Subscriber News: April 2022
Recent Honors
Congratulations to Desmond Kon Zhicheng-Mingdé. A Given Grace, the online anthology of Christian poetry that he co-edited with Eric Tinsay Valles, won the gold medal in the Digital Media category of the 2022 Illumination Christian Book Awards.
Congratulations to Barbara Regenspan. Her debut full-length poetry collection, The Chessmaster's Daughter, was recently published by Cayuga Lake Books. Barbara tells us, "I am a strong supporter of the local Tompkins County Workers' Center (they are among the original national fighters for a living wage) and I have offered the book as a fundraiser." Donate $13 or more to this upstate New York labor advocacy group, and they will send you a copy of The Chessmaster's Daughter. She kindly shares a sample poem here.
Congratulations to Harris Gardner. His second full-length poetry collection, No Time for Death, was published in February by Červená Barva Press. He kindly shares a sample poem here. Fred Marchant says, "With wry and humane wit, Gardner presents us with poetic spells or rituals that do not deny death as much as they put it in its place." Watch the book trailer on YouTube and see a video of his launch reading (38 minutes).
Congratulations to Lisa Dordal. Her second poetry collection, Water Lessons, will be published this month by Black Lawrence Press. Destiny O. Birdsong says of this book, "Beneath the obvious beauty of Lisa Dordal's poetry lies a subtle ferocity that threatens to undo the reader... In these poems, no one is truly safe, no one is truly innocent, and no one is truly gone. Water Lessons teaches us that swimming against the current of remembrance is futile."
Congratulations to Ndaba Sibanda. His story collection A Curious Moment will be published by Pen It! Publications, which also released his magical-realist novel The Immigrant with a Difference last spring. See all his books from this publisher here. This new collection includes his story "The Inferno of Madness", first published in The Polk Street Review, a science fiction tale about an interplanetary warrior who uses her super-powers to fight misogyny. Read Ndaba's story "That Day's General Knowledge Lesson" at Kalahari Review.
Congratulations to Gemma Cooper-Novack. Her poetry collection We Might As Well Be Underwater is available from Unsolicited Press. From the book blurb: "Cooper-Novack lyrically discusses family, love, death, aging, and illness through travels. The collection travels through Cape Town, Sydney, Venice, Moscow, Chicago, Antarctica, London, Tokyo, Oregon, Florida, and many more places while also uniting the world through experiences."
Congratulations to Annie Dawid. Her story "Kenny, Winking" won first prize in the 2022 Chipping Norton Literary Festival Short Story Competition. Final judge Yasmin Kane said, "An utterly compulsive read. Stunningly written from a myriad of perspectives, which simply added urgency and volumes of empathy to an already harrowing premise. It felt so authentic, it left me reeling." Prizes will be presented at a reading on April 23. In other news, Annie was interviewed on February 17 on E. Ethelbert Miller's literary podcast, WPFW On the Margin. Her unpublished novel Paradise Undone: A Novel of Jonestown was a finalist in the 2022 Screencraft Cinematic Book Competition.
Recent Publications
Winning Writers Editor Jendi Reiter's book launch reading for their poetry collection Bullies in Love can now be viewed on Little Red Tree Publishing's new YouTube channel. Subscribe to be notified of video readings from Jendi's new collection, Made Man, and other forthcoming titles from this international literary publisher.
Gail Thomas has several poetry readings coming up. On April 22 at 7:00 pm Eastern time, she will join Mary Warren Foulk, Fungai Tichawangana, Carolyn Zaikowski, and Tzynya Pinchback for a Pioneer Valley Writers' Workshop reading. On April 24 at 4:00 pm, she will join Nicole M. Young-Martin for Gallery of Readers. And on April 29 at 7:00 pm, she will participate in the in-person Perugia Press event "A Carnival of Poets" in the Big Barn at the Institute for the Musical Arts, 165 Cape Street, Goshen, MA. Gail's poem "Pulse of My Heart" was published as an Editor's Choice selection in Quartet Journal (Spring 2022), a literary magazine for women writers over 50.
Angela Paolantonio's memoir The Ghosts of Italy and the sequel Still Life With Saints are available on Amazon, Bookshop.org, and IndieBound. See book descriptions and links on her website, and visit her blog and PW BookLife page for reviews and updates. In The Ghosts of Italy, she makes a pilgrimage to live in the remote mountain village of her ancestors, a journey of self-discovery that continues in the sequel. Midwest Book Review says, "From myths and legends to romance and a form of 'reincarnated soul journey', Still Life With Saints [is]...a powerful memoir both for prior readers and newcomers interested in cross-cultural encounters and life changes."
R.T. Castleberry's poem "Leaving the Night, This Wine" was published in Stepaway Magazine, #33. His poem "Failing (at Different Intervals)" appeared in Juke Joint, #15. His story "The Summer in Secret" appeared in the Seattle Star. "A Drink to End the World" was published in Big City Lit.
Victoria Leigh Bennett's flash prose piece "The Golden Ocean" was published in Roi Fainéant in February. Alien Buddha Press will publish her essay "Scenes de la Vie Americaine (en Paris)". Visit her website Creative Shadows to download her novels.
E Baker's poem "Sonnet 415 (Father, My Baby...)", about the 1921 Tulsa massacre of Black Americans by white supremacists, was reprinted in the February 2022 newsletter from Poets for Human Rights. The poem previously won second prize in their 2019 Anita McAndrews Award. The theme of this issue was Black History Month.
Shobana Gomes has launched a new website, Shobana's Book Station, to sell her fiction and poetry e-books. Her novels include At the Dawn of First Love (Part One), about a Catholic girl's escape from the Islamic State terrorists who tortured her for eighteen years.
Andrew Mercado's collection Poetry From Behind Mental Walls is available on Amazon under his pen name Chris Smith. This book showcases his upbringing in rural and suburban America and his sojourn in a Connecticut psychiatric ward. The author says, "I want to inspire others with mental illness to do something self-fulfilling with their lives...and to help take away the negative stigma of mental illness by showing the public that people with mental illness are similar to everyone else and not 'monsters'." He kindly shares a sample poem here.
Published: April 8, 2022
