Subscriber News: July 2015
Recent Honors
Congratulations to Paul Fericano. His latest poetry collection, The Hollywood Catechism, was published this spring by Silver Birch Press. From the publisher's blurb: "Paul Fericano shines a bright searchlight on our addiction to pop culture, our fixation on celebrity worship, and our suspicion of religious ideas...Fericano's unique perspective is marked by a skill and talent that blends socio-political satire with suffering and sentiment." He kindly shares a sample poem here.
Congratulations to Berwyn Moore. A selection of her poems won the 2015 James Dickey Prize for Poetry and will be published in the literary journal Five Points. The most recent submission period for this $1,000 prize was September 1-December 1.
Congratulations to Ruth Thompson. Her poetry chapbook Crazing was recently published by Saddle Road Press. She kindly shares a sample poem here. She will be reading from the collection on August 4 from 7:00-9:00 PM at The Brooklyn Cottage, 301 Sterling Place, Prospect Heights, Brooklyn, NY. Other readers at the event will include Don Mitchell, Elana Bell, and Breena Clarke.
Congratulations to Alberta Nassi. Her essay "First Love" won an honorable mention for nonfiction in the 39th New Millennium Writings Awards. This twice-yearly contest gives prizes up to $1,000 for poetry, fiction, essays, and flash fiction. The deadlines are November 17 (typically extended to January 31) and June 17 (typically extended to July 31).
Congratulations to Robert Savino. He was appointed Suffolk County (NY) Poet Laureate for 2015-17. The Long Island poet is the author of Inside a Turtle Shell (Allbook Books, 2009).
Congratulations to The Poet Spiel. His short fiction collection Dirty Sheets: 28 Stories of Passion, Pathos and Payback was recently published by Rain Mountain Press. Read an excerpt from the story "Fraying". Poet and critic Michael McIrvin says of this collection, "The Poet Spiel, a renowned painter under another name [Thoss W. Taylor], has hit a sweet spot of sorts, achieved an exemplary visual artist's genre that combines, or rather is by turns, short fiction or flash fiction or prose poetry. I say an artist’s genre because of the extraordinary details he uses, the kind of 'poetic' details (for lack of a better term) that make a poem and make fiction much more than it would be without said details. His eye for the minutiae that intensify a scene, a character, the world is in fact nothing short of astonishing, and these little fictions are filled with damned interesting stuff as a result."
Congratulations to Peter Stavros. His story "Sadie Says We Have to Leave" was published in the online journal Fiction Southeast as a finalist for their 2015 Editors' Prize. The most recent submission period for this $100 award was January 1-May 1.
Congrats to Deb Elkink. Her short story "Thaw" received a certificate of honor in the Word Awards, a contest for Canadian Christian writers sponsored by The Word Guild. The most recent submission period was October 15-January 15, for work published or self-published in the year prior to the deadline. "Thaw" was first published at Winning Writers as an honorable mention in the 2014 Tom Howard/John H. Reid Fiction & Essay Contest.
Recent Publications
Annie Whitehead's novel To Be a Queen was an Editor's Choice for Summer 2015 on the Historical Novel Society's website. It is the story of Aethelflaed, daughter of Alfred the Great, who was the only female leader of an Anglo-Saxon kingdom.
Jeannine Hall Gailey's poem "Advice from the Robot Scientist's Daughter" was featured on Verse Daily on June 10, from her collection The Robot Scientist's Daughter (Mayapple Press, 2015). Her poem "The One-Armed Swan Sister" appeared in Faerie Magazine, Issue #31.
Diana Anhalt's poem "Lament" was published in Red Paint Hill, Issue #7.
Annie Dawid's story "The Hero's Son" was published in the the June-December 2015 issue of Poetica Magazine's eStory Edition, a twice-yearly online collection of contemporary Jewish short fiction.
Lesléa Newman's article "Married Once (or Twice) and For All", a reflection on the Supreme Court's decision for marriage equality, was published July 6 at the Huffington Post.
Published: July 8, 2015