Subscriber News: January 2018
Recent Honors
Congratulations to Gail Thomas. Her poem "Wisteria" won first prize in the 2017 Naugatuck River Review Narrative Poetry Contest, judged by Kaveh Akbar. This contest gives prizes up to $1,000; the most recent submission period was July 1-September 1. In other news, radio station WOUB in Athens, Ohio broadcasted Gail's poetry reading at poet and teacher Wendy McVicker's outdoor festival in Nelsonville, Ohio. The program can be streamed on Soundcloud here. Gail will be reading with Joy Ladin and Lesléa Newman at 7:00 pm on Wednesday, January 17, at Forbes Library, 20 West Street, Northampton, MA, in a program titled "Midwinter Fire: Poetry of Midlife".
Congratulations to Helga Gruendler-Schierloh. Her debut novel, Burying Leo, was recently published by Laurel Highlands Press. The novel explores a woman's recovery from a sexual assault that derailed her singing career.
Congratulations to Joan Leotta. Her poem "Quilt" won the bronze medal in the North Carolina Silver Arts Literary Division. She tells Winning Writers, "Thanks to your support of my work, I also took a chance on another venue for my 10-minute play, "Pinpoint Wisdom", and it will be produced in Luray, VA in the spring!" Visit Joan's website to find out about her Legacy of Honor historical novel series, poetry, and books for children.
Congratulations to Stephen Weinstock. His novel The Qaraq and the Subversive Manuscript, the third book in 1001: The Reincarnation Series, received finalist awards in the New Age and Multicultural Fiction categories of the 2017 American Book Fest Best Book Awards.
Congratulations to Nick Korolev. His novel Ghost of a Chance was published by Mockingbird Lane Press in November 2017. Ghost of a Chance is a political satire about a third-party presidential candidate who receives unexpected help from the ghost of Theodore Roosevelt.
Congratulations to Annie Dawid. Her short story "Icarus" won the October 2017 Monthly Muse Contest from New Millennium Writings. This month's themed prompt was "Friendship". Winners receive publication on the website and in a print anthology. Annie's story "June in December" was published in the holiday issue of Windmill: The Hofstra Journal of Literature and Art. Her story "Toast" was published in January at Fictive Dream. Tap Traders, a new pub in Colorado Springs, featured Annie's artwork in the dining area this month.
Congratulations to Lesléa Newman. Her poetry collection Lovely was published this month by Headmistress Press. In Solstice Literary Magazine's Winter 2017 issue, reviewer Jennifer Martelli said, "Lovely is a celebration of a woman's life, or of women's lives. Lesléa Newman confronts the physical and emotional shame of aging, of sexual restrictions, of a finite lifespan. The poems satisfy and delight with their completeness, even when exalting the most broken parts of us." In other news, a musical based on her short story "A Letter to Harvey Milk" will debut Off-Broadway at Theatre Row's Acorn Theatre (410 W. 42nd Street), beginning performances on February 21, opening on March 6, and running through May 13, 2018.
Congratulations to Phylis Campbell Dryden. Her story "Woman-with-Bump-on-Her-Nose", a whimsical treatment of her Iroquois ancestry, won an honorable mention for fiction in the 2017 Able Muse Write Prize, judged by Jill Alexander Essbaum. This annual contest gives prizes up to $500 for poetry and flash fiction. The 2018 contest is open now through March 15.
Recent Publications
Anna Scotti's poem "Sheba" was published in the December 18 issue of The New Yorker.
Janet Ruth Heller's poem "A Day Off" appeared in Jewish Currents, a progressive magazine of culture and activism, in their Jewish New Year Supplement (September 2017). Her poems "Dad's Yahrzeit", "Bald Eagle", and "Bird Bingo" were published in the anthology They Gave Us Life: Celebrating Mothers, Fathers and Others in Haiku, edited by Robert Epstein (Middle Island Press, 2017). Her poem "The Long Winter of 2014" was published in Encore (March 2017). Her poems "Becoming a Woman" and "Obsession" were published in the anthology Bared: Contemporary Poetry and Art on Bras and Breasts, edited by Laura Madeline Wiseman (Les Femmes Folles Books, 2017). She kindly shares "Obsession" here.
Evelyn Krieger's essay "Who By Fire" was published in December in Hippocampus Magazine.
Lance Johnson's play Taming the Male Chauvinist was selected for inclusion in the 2018 Playwriting Symposium's 10-Minute Play Festival of the Mid-America Theatre Conference. Taming the Male Chauvinist, set in 1947, was excerpted from Johnson's longer work, Community Service, which won an award from Pacific Palisades Theater in Southern California and was staged by that theater in 2016. The National Marine Corps Heritage Foundation honored it "for a distinguished play or screenplay...dealing with U.S. Marine Corps heritage." To honor the play and playwright, an engraved brick was placed in Semper Fi Park adjacent to the Museum in Quantico, VA. Chauvinist was also honored by The Players Theater in Sarasota, FL, in November 2017 and was produced in 2016 for an off-Broadway production in New York City. Find out more about Lance's work here.
Lana Rafaela Cindric's book This Is How You Survive, a poetry collection about overcoming tragedy and devising your own narrative, is available from Amazon. She kindly shares a sample poem here.
Rick Lupert will be a Featured Poet at the 26th annual Austin International Poetry Festival, April 5-8, 2018. See a video of his poem "New Potato" from his book Professor Clown on Parade (Rothco Press, 2016), a poetic travelogue of New England.
R.T. Castleberry's poems "A Failure of Light" and "A Complaint About the Moon" were published at Moonchild Magazine in October.
Ellaraine Lockie's poems "The Long Flight of Fancy" and "La Géante" were published in December at The Ekphrastic Review, a journal of creative writing inspired by visual art. Two poems with a New York City theme, "The Weight of Water" and "The Farmer's Daughter Defines Art", were published in the Winter 2017 issue of The Long Island Literary Journal.
Published: January 9, 2018
