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Icebreakers Lit
Icebreakers Lit is an online journal that publishes collaborative writing (two or more authors) in the genres of poetry, short fiction, personal essays, flash prose, and hybrid text. If you don't have a collaborator in mind, ask them to match you with another interested author. Previously published work is eligible. See website for themed submission calls. Editors say, "We like 80s and 90s nostalgia, nods to pop culture, and vulnerability. We like good writing that doesn't take itself too seriously. We also like being surprised and things that don't quite follow the rules."
Idiots’ Books
Idiots' Books is a Maryland-based indie press that publishes offbeat, satirical illustrated books featuring the work of writer Matthew Swanson and illustrator Robbi Behr. Books are distributed through a subscription service. Titles include 'Dawn of the Fats', billed as "the oft-neglected examination of that special place where funnel cakes and zombiism collide"; 'Ten Thousand Stories', a book whose split pages can be recombined into 10,000 absurd but still grammatical narratives; and 'After Everafter', which gives ten classic fairy tales the same (mis)treatment.
Idiots’ Books
Idiots' Books is a Maryland-based indie press that publishes offbeat, satirical illustrated books featuring the work of writer Matthew Swanson and illustrator Robbi Behr. Books are distributed through a subscription service. Titles include 'Dawn of the Fats', billed as "the oft-neglected examination of that special place where funnel cakes and zombiism collide"; 'Ten Thousand Stories', a book whose split pages can be recombined into 10,000 absurd but still grammatical narratives; and 'After Everafter', which gives ten classic fairy tales the same (mis)treatment.
If a Tree Falls: A Family’s Quest to Hear and Be Heard
When her first daughter was born deaf, memories of feeling unheard by her own mother led Rosner to trace the history of deafness in her family and imagine how love might bridge the communications gap between parents and children. This beautifully constructed memoir from Feminist Press touches on themes of assimilation, identity formation, and healing. Interwoven with Rosner's tender and humorous memories of her children's early years are vivid fictionalized scenes of her Jewish immigrant ancestors, whom she imagines wrestling with the same challenges in a very different cultural setting. The technology and politics of deafness may keep changing, this book suggests, but the need to connect with the ones we love is universal.
Illypsis Poetry: Amina Jordan-Mendez
Amina Jordan-Mendez is a poet, spoken-word performer, and activist in Western Massachusetts. She was the 2019-20 Straw Dog Writers Guild Emerging Writer Fellow. She says, "Much of the intellectual property of Afro people has always been storytelling, poetry, song. I write for my soul. I teach for my heart. In my curriculum I strive to invite young people of color into poetry, wellness, spiritual health, advocacy, radical accountability."
Image: Art, Faith, Mystery
Beautifully designed, thought-provoking quarterly journal of the arts and religion. Free email newsletter profiles contemporary artists, writers and musicians whose work engages with spiritual themes in profound ways.
Immigrant
By Gary Beck
I carry the delivery bag
and no one looks at me.
They ignore the delivery boy
and I can't tell them
I’m a man, not a boy.
I hate my boss
who talks down to me,
because I'm an immigrant.
I hate the people who tip me
as much as those who don't.
They are all the same,
despising me.
I try not to think of the old days
when I walked with Shining Path,
carried an AK-47...
No one laughed at me then.
Now I am a delivery boy
and must eat my pride.
In a Kept World
By Carmine Dandrea. This noteworthy chapbook from Finishing Line Press is a unified 17-poem cycle voiced by a solitary older man inside a house in Michigan in deep winter. As the "prime suspect" of his own examinations, he reflects on mortality and time wasted. Women from his past reappear as nameless sirens and ghosts, arousing both desire and regret that he did not value their intimacy enough. Despite the assaults of unforgiving weather and the temptation to succumb to darkness, he also finds moments of sensual joy and radiance in the ordinary furnishings of his monastic cell. The recurring image of the garden comes to represent not only the literal promise of spring but the "seeds of love" and "sureness of life" that he wants another chance to cultivate in his soul.
In Break Formation
The indications used to come like movie fighter planes in break formation, one by one, the perfect plummet, down and out. This time they're slower. But after supper, when I hear her in the kitchen hum again, hum higher, higher, till my ears are numb, I remember how it was the last time: how she hummed to Aramaic peaks, flung supper plates across the kitchen till I brought her by the shoulders humming to the chair. I remember how the final days her eyelids, operating on their own, rose and fell, how she strolled among the children, winding tractors, hugging dolls, how finally I phoned and had them come again, how I walked behind them as they took her by the shoulders, house dress in the breeze, slowly down the walk and to the curbing, watched them bend her in the back seat of the squad again, how I watched... [continue]
In My Father’s House: A Memoir of Polygamy
This insightful, compassionate memoir tells of growing up within a breakaway fundamentalist Mormon sect that considered plural marriage a holy obligation. A theology of eternal family bonds, combined with the need to hide from persecution, drew her father's many wives and children closer together but also stifled their self-development. Amid the upheaval of social roles in the 1960s and '70s, the author strives to discover her own connection to God without rejecting her people. Personal narrative is well-balanced with historical background. First written in 1984, this book was reissued in 2009 by Texas Tech University Press.
In Our Write Minds
Kim Kautzer's blog offers lessons and resources for teaching writing to young people. Useful for schoolteachers and homeschooling parents.
In Sonnino
By Helen Bar-Lev
Signora Italia
sits on her terrace
on the top of steep steps
She is so old, so white,
so wrinkled, so immobile,
she seems to be rooted
in the planters like the flowers around her
She stares at us as we pass up the alley
and is there still when we return
many photographs and espressos later
Signora Italia does not say bongiorno,
does not wave, has not moved at all
and I envy this woman
planted in the soil of her country
While I am the intruder,
stuttering in her language
faltering in her alleyways
humbled before her history
As much as I read,
as much as I see
I shall never know how it is
to be rooted here
This poem and accompanying painting will be included in an exhibit at the Chagall Artists House in Haifa, Israel, opening September 17, 2016.
In the Collage of Life
Artistically designed limited-edition chapbook pairs poetic reflections with intricate abstract pen-and-ink drawings and collages suggesting forms from nature. Schulman keeps alive the tradition of books as art objects, creating an "illuminated manuscript" with a decisively modern feel.
In the Ghost-House Acquainted
Prizewinning first collection of poetry depicts the farming life unsentimentally yet with wonder at the mysteries of birth, death and transcendence. The language of these poems can be as stark and rugged as a Massachusetts winter, then blossom forth with the joy and terror of encountering the sacred in the cycles of nature. This book won the 2004 New England/New York Award from Alice James Books and the 2005 L.L. Winship award from PEN/New England.
In the Street Without My Glasses
By Harry Bauld
Blur sips at the blue bowl
of morning. The heart,
old mole, noses forward
to sense something of steel, maybe
of stone—without a lens the filth
is gone. Unrefracted men and women
regress toward a trembling Monet mean,
trees and marquees go dumb
in the warble of sky,
and even nameless cars
dodging their promised manslaughters
gleam like starlings
under bus faces smeared
to leaf and petal. Someone crosses
the street, a tremolo
of arm, a shudder of color
smoothed to one age, race and sex
as light as that shadow
shimmering off the asphalt
like distant desert heat, the true flicker
we may be. The world
before the uncorrected eye
brims, marbles, quivers
over its boundaries, wells.
In the Year of the Disease
By Phyllis Klein after reading Joy Harjo's poem "Grace" there was nothing more to lose until there was. It was one thing after another, the spring we hardly could notice although it went on without a second thought. It was the fabric of the human world unraveled. No haircuts, no friends around the table, no doctor visits. It was going to work, buying, selling, all lost, or morphed into sitting in front of our machines of connection. It was grace, had we lost her or did she watch from her balcony as the world pitched into a chasm of mystery and gloom? Was she a woman, or had she shapeshifted into a dream? A tulip or a violet open in the sun? Some of us knew they could find her, knew the places she liked to hang out, while others kept trying for a glimpse, like looking for... [continue]
Independent Book Review
Independent Book Review publicizes small press and self-published books through online reviews and author interviews. They also sell editorial services such as developmental and copyediting, proofreading, and book design. (Winning Writers does not recommend paying for reviews; submit your book for consideration to their free reviews service only.)
IndieReader
IndieReader offers self-published authors an attractive, professional-looking portal to list and sell their books. A fun feature of the site is the Indie Book Matchmaker, for readers seeking to discover new authors. Select a type of book from their quirky dropdown menu (options include "Fantasy Romance", "Hard-Boiled", "Based on the Bible", and "About Floral Arrangement"), then select a comparable well-known title from the second menu.
Indies Unlimited
Fiction writer K.S. Brooks administrates this online community that offers a platform for self-published and small press writers to promote their books. Weekly themed contests, judged by the readers of the site, offer the chance to be published on the website and in an annual e-book anthology. "At Indies Unlimited, we support a broad and inclusive definition that encompasses authors whose body of work is not obligated to a single large publishing company. Authors who are exclusively self-published, those who work with small print or regional presses, or small digital publishers, and those who may do some of each, or even have only some work published by traditional publishers are welcome here. The bottom line is that if you consider yourself to be an indie, you most likely qualify."
Indies Unlimited PublishingFoul Survey
Indies Unlimited is a platform to promote the work of self-published and small press authors and discuss best practices in the industry. This page summarizes the results of their 2015 PublishingFoul survey, which asked authors to share stories of being scammed by publishers. Follow them on Twitter @IndiesUnlimited and search the #PublishingFoul hashtag to keep up with and contribute to this conversation.
Indrisos
Indriso is a form created by contemporary Spanish poet Isidro Iturat. The poem is formed by two triplets and two one-line stanzas (3-3-1-1), with free use of the rhyme and the number of syllables in its verses. "The indriso comes from the sonnet but it is not a sonnet. In the same way, the sonnet is a variation of the Provençal song but it is not a Provençal song." See examples (mostly in Spanish, with some Englist translations) on his website.
Industry Interview: Talking Book Cover Design with Laura Duffy of Laura Duffy Design
In this industry interview, I speak with book cover designer, former Random House art director, and North Street Book Prize co-sponsor Laura Duffy about designing covers for indie authors. What can authors expect when working with a book cover designer for the first time? What is some important vocab for indie authors to know when working with their designer? And how can authors navigate the expectations during the design process? Watch the entire interview for Laura's full insights. Some highlights include: Laura Duffy on helping the author transition into the self-publishing industry (1:36): Most of the people who come to me have never published before. So I give them kind of a heads up; okay, so you're going to focus on the cover, and then down the line we're going to be publishing it. So there's the back, and the flaps, and making... [continue]
Industry Interview: Talking Book Structure with Jendi Reiter, Editor of Winning Writers and Author of Origin Story
In this industry interview, I discuss book structure with Jendi Reiter, editor of Winning Writers, North Street Book Prize judge, and author of Origin Story, a literary novel about a gay man who recovers his traumatic memories by writing a superhero comic book in the 1990s. I ask Jendi, what makes good book structure? What kinds of book structure do they typically notice in the North Street Book Prize, both effective and not-so-effective? How can self-publishers improve their book covers? How has Jendi's book structure been influenced by their North Street reading, and what words of advice do they have for North Street entrants? Watch the entire interview on YouTube for all of Jendi's insights. Some highlights include: Jendi on common difficulties with memoir structure (2:30): It seems like we get a lot of memoirs that just go straight chronologically. You know,... [continue]
Ingrid Wendt: “The Unknown Good in Our Enemies”
This essay honoring the poet William Stafford reflects on how literature can foster mutual understanding and empathy in order to break the cycle of violence. This article appeared in the April 2011 newsletter of the National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE). The link below will open a PDF.
Ink & Peat Podcast
Ink & Peat is a podcast "for enthusiasts of the written word," hosted by Craig Stewart and Barb Robitaille. They interview authors, editors, publishers, ghostwriters, and others in the self-publishing and indie book world about their writing and marketing strategies.
Ink From the Pen
Ink From the Pen is a nonprofit website that accepts submissions of inmates' artwork and sells prints and T-shirts to benefit the prisoners and their families. Writers who work with prisoners may find this a useful resource to encourage their creativity.
Inked Voices
Inked Voices connects writers who are looking to form small groups (5-15 members) for critiques or accountability in meeting deadlines such as NaNoWriMo. Their software facilitates sharing of drafts and mark-ups. Each group has its own private online workspace.
Inside Publishing: The Book Publicist
This installment of Poets & Writers "The Practical Writer" column discusses the functions of a book publicist and their continued importance in the new social media landscape.
Inside/Out
By Joseph Osmundson. This daring flash memoir, which can also be classified as a prose-poem collection, looks from multiple angles at the arc of an emotionally abusive relationship between the white author and his African-American ex-lover. Like a mosaic of broken mirror fragments, each sliver of memory reflects larger themes of exclusion, power exchange, personal and collective trauma, and the nature of intimacy, raising as many questions as it answers.
Inspired by Starlight
Sparks fall like starlight And a child runs inside, Where her mother comforts with a promise. But the streets have all been stained, Soaked with tears and washed by blood And covered over by long hours of winter. No one knows when the end of winter Will bring hope among the starlight And the endless reign of blood Will creep back to hide inside A psyche that has been forever stained By the treason of a shattered promise. Who can trust a promise? Time brings unto all things winter Even after life, sun-stained, Is soothed by cleansing starlight. Water flows deep, forgotten inside For it is far less viscous than blood. Even so, oil is thicker still than blood And vastly more powerful than a promise Negotiated by important men inside Offices guarded, safely out of winter. They shake hands before the starlight But with their blood those hands are... [continue]
InstantPublisher.com
The best deal we've found for self-publishing. Their print-on-demand software lets authors design their own professional-looking books for only a few dollars a copy. Order anywhere from 25 to 5,000 books.
Institute for Writers
Formerly the Institute of Children's Literature, this is a resource site for authors. Offerings include correspondence courses, how-to articles, and a newsletter with writing tips and calls for submissions.
Interlink Books
Based in Northampton, MA, Interlink Publishing is a literary small press with a cosmopolitan perspective. They publish literary fiction, history, contemporary politics, art, cultural guides, international cuisine, and illustrated children’s books from around the world. Interlink has a special interest in introducing Americans to topics and areas of the world often ignored by the Western media. Their list includes many thought-provoking works by Palestinian and Middle Eastern authors.
International Cities of Refuge Network
ICORN is an association of cities and regions around the world dedicated to protecting freedom of expression by offering refuge to writers fleeing political persecution.
Internet Writing Workshop
The Internet Writing Workshop is a free online forum for writers to exchange critiques of their works in progress. There are groups for short fiction, novels, poetry, nonfiction, and young adult literature. There are minimum participation requirements for each critiquing list representing approximately one half-hour per week. In addition, there are discussion forums to share ideas about marketing, literary craft, and favorite books and movies.
Interviews with Practicing Writers by Erika Dreifus
Fiction writer Erika Dreifus publishes the Practicing Writer e-newsletter, a monthly roundup of markets, contests, and writing advice, in which these interviews first appeared. Featured authors include Kimiko Hahn, Tayari Jones, Ellen Meeropol, and Dinty W. Moore.
Into the Drowning Deep
By Mira Grant. Masterful pacing and character development distinguish this cosmic horror novel about a scientific voyage to discover man-eating mermaids, set in a near-future where climate change and pollution are reshaping our relationship to the ocean. On a state-of-the-art ship commissioned by an American entertainment company, a diverse team of researchers fight to survive (and even study) a mysterious predator that overwhelms their defenses and challenges their belief in humanity's dominance of the ecosystem. Several crew members have disabilities, which turn out to give them unique knowledge that proves integral to saving their shipmates. A lesbian romance subplot lends a spark of hope to a terrifying situation.
Irish Writers Online
Bio-bibliographic database of over 500 classic and contemporary Irish writers, plus an impressive variety of links to authors' websites, booksellers, publishers, and other literary resources.
Irish Writers’ Centre
The IWC provides a database of contemporary Irish authors and links to literary sites. Admirers of Irish culture will also enjoy the site of the Yeats Society Sligo.
Iron City Magazine
Iron City Magazine is a print and online journal specializing in creative writing and art by currently or formerly incarcerated people. They publish short fiction, creative nonfiction, poetry, one-act plays, cartoons, comics, graphic stories, and art. Prison volunteers, staff, or family members may submit work on topics related to mass incarceration. Prisoners and former prisoners can submit work on any topic. Unpublished work only. No explicit violence, nudity, or detailed discussion of drug use. Read detailed guidelines and then enter by mail or email.
Is Your First-Person Narrator Hurting Your Story?
Is your first-person narrator hurting your story? Ten traps to watch out for, and resources that can help. Annie Mydla, Managing Editor The author wants the reader to feel close to the story, characters, and narrative voice. They believe that first-person narration will make readers experience the story as they do. Why not? The reader will "see" and "feel" everything in the same order, and in the same detail, as the author does in their head. This approach may seem common-sensical, but reader experience doesn't exactly work that way. Recreating the environment we see and feel in our heads through a first-person narrator rarely achieves the author's intent. It's not artful enough. Good fiction is successful not because it draws from the "common sense" we know from everyday life, but because its author has become an expert at creating an artificially immersive experience for the reader. That takes... [continue]
Isamu Noguchi’s “Red”
By Joseph Stanton
A tall rectitude of red travertine,
one of Noguchi's monumental zeros,
full of nothing and nothing if not full,
speaks to his Euro mentor, Brancusi,
yet, also, seems as Zen as Zen could be,
wabi as well as sabi,
a statue that resides in a West that is also East,
Honolulu to be exact,
where Japan and America
cross in more ways than one,
a sculpture offering two sides,
an ancient rune whose tune
also declares the modern,
and we can see, too, that the smooth
is backed by the rough hewn,
balances struck and striking,
primitive, yet sophisticate,
powerful, yet simplistic,
rock that is also flesh,
containing crystals that spark light,
a sun setting on a Pacific expanse—
touching upon his mother and his father
as he often did in mind,
seeking, again,
the balance that is the everything
and the nothing at all.
It Wasn’t Poetry
it wasn't poetry, those years (summer toothsome as a ripe fruit, juice dripping down our wrists) it was trees and shadows pieces of wind blown in from the sea boats and waves and bodies it was the passion moon yellow as a smoker's tooth, palms pressed red against the sky it was voices climbing atop each other like crazed people in a locked room, a child's wail pulled from a private place it was moonlight pooling on the concrete, long oars of light, the silver odor of blood it was sentinels falling, dregs of desperation, ceasefire seizing the streets, and the future, lifetimes away, dreaming us safe Copyright 2004 by Lisa Suhair Majaj Critique by Jendi Reiter This month's critique poem, "It Wasn't Poetry" by Lisa Suhair Majaj, is a haunting evocation of a lost paradise that is sure to resonate with anyone whose beloved homeland has been torn apart... [continue]
It Would Rain on that Saturday
By Ken Allan Dronsfield
absent of pearls in a grand ocean mollusk
crying self righteousness without salty tears
seeking to find truth in an unrelenting fervor
see the dark drifting during a twilight crescendo.
dancing in the dark, or waltzing in a whirlwind
depraved and decrepit as a one legged snake
sweet tea from its spot in a cherry wood box
steeped in red clay pots amongst the ingrates.
lightning strikes throughout the lower treeline
disturbing thoughts of ambivalence in dreams
hoods in mourning whilst a crypt-like fog lifts
gates of iron grasp upon the spirit deep within.
rain hits upon leaves making a steady tapping
bare feet hit the road, a slippery slope aghast
a poncho saves the day, in a simple pious way
for we all knew it would rain, on that Saturday.
It’s In the Knowing
By Carolyn Howard-Johnson
I want to know...
how my marrow
ran in their bones. If these Cycladic figures
inspired Picasso, flat-faced; Miro,
expressionless. But Quakers
who stitched sunbonnet girls
on quilts knew Keros not at all,
nor farmers and fishers,
nor those who pillaged their ancient
shards. Mayans pulled faceless dolls
from husks of corn, never knew this one,
broken arm, vagina visible
between its open legs, harp in its lap. Still
its music melts over five millenniums
to touch me,
allow me to put
my face on its.
It’s Not About Sharks
"Let me tell you about heartache and the loss of God."
—Jim Morrison
It's about sharks and how there was no warning, No lifeguard's whistle, No dorsal fin sailing horizontal to the beach, No time to decide between flight or fight, Only sink or swim. It's about trust and finally feeling safe enough To lay back and float on the waves, Eyes closed under the sun's watchful gaze, Arms extended outward like an aquatic crucifixion. It's about pain, fear and the heart-stopping shock Of being dragged down, pulled under, Where no one can see you struggle or hear your screams. Your mouth fills with water with each "why?" and "what?" To a force you cannot yet see. It's about sharks and what they take from you, The loss of faith as you remember The moment before, how sure you were That the warmth on your face was the smile of God And the breeze his breath on your skin. It's about isolation and... [continue]
It’s War, Fadwa Says
By J.C. Todd
A cousin moved to Baghdad
from Tehran
gone
her children
gone
or all of them
missing
which may not mean
gone
but just
beyond reach
which may mean
alive.
Or not.
It's war,
Fadwa says,
and there's no fog
in her
sorrow
and clarity.
Ten years,
she says,
no word.
Wishing no one
dead
even if they are.
[Reprinted by permission of Able Muse Press]
J Journal: New Writing on Justice
This literary journal, launched in 2008, is published by a well-regarded college in the CUNY system. Contributors have included Paul Mariani, Erika Dreifus, Randall Brown, Paul Hostovsky and Kathryn Howd Machan.
James Merrill House
The James Merrill House offers workshops for adults and youth, lectures, and a writer-in-residence program.
Jane Friedman’s “MBA for Writers” Lectures
Digital publishing expert and former Writers' Digest executive Jane Friedman's blog contains a wealth of resources for professional writers. Her 6-part "MBA for Writers" online lecture series covers the principles for success in today's rapidly changing industry. You can purchase access to the whole series or individual sessions.
