Subscriber News: February 2018
Recent Honors
Congratulations to Francine Witte. Her poetry collection Café Crazy was published in January by Kelsay Books. She kindly shares a sample poem here. Cultural Weekly's poetry editor Alexis Rhone Fancher says of this book, "Witte's skill lies in her willingness to go deep, and to spare no one... These brave poems rise like the phoenix from the ashes."
Congratulations to Robert Walton. His Civil War novel Dawn Drums (Moonlight Mesa Associates, 2013) won first prize for historical fiction in the 2017 Readers Choice Awards from TCK Publishing. Read more about Robert's writing for children and adults on his website. In other news, his story "Uriah" and his poem "Shivering Angels" were published in Assisi, the literary journal of St. Francis College in Brooklyn, NY.
Congratulations to James W. Gaynor. His poetry collection Everything Becomes a Poem (Nemeton Press, 2016) was honored in the 2017 American Graphic Design Awards for the book design by Kelly Duke McKinley of Pak Creative. This award series is sponsored by Graphic Design USA, a business-to-business information source for design professionals. Find out about their competitions here. In other news, Gaynor's poetry collection Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice in 61 Haiku (1,037 Syllables!) was published by Nemeton Press in October 2017 and profiled by Gabrielle Pantera in British Weekly, a California-based journal of Anglophile culture, on February 2. From the interview: "I soon realized that the first line's fame has, in a way, cast a shadow over all the other chapters' first lines... I began to wonder if the 61 chapter-opening lines of Pride and Prejudice could, in fact, be the basis for a series of haiku. If each sentence was a kind of short poem, why couldn't it be translated into that short, classic form of Japanese poetry? There is something wonderful and powerful in the format."
Congratulations to Scott A. Winkler. His novel The Meadow will be released April 27 by Peregrino Press, a Catholic literary press that recently became an imprint of TitleTown Publishing. The book is available in hardcover, paperback, e-book, and audiobook formats. Visit Scott's website to learn more. Set in America's heartland in the late 1960s, The Meadow explores the consequences of invisible wounds. Walter Neumann struggles to accept his father's vision for him: to serve in the Army as he'd served in World War II, not attend college as Walt dreams of doing. When a family tragedy prompts the revelation of secrets Walt's parents have kept buried for years, these secrets, and the wounds they re-open, threaten to shatter Walt's world.
Congratulations to Sheryl Clough. Her poetry chapbook Poul na Brone: In the Hollow of the Millstone was published in November 2017 by Flutter Press. She kindly shares a sample poem here. Award-winning poet Ellaraine Lockie says of this collection, "Both contemporary and historical Ireland come to life through Sheryl Clough's masterful linguistic abilities...Lyrical marries imagistic in social commentary rich in culture from the homeless, the pub, symbols, wars, famous writers and storied citizens to the haunting beauty of art and landscapes 'unchanged through time’s folded embrace.'"
Congratulations to Jill Hoffman. Her poem-memoir The Gates of Pearl was released in January by Box Turtle Press. The hybrid narrative alternates Hoffman's poems with diary entries by her mother, Pearl, leading up to the latter's death from cancer. The book launch reading will take place on April 16 at 7:00 pm at McNally Jackson Books, 52 Prince Street, New York, NY. The event will also feature Dell Lemmon reading from her collection A Single Woman (Box Turtle Press, 2016).
Congratulations to Gary Beck. His poetry collection Blossoms of Decay was released in January by UK-based Wordcatcher Publishing. The themes in this collection include politics, contemporary America, and teenage bullying. Also last month, his short story collection Now I Accuse was published by Winter Goose Publishing. A former theater director and art dealer, Gary is the author of over two dozen published poetry books, chapbooks, novels, and short story collections.
Recent Publications
Mary Freericks' poetry collection Blue Watermelon is available from Amazon.com. The book chronicles her girlhood in Iran under the Shah, as the daughter of an Armenian Christian father and Russian Jewish mother.
Nancy Louise Lewis' poetry collection Girl Flying Kite is available from Amazon.com. From the book blurb: "Lewis features poems that came from a childhood spent in Appalachia and her other life experiences. She deals with sexual abuse, questions pre-conceived ideas about the world around us, and experiments with language in her works."
Terry Hynes' book Stories That Rhyme and Sometimes Amuse is available from Amazon in e-book edition. It is a collection of mostly rhyming stories, in the tradition of Robert Service and Rudyard Kipling.
Mike Tuohy's story "Too Much Experience" was published in the first print issue of Alcyone, a journal of speculative fiction and poetry. Mike says, "This story is about a cultural anthropologist who explores alternate realities for musicians who died young in our own to harvest the music we missed. His prime target is Jimi Hendrix."
J.C. Todd's poem "Doubling Back" appeared in the Ekphrastic Review in January. Her poem "Who's Missing" was published in Valparaiso Poetry Review and will be reprinted in the anthology More Challenges for the Delusional, edited by Ona Gritz and Daniel Simpson (Diode Editions, 2018). This anthology is a craft book based on prompts and exercises for generating writing developed by Peter Murphy in his role as a writing teacher. It includes work by well-known authors such as Kim Addonizio, Tony Hoagland, Dorianne Laux, Mimi Schwartz, and Pulitzer Prize winner Stephen Dunn.
Kathleen Spivack will be offering a poetry writing workshop in Paris this June through WICE Creative Writing Program. To sign up, visit their website, or email program director Dmitri Keramitas at creativewriting@wice-paris.org or dkeramitas@aol.com. An award-winning poet and fiction writer, Kathleen's published works include the novel Unspeakable Things (Knopf, 2016) and the literary history/memoir With Robert Lowell and His Circle (Northeastern University Press, 2012). Visit her Facebook page for more information.
Rick Lupert's poetry collection 17 Holy Syllables: A Haiku for Every Aliyah of Every Torah Portion can be downloaded from his Poetry Super Highway website for $5, or free with purchase of his collection God Wrestler: A Poem for Every Torah Portion.
Diane Frank, editor of Blue Light Press, and 11-year-old poet Pearl Werbach, author of What the Wind Taught Me (Blue Light Press, 2017), will be reading their poetry and leading a workshop on "How to Teach Poetry to Young Writers" on Sunday, February 18, at 9:00 a.m., at the San Francisco Writers' Conference. The event will be in the California Room at the Mark Hopkins Hotel, 999 California Street (at Mason), San Francisco, CA. The conference is not free, but this session and some others are open to the public. Diane's newest book is Canon for Bears and Ponderosa Pines (Glass Lyre Press, 2018).
Published: February 6, 2018
