Subscriber News: August 2021
Recent Honors
Winning Writers Editor Jendi Reiter's poem "All Cakes Are Bastards" was one of five finalists in the poetry category of the 2021 Solstice Lit Mag Writing Contest judged by Tim Seibles, and was published in the Summer 2021 issue. The most recent deadline for this $500 prize was May 25.
Congratulations to Ellaraine Lockie. Her poem "An American Haibun" won the Masters Poetry Contest from Oprelle Publications. She received $1,500 and publication of 20 of her poems in the forthcoming winners' anthology. Other Winning Writers subscribers who placed in this contest were S. Erin Batiste with third prize for "Glory to All Fleeting Things"; Dean Gessie with fourth prize for "Eel Boy"; Cathy Miller with fifth prize for "the wine ring on the tabletop"; and Joan Leotta with honorable mention for "Dragonflies after the Flood". Read all the prizewinners here. In other news, Ellaraine's poem "Last Crops", from her chapbook Stroking David's Leg (Foothills Publishing, 2009), was featured on Your Daily Poem.
Congratulations to Cris Mulvey. Her second poetry chapbook, Measureless Silence, will be published by Finishing Line Press in November and is now available for pre-order. Cris says, "My profits from pre-order sales will go to the Glacier-Two Medicine Alliance, a group working to preserve Glacier National Park and its environs, with a special focus on the watersheds of the Badger and the Two Medicine rivers, two of the headwaters of the entire river system of the North American continent. The Badger Two Medicine is the traditional hunting, medicine and vision quest land for the Blackfeet Confederacy, a group of tribes now separated by the US/Canada border." She kindly shares a sample poem here.
Congratulations to Lilianne Milgrom. Her novel L'Origine: The secret life of the world's most erotic masterpiece won the 2021 U.S. Selfies Book Award for adult fiction. This award series, co-sponsored by Publishers Weekly and Booklife, honors the year's best self-published books in adult and children's literature categories. L'Origine was also the recipient of a 2020 Foreword Reviews silver medal and a first prize in the 2020 IndieReader Discovery Awards. The novel centers on the creation and cultural impact of 19th-century French painter Gustave Courbet's painting "L'Origine du Monde". Visit Liliane's website to learn more.
Congratulations to Carey Link. Two of her poetry chapbooks were published this year. I Walk a Frayed Tightrope Without a Safety Net was released by Finishing Line Press in March, and To Light a House of Bones came out from Blue Light Press in June. She kindly shares a poem from the latter collection here, inspired by Turkish photographer Leyla Emektar's documentary project "Sezer's Diary" about a wheelchair-using child. Carey says, "There is an annual international diversity awareness exhibit hosted in Sarasota, Florida called Embracing Our Differences. Artwork and original quotes are submitted from around the world to be considered for the exhibit. I submitted my words: 'I am not defined by an inanimate object. Look at me, not my wheelchair.' I am honored that my quote was paired with Sezer’s picture, to be part of the exhibition this year."
Congratulations to Trent Busch. His poetry collection West Virginians was recently published by Cyberwit. In addition, his poems "Injury" and "Mother's Voices" appeared in the online anthology Atelier of Healing, a collection of poems about trauma and recovery, edited by Desmond Kon and Eric Valles.
Congratulations to Jacquie May Miller. Her novel The Price of Secrets was published in April by The Wild Rose Press. In this novel, a woman cast out of her family for an unplanned pregnancy returns home with her now-grown son to confront his father. Visit her website to learn more.
Congratulations to William Luvaas. The Corona Chronicles, an anthology of COVID-19 stories that he edited, has been published as a free e-book by the literary journal Cutthroat.
Congratulations to David Olsen. His third and fourth full-length poetry collections were recently published in the UK. After Hopper & Lange (Oversteps Books) narrates and interprets paintings and documentary photographs of the 1930s and 1940s. He kindly shares a sample poem here. Nocturnes (Dempsey & Windle) consists mostly of poems revealing the mysteries of the night. Visit his website to see all of his books.
Recent Publications
Winning Writers contest judge Denne Michele Norris was interviewed in Publishers Weekly about her new job as Editor-in-Chief of Electric Literature. Denne will be the first Black and openly transgender editor-in-chief of a major US literary publication. She envisions the notable online journal as "a home for writers and stories that are pushing the cultural conversation forward, as opposed to reacting and responding to it."
John Shore's serialized novel Make 'Em Laugh, a stand-alone sequel to Everywhere She's Not, is now available to read exclusively on Kindle Vella, a mobile-first platform for episodic fiction. From the book description: "When Kate, the love of his life, suddenly left San Francisco, David did the natural thing (for him): he became a stand-up comic. Over a year later he's on his first cross-country comedy tour with two other comedians: Maggie, a former fundamentalist Christian who's now a comic sensation, and Lyle, a veteran stand-up whose current acting gig on a hit sitcom has brought him top-tier celebrity. David's shrink encouraged David to keep a journal throughout this tour. This is that journal."
William Huhn's poem "Blue Corn Pancakes" was published in 34th Parallel Magazine. His poem "Cast in Herculaneum" was published in Grey Sparrow Journal
Judy Juanita's poem "Up Up and Away" was published on July 26 in The New Verse News, a progressive political poetry website.
Terri Kirby Erickson's poem "New Bathing Suit", from her collection A Sun Inside My Chest (Press 53, 2020), was the featured poem in American Life in Poetry for the week of June 28.
R.T. Castleberry's poems "Walking Out", "The Season We Knew Sickness", "As She Talks Me Out of Falling in Love," "Maybe You'll Stay Longer Than the Hour", and "Stole My Coat Blues" were published in Writing Disorder in March. "Still a Stranger (When I Leave)", "People Tell Me Things", "The Curiosities of Decline", and "Our Beautiful Coats" were published in the Hamilton Stone Review, Issue 44 (Spring 2021). "Just to Waste the Morning" was published in As It Ought to Be Magazine. "The Silence in Falling", "The Cold, Half-Lit World", "To Beauty, Unfamiliar", "Everything You Do to Leave", and "Leaving the War" were published in Literary Yard in May. His work will also appear in the anthology Level Land: Poems for and About the I-35 Corridor.
Published: August 9, 2021
