Subscriber News: August 2016
Recent Honors
Winning Writers Editor Jendi Reiter was longlisted for the 2016 Exeter Story Prize from Creative Writing Matters, for her story "Taking Down the Pear Tree". The most recent deadline was April 30 for this award with prizes up to 500 pounds and anthology publication.
Congratulations to Tim Mayo. His second full-length poetry collection, Thesaurus of Separation, was published this year by Phoenicia Publishing. He kindly shares a sample poem here. Based in Montreal, this press publishes poetry, fiction, nonfiction, art, and photography books that illuminate culture, spirit, and the human experience. In other news, Tim's poem "Shelter" appeared in Valparaiso Poetry Review, Vol. 17, #2 (2016).
Congratulations to Wim Coleman. His full-length play "The Shackles of Liberty" won the 2016 Southern Playwrights Competition. In addition to a $1,000 prize, the play will be performed by the Jacksonville State University Department of Drama as part of its 2016-2017 season. This award is open to authors from Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Virginia, or West Virginia. The next contest will open September 1. "The Shackles of Liberty" is a fictionalized account of Thomas Jefferson's last day in Paris. It focuses on his relationships with three women—his European lover Maria Cosway, his older daughter Martha ("Patsy"), and his young slave mistress Sally Hemings. "The Shackles of Liberty" was also one of two finalists for the 2015 Maxim Mazumdar New Plays Competition and a semifinalist for this year's Ashland New Plays Festival. His short play "When the Wolfbane Blooms" won third Prize in this year’s Winston-Salem Writers' 10-Minute Play Contest, and two of his plays were presented in the Cary Playwrights Forum PlaySlam! in April. Visit the Plays on Ideas website to learn more about his dramatic works and books co-written with his wife, Pat Perrin, also a Winning Writers subscriber.
Congratulations to Brett Busang. His novel I Shot Bruce was published in February by Open Books. From the publisher's website: "Set in London, beginning in the early sixties and spanning five decades, I Shot Bruce follows Vijay Asunder, a rock-and-roll wannabe who, many decades after he is spurned by the manager of a singing group that eventually becomes world-famous, finally decides that he must kill the one person that symbolizes the success that has eluded him, his replacement...Conceived loosely on the untimely dismissal and subsequent life of Pete Best, the so-called 'fifth Beatle', Asunder's perspective and his ultimate commitment to retribution differs markedly from Ringo Starr's predecessor. Intelligent and intense, I Shot Bruce chronicles and dramatizes obsession to the point of self-destruction."
Congratulations to Carol Smallwood. Her piece "We Select" received an honorable mention in the 2016 Ultra-Short Competition from The Binnacle, the literary journal of the University of Maine at Machias. Over 850 entries were received for this free contest for short poems and flash prose, with $300 total prizes; the most recent submission period was December 1-March 15. Carol says she found this contest via our site: "The free contest listing is a very valuable service to writers especially when submission fees are increasingly the norm. Thank you, Winning Writers!" In addition, she was recently added to Wikipedia as a prizewinning American poet, fiction and nonfiction writer, and editor. Her books include the novel Lily's Odyssey (All Things That Matter Press, 2010).
Congratulations to Joan Leotta. Her second picture book, Summer in a Bowl, will be released in September by THEAQ Publishing. Based on the author's aunt, it is a story about cooking with family, and includes a recipe for soup made from garden vegetables.
Recent Publications
Zachary Perry's novel A Trail to a Vision is currently available on Amazon Kindle (free for Kindle Unlimited members). From the book blurb: "Ryann was a proud 20 year old lesbian. She received criticism and abuse from all angles, but this never weakened her ambition. Ryann dropped out of college to work on her first novel, while searching for her missing sister, Mary. She was joined by Mary's ex-boyfriend, Ed, a cunning drug addict with an appetite for disaster. The duo took a road trip from NJ to CA in an attempt to find an answer."
James K. Zimmerman's poems "Evolution", "Peregrine", and "Immunosuppression" were published at Eco-Poetry, an online anthology focused on climate change and saving our planet.
Margaret Gish Miller's debut poetry collection, Blood Moon Weather, is available from Amazon. The poems depict the bond between sisters who survived incest. She kindly shares a sample poem here. The book was favorably reviewed in July by Ed Bennett in the online journal Quill & Parchment. Bennett writes: "Reading this book is like crossing a mountain range. The ascent is difficult and there is always the temptation to turn back. Once the apex is reached, the descent became easier."
Madeleine McDonald's short-short story "A Grave Matter" was published July 8 on the website Pound of Flash, a project of Kind of a Hurricane Press.
Gloria Mindock will be reading from her new poetry collection, Whiteness of Bone (Glass Lyre Press, 2016), with Kevin Gallagher at Grolier Poetry Bookshop, 6 Plympton Street, Cambridge, MA, at 7:00 p.m. on September 16. See the book's Facebook page for additional upcoming readings this fall.
Vivian Khan's poetry collection Spectrum is available from Amazon (UK). Born in rural Wales, she writes about her beloved homeland and her travels in Pakistan, India, South Africa and the Galapagos islands.
Helen Bar-Lev's Italian landscape painting will be included in an art exhibit opening 11:00 a.m. local time September 17 at the Chagall Artists House, 24 HaZionut Avenue, Haifa, Israel. She will also participate in an afternoon and evening program of poetry readings. Read an article in Haaretz about the show. See samples of her work on her website. She kindly shares a poem about her Italian travels here.
Published: August 7, 2016
