisiana landscaping are lyrical and memorable. While there is a certain amount of violence in the series, Robicheaux always places it in context, reflecting on it and making connections with crime and social issues.]
Thomas Cook, Red Leaves and Instruments of Night
[In Cook's lushly written, brooding novels, ordinary people face unthinkable choices that expose the good or evil in their hearts.]
Patricia Cornwell, Kay Scarpetta series
[Dr. Scarpetta is one of the most intelligent female characters in crime writing today. She is a lawyer as well as a skilled forensic pathologist. Cornwell not only deftly handles the complex science of forensic medicine, she provides Scarpetta's character with emotional and psychological dimensions that deepen as the series continues.]
Elizabeth Daly, Somewhere in the House and others in series
[These mysteries set in late-1940s New York have a quiet elegance and a likeable sleuth, the rare-book expert and amateur detective Henry Gamadge.]
Ruth Rendell, The Bridesmaid and Make Death Love Me
[Rendell's prolific output reached its peak in quality in the 1980s, exemplified by these suspenseful, tragic novels about love and madness.]
Minette Walters, The Shape of Snakes and others
[Gritty psychological British procedurals intersperse the narrative with "official" reports and source documents, making readers feel they are solving the crime in real time with the detectives.]
Fantasy & Sci-Fi
Nancy Kress, Beggars in Spain trilogy
[Genetic engineering and unlimited renewable energy erase some social inequalities and create new ones. A compelling thought experiment in political philosophy, with characters you care about.]
J.M. Miro, Ordinary Monsters
[Dark academia about paranormally gifted children in Victorian England.]
Mary Doria Russell, The Sparrow and Children of God
[Members of a Jesuit-led expedition to another planet face the ultimate test of their faith when they encounter two intelligent alien species, one of which uses the other as both servants and prey.]
Horror
Poppy Z. Brite, Drawing Blood
[Part psychological horror, part gay romance. Sole survivor of a family massacre falls in love with computer hacker on the run from the FBI.]
Douglas Clegg, The Hour Before Dark
[When their father is murdered, three siblings return to their family home and uncover a terrible repressed memory.]
Harlan Ellison, Deathbird Stories
[Dark, erotic, and satirical modern myth-making that rages against the senseless sufferings of humanity.]
Robert Marasco, Burnt Offerings
[Haunted-house pulp classic from the 1970s depicts the power of greed to make people disregard all the red flags.]
Literary Fiction
Sally Bellerose, The Girls’ Club
[Set in Western Massachusetts, this book tackles the themes of illness, poverty, and growing up lesbian in a small working-class town. Cora Rose is witty and observant, taking us through a series of first-person coming of age adventures. Rich and revealing dialogue capture time and place to perfection.]
Tara Isabella Burton, The World Cannot Give
[A shy girl at an elite boarding school falls under the sway of a pious neo-conservative fellow student and her cultish followers.]
Michael Chabon, The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay
[The golden age of superhero comics gives Chabon's characters a vehicle to process the trauma of the Holocaust and repressive postwar social mores.]
Louise Erdrich, Tracks
[The protagonist in this lyrical novel about the genocide of Native Americans is Fleur Pillager, one of the most enduring female characters of our time. The book opens with a harrowing winter scene that centers on a smallpox epidemic. The language in this novel is lush and lyrical, providing an ironic contrast to the theme of genocide and survival.]
Kathie Giorgio, The Home for Wayward Clocks
[In this lyrical, innovatively structured novel, an abused boy becomes a reclusive clock-collector whose healing journey is interwoven with short stories about the clocks' owners.]
Barbara Kingsolver, The Poisonwood Bible
[A dangerously naive American missionary family is swept up into the turmoil of the Congo's independence from Belgium in 1960. Each of the multiple narrators speaks with a poetry all her own, and voices a different way to make sense of this clash of cultures.]
Wally Lamb, I Know This Much is True
[Dominick Birdsey is the twin brother of a schizophrenic. At once funny and sad, this epic novel explores the complex layers of family life. Set in a small town in eastern Connecticut, this novel entertains while educating readers about mental illness. The scenes between Dominick and his therapist provide well-written dialogue, emotional depth, and a back story that helps him to come to terms with his schizophrenic twin and abusive stepfather.]
Toni Morrison, Beloved
[This is Ellen's favorite novel of all time. Morrison's novel about slavery through the mythical character of Beloved is rich in symbolism and history, and it's a haunting exploration of the mother-daughter relationship.]
GennaRose Nethercott, Thistlefoot
[The American descendants of Eastern European forest witch Baba Yaga inherit her chicken-legged hut, which holds Jewish memories of the pogroms that a sinister figure is trying to rekindle.]
Wesley Stace, by George
[A shy boy delves into the secrets of his family of vaudeville performers when he finds a ventriloquist's dummy belonging to his late grandfather.]
Donna Tartt, The Goldfinch
[A perfect example of a genre-defying novel, this epic tale borrows plot elements from commercial fiction (art theft, a terrorist bombing, organized crime) and is also a beautifully written meditation on the search for meaning in the face of death.]
Graphic Novel and Memoir
Alison Bechdel, Fun Home
[Text and image work perfectly together in this tragicomic memoir of the cartoonist's childhood, focusing on how she came to understand her own queerness through her closeted father's double life and possibly self-inflicted death.]
Greg Fox, Kyle's Bed & Breakfast
[The collected volumes of this ongoing gay romance webcomic series stand out not only for their charming and amusing storylines, but for their artwork informed by classical figure-drawing training and their well-composed panels.]
Joe Sacco, Palestine
[Reporter's illustrated interviews from the Occupied Territories in the 1990s tell disquieting stories of Israeli police brutality and economic apartheid.]
Bryan Talbot, The Tale of One Bad Rat
[Graphic novel effectively uses the framework of a Beatrix Potter book to tell a moving story about a girl's healing from child abuse.]
Middle Grade
John Bellairs, The House with a Clock in Its Walls
[Bellairs wrote many antiquarian ghost stories for tweens, all featuring bookish young people who team up with elderly neighbors to solve mysteries involving haunted artifacts.]
Russell Hoban, The Mouse and His Boy
[Damaged toys go on a quest to become self-winding and reunite with their found family from the toy shop, in this emotionally gripping novel that includes intelligent political satire for adults.]
Rick Riordan, The Lightning Thief
[Prolific middle-grade author's "Percy Jackson and the Olympians" series is action-packed and full of wry updates of Greek myths, featuring demigod teenagers who get caught up in battles between good and evil deities.]
Children's Picture Book
J.J. Austrian and Mike Curato, Worm Loves Worm
[Critters plan a gender-inclusive wedding.]
DuBose Heyward, The Country Bunny and the Little Gold Shoes
[A hard-working bunny mom overcomes racism and sexism to become the Easter Bunny in this 1939 classic with quaint illustrations by Marjorie Flack.]
Adam Rubin and Daniel Salmieri, Robo-Sauce
[Inventive book design enhances this funny story about coping with big feelings by indulging your superpower fantasies.]
Advice on How to Sell Poetry
Published poet Neile Graham offers a useful basic overview of manuscript formatting, submission etiquette, and researching markets for your work. "Whatever you do, do it because you believe in your work and you love writing. If you're doing it for recognition and glory you'll burn out fast."
Aerogramme Writers’ Studio
Hosted in Melbourne, Australia, Aerogramme Writers' Studio publishes news and resources for emerging and established writers. The site features craft articles, upcoming publication opportunities, book recommendations, and literary humor. Follow them on Twitter @A_WritersStudio for timely announcements of contests and calls for submissions.
Aesthetic Generator
This fun program on the website of informatics student Claire Purslow generates descriptions of niche styles that you can try out in your creative writing. Is your fictional character a "retro dad", a "futuristic skeleton", a "slime overlord", or something else that no one has ever seen before?
Aethlon
This print journal is sponsored by the Sport Literature Association. Aethlon publishes poetry, fiction, juried scholarly and critical essays, and book reviews. Online entries preferred. No simultaneous submissions. See website for their editorial preferences.
African American Literature Book Club
Founded in 1997 by Troy Johnson, AALBC.com is a widely recognized source of author profiles, book recommendations, active discussion boards, writer resources, informative articles, videos, and book reviews.
African Poetry Book Fund
Affiliated with the University of Nebraska-Lincoln and the prestigious journal Prairie Schooner, the African Poetry Book Fund supports African and diaspora literature through readings workshops, publisher collaborations, and awards such as the Glenna Luschei Prize for African Poetry and the Sillerman First Book Prize.
African Poetry Digital Portal
A project of the African Poetry Book Fund at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, the African Poetry Digital Portal is a resource for the study of the history of African poetry, providing access to biographical information, artifacts, news, video recording, images and documents related to African poetry from antiquity to the present.
After
You are gone
I live here alone
with the dog
he will soon follow
nose to the ground
tail like a plume
disappearing down the path
which interwoven spruces' branches
enclose like a shroud.
Memories settle like a fine dust
everywhere, I dust and clean,
still molecules fill every crevice
of the house and my brain.
The water in my bath
glides over me like your hands
circles clockwise then
disappears down the drain with a sigh.
From the spruces,
where stolen blue from the sky
tinges each needle blue-green,
a white-throated sparrow
calls Old Peabody-Peabody-Peabody
ending with his pensive notes
Wait-up, Wait-up.
Wait-up, I repeat: Wait for me.
Copyright 2012 by Joem D. Phillips
Critique by Tracy Koretsky
It is no exaggeration to say that I cried when I first read this month's poem, "After", from the collection A Voice Alone by Joem D. Phillips of Santee, South Carolina, and Campobello Island, Canada. What is more surprising, though, is that despite many readings, I continue to find it deeply moving. Honest, pellucid, in no way sentimental, manipulative or mawkish, its declarative tone is direct, humble and altogether human.
Though its topic might elicit fear or drama, there is a calm assurance to this poem. This may be, in part, due to its confident sense of place conveyed through the naming of the bird, and the meaning of its song.
Likewise, in another possibly very fine poem, this topic might inspire specificity: "your tennis trophy", "our travel souvenir", "the pictures of our children". However, the images here—the well-observed dog, the house with its quotidian demands, the quiet but undeniable sexuality of the water circling the drain, the return to the trail with its spruces who bear their ancient witness—are available to us all to share, comprehend, and empathize with. The power of this poem is that to understand it, all a reader need bring is an open heart.
Which is not to say that Phillips's use of images is unsophisticated. Notice how she transits, in the manner of poetry, from one dominant image to the next.
Something similar is true of her diction choices. So unassuming is this diction, that there is no attempt to call blue anything other than blue. Dust is repeated because dust is repeating; it's everywhere, all the time, always more of it. Clearly, to be unassuming is a tonal choice.
Yet there is more to it; observed carefully, the sounds, like the images, shift in their dominance from stanza to stanza. The o and u sounds connect the first stanza with their subtle, invisible threads. The second stanza, much more staccato as the poet's day proceeds, is stitched together with s's and t's, moving into the final stanza whose subject is sound, sound created by fellow travelers whom, like the sound patterns in the previous stanzas, we may not at first be able to discern.
Towards revision, I would reconsider the punctuation of this piece. Actually, punctuation deserves consideration in each and every poem we write. Sometimes, it seems to me, poets fear punctuation. I theorize that this is because poetry does not always adhere to the standard rules of grammar, with its propensity for "run-ons" and "fragments", as our grade school teachers used to say, as well as other syntactical irregularities.
Often, rather than be "incorrect", poets skip punctuation entirely, relying instead on line breaks. This is a misunderstanding of the line break. We break our lines in poetry to create a tension in opposition to the sentence. Line breaks work with grammar, not instead of it. One widely held misconception is that that the end of a line indicates a pause. It does not; that is the function of punctuation.
This is why punctuation ought to be a delight to poets. It operates musically, directing the degree of pause, or a change of timbre. A period, obviously, is a full stop, akin in its way, to a quarter note. Everything has been said. A comma, with its promise of more to come, is more like an eighth note rest. There is no greater friend in reducing verbosity than the colon. The dash indicates a change: tone, subject, address, anything really, whether internal to the sentence or arriving at its end. Such changes lend texture and complication to our poems. Whereas a semicolon, it seems to me, describes the very essence of poetry itself, by bringing two disparate ideas together (just remember that the general rule is that there be a verb on both sides of the semicolon).
Occasionally there is a valid expressive reason for choosing either to forgo punctuation or use it in non-standard ways—for instance, where the poem's subject suggests a very spare presentation, or the poem is built of imagistic fragments, or there is an intentional desire to conflate and confuse the syntax. Though this can be very stylish and often affecting, the choice to omit punctuation always comes with a risk. Readers require grammar; that's just part of reading. If the poet asks the reader to supply unspecified grammar, some cognitive energy will necessarily be spent there. While this may be a fun mental exercise, potentially engaging the reader actively, be aware: that energy will have to be spent before the poem can be comprehended, and more importantly, before it can be felt.
Which is why careful, unobtrusive grammar choices support an emotionally potent poem like "After". Just look at the difference these small changes make in the opening lines:
You are gone.
I live here alone
with the dog.
The full stop at the end of the first line is so definitive, so incontrovertible. The closed-door fact of it is no longer mitigated by the existence of the dog.
The next two lines could end in a period, comma or semicolon with differing, mostly rhythmic, effects. The same is true of these lines:
Memories settle like a fine dust
everywhere, I dust and clean,
Memories settle like a fine dust
everywhere I dust and clean.
Memories settle like a fine dust
everywhere. I dust and clean,
Memories settle like a fine dust
everywhere. I dust and clean.
Memories settle like a fine dust.
Everywhere. I dust and clean.
Here not only does the rhythm change, but there is a slight shading of the meaning too. Are the memories evoked by the specific objects and places she dusts and cleans? Or are the memories like fine dust in general, adding to the futility of her response? In the last example I demonstrate how a poet might choose to ignore the formal principles of grammar in order to orchestrate a rhythm to the words.
This may sound overly basic, but a good first step to rethinking the punctuation in our poems is to reset the text temporarily as if it were prose. Oddly, standard punctuation comes more easily this way. Then the poem must then be read aloud, repeatedly, and possibly experimented with. When the poem sounds right to its author's ears, guiding punctuation can be added.
In the end though, even if Phillips had removed every bit of punctuation from this piece, I would still have been moved by it. Punctuation can never, in itself, make a poem as affecting as this one is. That can only be done when a poet is unafraid to share her humanity.
Where might a poem like "After" be submitted? The following contests may be of interest:
Pat Schneider Poetry Contest
Postmark Deadline: July 1
Amherst Writers & Artists, a well-regarded writing workshop, offers $1,000 for unpublished poems; winners invited to give a reading in Western Massachusetts
Porter Fleming Competition
Postmark Deadline: July 13
Prizes of $1,000 for poetry, short fiction, essays, and dramatic works by residents of Georgia, Florida, Alabama, South Carolina or North Carolina who are aged 18+
This poem and critique appeared in the June 2012 issue of Winning Writers Newsletter (subscribe free).
After You Self-Medicate with Roethke’s “The Waking” Read by Text-to-Speech App
By Roberta Beary
You're in one of your weepy moods and your mother turns her sea green eyes and lifts your baby from your arms and says did you ever notice her little heart shaped face so like yours and you say no but now that you mention it and you smile as your mother hands you back your baby who opens to your breast and afterwards watches you with milk drunk eyes half closed as you unlatch and when you turn your mother is gone and the baby is sleeping so you lay her on the lighthouse quilt while you answer the doorbell and sign for yet another package and your mother is somewhere you can't see no matter how many corners you scan as you lift the lighthouse quilt and what falls away is always and is near and the baby you hold looks nothing like your baby well maybe a little in the curve of her mouth or the way one eye is slightly higher than the other or perhaps it is the heart shape of the tiny face that is somewhat familiar in her dress of yellow polka dots and just then your daughter asks you for her baby and what falls away is always and is near and you lift the baby who watches you with milk drunk eyes half closed and as you lay her in your daughter's arms the lighthouse quilt slips to the floor and the doorbell rings you sign for yet another package you tell yourself the ache is for that long ago stray your mother brought home how he followed your every forbidden step and you feel yourself get weepy in a way your daughter never does not even when your mother died but she did a lovely job with the memorial photos that one of the three of you in matching yellow polka dots and what falls away is always and is near and you do your timed breathing standing at the window where the magnolia petals brush the rain or is it the other way around which is something your mother would know and you tell yourself that when people say weave the unspoken words into a letter to read at the graveside they don't know what the hell they're talking about and the magnolia unfurls its petals as the rain sings a lullaby you once knew but now is a fragment of bees buzzing over the figs that have fallen as you lay in the shade of your mother's yellow polka dots while you wait for her to say something momentous but she only asks for her reading glasses and the two nurses erase her name from the whiteboard and you go back to your timed breathing until your daughter says would you mind holding the baby and her sea green eyes look weepy like a memory tucked inside your pocket and you lift the baby from your daughter's arms and as the lighthouse quilt slips the baby unfurls her fists and smiles a crescent moon and you say did you ever notice the baby's little heart shaped face so like yours and your daughter says no but now that you mention it and you hear your mother calling from inside your other pocket and what falls away is always and is near.
[This poem was a co-winner of the 2022 Bridport Prize and was published in their anthology.]
Again Guernica and Lesson at MoMA
Again Guernica
Again I stand before the frame
where Picasso in the aftershock
multiples a woman
deconstructs a face
pries open her story
in cubed space
Again I wince before the flower
of baked bones Madrid
bursts on streets
Buttonhooks
scatter like quince
Again I watch Madrid
mother and child gape
in open-mouthed surprise
a dead soldier upholds a defiant
fist to maddened skies
Ah Picasso's irreverent brush
tells and foretells
a century of scalding skies
cyclones of ash
frantic elbows of the lifeless
The horns of astonished bulls
poke through a canvas
of pity and sorrow
Lesson at MoMA
A witness of many seasons
I need no map to find my way
back to the Guernica
the bull kneeling
horns poised against the eye
And there
on the marble floor
a student at fevered work
her cheek a curved muleta
a red cape of hair shuddering
on one shoulder
She leans on a pad of folded knees
sketching a ziggurat of limbs
a howling beast
the mother comforting
an openmouthed dead child
the soldier's hand a broken sword
a cubed flower of baked bones
yields to a mad sky
Still grasping a charcoal stick
The artist sneaks her wrist
over wet lids
I stand coveting
the black tear
on a young cheek
Copyright 2012 by Lou Barrett
Critique by Tracy Koretsky
Ekphrastic poems, like the two submitted this month by Lou Barrett, respond to other works of art. The word comes to us from the Greek meaning "description", though even the early canonical example of the genre, Keats's "Ode on a Grecian Urn", moves beyond the urn's mere description to the poet's responses and his enlarged general conclusion that "Beauty is truth, truth beauty."
Today ekphrastics include a variety of approaches: imaginative flights, such as dramatic monologue; or cultural reinterpretations, for example, through the lens of feminism; or meditations on the fate or history of a piece (how did the Elgin marbles wind up in the British Museum and why are they still there?). In general, the underlying theme of these poems is how the artwork affected the poet, how the piece has changed them, or perhaps changed the world.
It may be helpful to think of ekphrastics as a genre as opposed to a form. In other words, there are no strict rules or guidelines, but there are qualities and conventions. The most obvious among these concern how to guide the reader to the poem's inspiration. After all, it is rare that a publication will run the referent image in conjunction with the poem. To do so can be harder than it might first appear, with the need to acquire rights and permissions standing in a well-intentioned publisher's way.
An exception helpful to our discussion here is the always-interesting online poetry journal, Poemeleon, which ran an ekphrastic issue in the winter of 2006.
A quick flip through its contents reveals the most common ways allusions are made. This is because the allusion is almost always made prior to the end of the first stanza in order to firmly ground the reader. Poems are frequently titled with the name of the work of art, as our contributor has done in his first poem, "After Guernica". Another strategy is to use an epigraph such as "after Leda, sculpture, Fernando Botero" as Wendy Taylor Carlisle has done in her poem, "Her Husband". Sometimes it is the artist's name that is invoked, perhaps as a direct address, as in Andrena Zawinski's "Impressions En Plein Air", or in the title or epigraph.
Are there ekphrastics that don't allude? Consider Ren Powell's poem, "A Strange Woman". Here we have a piece inspired by a little-known artwork with no specific attribution. Therefore, from the poet's point of view, it is an ekphrastic. But from the reader's?
I'm going to venture not. Frankly, as a reader it is not important to me where a poet gets inspiration. What matters to me is what the poem communicates in the end. In my opinion, a vital part, if not the essence, of what an ekphrastic has to offer is a shared experience of a work of art. Without that, though the poem may be excellent, I would not classify it as an ekphrastic.
For this reason, I found Maureen Alsop's choice of the Helga pictures affecting. Certainly it is true that not every reader is going to know about the treasure trove of paintings found in Andrew Wyeth's attic. However, poetry readers are not your average readers; many have an active interest in other arts. The Helga pictures were quite the art world sensation for a time. In evoking them, Alsop restricts her audience, yes, but she offers a satisfying sense of intimacy and companionability to those in the know. Poet and reader are going to stand together and converse about these fascinating objects. To my mind, therein is the appeal of an ekphrastic.
Now obviously, poets are inspired by works of art of all types, famous, infamous and obscure. Works that are all already whole unto themselves; they do not need a poem to make them more complete. So the poem, to be worthwhile, must shed a new light upon the work.
The first step toward this goal is striking the correct balance between description and interpretation. An obscure piece will require significantly more description than one that a reader can easily locate on the Internet. Such description may weigh the poem down, or simply make it confusing. In revision, one must ask if the allusion is actually adding to the finished product. There is nothing wrong with simply removing the pointers to the poem's inspiration and letting it breathe on its own.
At the other extreme, why describe the Mona Lisa? Simply grabbing the coattails of an important work will not, in itself, result in an important poem. The key to a worthwhile ekphrastic of an iconic work is finding a fresh—and more importantly, expressive—strategy or insight.
That is the challenge this month's contributor faced. "Guernica" is possibly Pablo Picasso's most famous work and definitely one of the most well-known masterworks of the twentieth century. What new view can our poet offer?
It is a challenge worthy of at least two attempts, and Barrett has made a good start. "Again Guernica" tries to help the reader see this familiar image better or anew by illuminating it with description. Despite strong diction choices ("the flower/of baked bones"; "Buttonhooks/scatter like quince"; "frantic elbows of the lifeless") the project of describing an iconic piece in a way that provides fresh insight is exceedingly hard.
Though not completely impossible: allow me to present a counterexample. Consider Mary Alexandra Agner's poem, "Under the Waves off Kanagawa", in Poemeleon. Certainly Hokusai's woodblock print sometimes called "The Great Wave" comes as instantly to mind as "Guernica" if not more so. So, to describe it, Agner offers her notion that the wave looks like a grasping hand. Each detail not only supports the conceit but is also original in its description (clothes "the color of depth"; "pale and creased" boats).
In revising "After Guernica", one approach would be to conjure an overarching conceit upon which to hang each descriptive phrase. In Agner's piece, the wave equals a hand. For "Guernica", the fractured chaos = x. Barrett's job would be to do the algebra.
Or maybe not. Perhaps the more expressive approach would be something like "Lesson at MoMA", a narrative poem in which depicts not the painting itself, but a young artist's response to it. Here, the description of the painting does not enter the poem until the eighth line of the second stanza, with "a ziggurat of limbs".
Notice how specific the next seven lines are to Guernica, unlike the lines "multiples a woman/ deconstructs a face" or "horns of astonished bulls" from "After Guernica" which might be applied to any number of works by Picasso. Personally, I find the seven lines just cited ample—actually more than ample—to evoke a work as readily recognized as Guernica.
It is always worthwhile to ask, when revising a narrative, where is the best beginning? Although we often compose our first drafts with a beginning, middle, and end, the goal for the final draft is to pique and invite the reader in the first few lines. Some poets talk about finding the place where the poem begins to pulse—where it becomes most lively. (For a demonstration of this see Critique Corner, August 2010.)
Where the narrative begins, obviously, affects where it ends. Bear in mind that the word "verse"—even in the expression "free verse"—originally meant "to turn". Poems, especially narrative poems, frequently leave us off in a different place from where we began.
So Barrett might, for example, skip the preamble and open with the student. Next he could describe the painting and then turn the poem to his own response, tucking in the most meaningful information from the original first stanza thus:
"I, a witness of many seasons,
stand coveting the black tear on a young cheek"
Another strategy would be to begin with the painting, move to the student, and finally to the poet. As we have seen, most ekphrastics ground the reader in the context of the painting by the end of the first stanza. Of course, Barrett could accomplish this with his title or with an epigraph. Alternatively, though, he could select a phrase from "After Guernica", for example, "A Century of Scalding Skies", or even, "Again", as a title. In either case, he could certainly mine "After Guernica" for its finest diction, most specific to the particular painting.
One advantage to this strategy is that I, as a reader, am asked to bring my knowledge of "Guernica" and its storied history to my reading, inviting my participation much as the poem on the Helga paintings did. But that is not the main reason I am advocating for the narrative strategy taken in "Lesson at MoMA". Both poems, at heart, convey a sad weariness of humankind's endless warring. "Again Guernica" states it whereas "Lesson at MoMA" dramatizes it, or, as the overused writing adage goes, one tells, the other shows. Sometimes there are reasons adages are overused.
Where could poems like "Again Guernica" and "Lesson at MoMA" be submitted? The following contests may be of interest:
Split This Rock Poetry Contest
Entries must be received by November 1
Prizes up to $500 for "poems of provocation and witness" from a festival sponsored by progressive think tanks in Washington, DC; enter online
Founders Award
Postmark Deadline: November 15
Georgia Poetry Society gives prizes up to $75; no simultaneous submissions
Anita McAndrews Award Poetry Contest
Postmark Deadline: November 30
Poets Beyond Borders gives prizes up to $100 for published or unpublished poems relating to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights
These poems and critique appeared in the October 2012 issue of Winning Writers Newsletter (subscribe free).
Agent Advice: The Complete Series at Poets & Writers
This page on the website of Poets & Writers Magazine, a leading source of writers' resources, collects their Agent Advice columns since 2010. Read top literary agents' responses to readers' questions.
Agent Orange Quilt of Tears
Sale proceeds go to support Agent Orange victims and widows.
Alabama Prison Arts & Education Project
Located at Auburn University, APAEP offers classes in the arts and humanities to inmates in Alabama state prisons. The Project has created a travelling exhibit of "Art on the Inside" and also publish an annual anthology of their students' work.
Alex Haley’s Queen: The Story of an American Family
In this epic historical novel, Haley, the author of Roots, traces his lineage on his father's side from the love affair of an Irish-American plantation owner and a black slave. Though the cast of characters becomes overcrowded in places, this saga provides a grand overview of America's tortured racial history from Andrew Jackson's presidency through the Civil War and Reconstruction. Queen, the author's grandmother, survives incredible trials to see her children reach heights she could never have imagined.
Algonkian Poetry Workshops
Online workshops hosted and supported by the Web del Sol Association. Develop your poetry through exercises and feedback. Professional guidance helps you prepare and place publishable work.
Algonkian Writer Conferences
Algonkian Writer Conferences bring together authors, agents, and editors in different locations across the US to help emerging novelists create marketable commercial fiction. Their workshops cover the elements of successful fiction and how to revise and pitch a manuscript. The faculty has included notable authors such as Robert Bausch and Robert Olen Butler.
Algorithmic Justice League
AJL's mission is to "fight for consent, compensation, control, and credit" regarding how artificial intelligence programs like ChatGPT use writers' intellectual property and replace writers' jobs with computer-generated content. Check out their website to sign petitions for legal regulation of AI and share your stories about how AI threatens your livelihood.
Alien Pub
Founded in 2018, Alien Pub is an online literary and art journal edited by Queen's University (Ontario) students, with a special interest in politically transformative work. Submissions are open year-round via email. Editors say, "Alien Pub is an independent space for creative activism and transgressive media. We look for work that includes themes of justice, resistance, identity, and autonomy. We want to celebrate voices of those who have been and continue to be marginalized, and make their stories front and centre. We want work that subverts social norms and challenges existing power structures. Experiment with us; push every creative boundary you can imagine." They describe themselves further as "trans-positive and anti-oppressive."
All the Heat We Could Carry
This masterful, heart-wrenching collection by Charlie Bondhus, winner of the 2013 Main Street Rag Poetry Book Award, brings the poetry of gay male love and the poetry of war together with unprecedented candor, but the story this book tells is more elegiac than celebratory of civil rights victories. The alternating narrators, a veteran of the Afghanistan war and his homefront lover, seem free from their forerunners' self-conscious anguish about sexual orientation. They can admit openly how sex between men is like martial arts grappling, how killing can be orgasmic and the camaraderie of soldiers more intimate than lovers. However, the unbridgeable rift of combat trauma still forces them apart.
All This Could Be Yours
By Jami Attenberg. This novel about the last day in the life of a corrupt real estate developer in New Orleans is an insightful, morbidly funny story about how tragic choices reverberate through the generations. One could call it a Jewish version of "The Sopranos", but where that show was cynical and bleak, this book is full of compassion and even a kind of poetic justice at the end.
Alliance of Artists Communities
Visit their site to find a writing retreat near you, and to learn about great new work being created around the world.
Alliance of Independent Authors: Ultimate Guide to Winning Book Awards
This 2021 post on the Alliance of Independent Authors website offers detailed advice on finding worthwhile contests for your indie or self-published book, including an interview with Winning Writers editor Annie Mydla, a screener for our North Street Book Prize.
