Subscriber News: June 2015
Recent Honors
Congratulations to Winning Writers Assistant Editor Ellen LaFleche. Her poem "Prayer for the Insanity of Grief" won an honorable mention in the 2015 Robinson Jeffers Tor House Prize for Poetry, judged by Marilyn Chin. Approximately 850 entries were received for this $1,000 prize, whose most recent deadline was March 15.
Congratulations to Silvia Curbelo. Her second full-length poetry collection, Falling Landscape, was recently published by Anhinga Press. W.S. Merwin says of this collection: "Silvia Curbelo's poetry is accomplished, daring, full of energy and intelligence; it is the generous manifestation of an authentic and original gift. Her poems embody imaginative honesty and a free-ranging and fresh sensibility." She kindly shares a sample poem here. Silvia says, "Thanks for your newsletter. It is an amazing resource, and I never miss reading one!"
Congratulations to Kate Sebeny. Her mystery novella The Last Best Thing was published by Kellan Publishing. In this novella, a murder in a private retirement community tests the friendships of a close-knit group of residents. Visit her website to learn more about her work.
Congratulations to Wendy Waters. Her debut novel, Catch the Moon, Mary, will be published this fall by Linen Press, an Edinburgh-based small press for women writers. Catch the Moon, Mary is the story of a young musician and the dark angel who falls in love with her and will kill to ensure her success.
Congratulations to Norbert Hirschhorn. His poem "The Disappeared" won a Highly Commended award in the 2015 Torriano Poetry Competition. He kindly shares it with us here. This contest from Torriano Meeting House, an arts and culture center in London, gives prizes up to 250 pounds; the most recent deadline was January 30. In other news, his poem "Even If He Can't Answer" was Commended in the 2015 Hippocrates Prize for Poetry and Medicine. This contest gives prizes up to 5,000 pounds for poems on a medical theme; entries for the 2016 award are open now through January 31.
Congratulations to Carmine Dandrea. His poetry collection Once in Korea: An Odyssey was recently released by FootHills Publishing. This is his third book from FootHills, following Undertaking the American Dream (2008) and Trying On America (2011). Read samples from all these works on his author page on the press's website.
Congratulations to Thelma T. Reyna. As Poet Laureate of Altadena, CA, she compiled an anthology of 60 California poets, including three Poets Laureate and 14 multiple-award-winning writers. Altadena Poetry Review: Anthology 2015 was published by Golden Foothills Press and is available on Amazon.com.
Congratulations to E.E. King. She won first prize in the 2014 Gemini Magazine Flash Fiction Contest for "The Night My Father Danced Like Fred Astaire". This $1,000 prize is currently open to submissions through August 31. Evie's writing has been included in the anthologies The Big Book of New Short Horror (Pill Hill Press, 2011) and Now Write! Science Fiction, Fantasy and Horror: Speculative Genre Exercises from Today's Best Writers and Teachers (Tarcher, 2014), among others. Read a recent interview with her on Jane Friedman's publishing blog.
Congratulations to Rick Lupert. A book of his new and selected poems, Making Love to the 50 Ft. Woman: Poems 1998-2015, was recently published by Rothco Press. Read sample poems here. Watch the video performance of his poem "Clichés Gone Bad". Rick will be the featured reader in the Saturday Afternoon Poetry Series at the Pasadena Library, Santa Catalina Branch, 999 E. Washington Blvd, Pasadena, CA, on June 20 at 3:00 PM Pacific Time.
Congratulations to Cathy Bryant and Adam Phillips. They won first and third prize, respectively, in the Baltimore Science Fiction Society's 2015 Poetry Contest. This contest for science fiction, fantasy, and horror poetry gives awards up to $100; the most recent deadline was March 1. Adam kindly shares his poem here.
Recent Publications
Winning Writers Editor Jendi Reiter's new poetry collection Bullies in Love (Little Red Tree Publishing, 2015) was favorably reviewed by Carol Smallwood at The Commonline Journal. "Ms. Reiter's free verse poetry is gutsy, bold, direct, and very contemporary but not devoid of humor...I recalled the word, fractal, after reading Bullies in Love: a term applied to a type of geometry that allowed us to get a better grasp of our natural world that isn't arranged in the straight lines of Euclidean geometry. Ms. Reiter's poems strive to give form through words to lives that follow irregular lines and are as complex as the never-ending patterns of fractals."
Robert Walton's story "Lulu Garlic, Contraband", an excerpt from his Civil War novel Dawn Drums (Moonlight Mesa Associates, 2013), was broadcast on the NPR affiliate KVPR in their Valley Writers Read series. Listen to the one-hour podcast here. In other news, his story "Steam Whistle" was published in Kids' Book Review.
Trish Hopkinson's poem "Waiting Around" was published at Voicemail Poems. In March, she was interviewed in the Featured Friday series at The Fem, a feminist online literary magazine. The interview discussed her poetry and her blog where she posts opportunities for creative writers. She was also a featured artist in April at The Rain, Party, & Disaster Society, where she shared a unique method of discovering themes to organize a collection of poems.
Robert Iulo's short story "Francine" was published in the online journal HYPERtext. This is his first fiction publication. His essay "Olga, Mama and Mugsey" appeared in Puppy Love 2015: An Anthology Celebrating Our Canine Friends. Proceeds from the sale of this book support Michigan No Kill Shelters.
Scott Ennis created a short film of his sonnet "Dichotomies of the Olympic Peninsula", which was featured in the 2015 River and Ocean Film Festival at the Rainforest Arts Center in Forks, WA.
Charlotte Mandel's Through a Garden Gate (David Robert Books, 2015), her new poetry collection illustrated with photographs by Vincent Covello, was favorably reviewed by Sander Zulauf in Poets' Quarterly. Her previous collection, Life Work (David Robert Books, 2013), was profiled in Portage Magazine.
Charlie Bondhus's poem "The Abortionist" was published in the Emerson Review.
David Kherdian was profiled in The Journal Times (Racine, WI) about his new memoir Root River Return (Beech Hill Publishing Company, 2015), which describes his childhood in Racine's Armenian-American community.
Terri Kirby Erickson and Dr. Fred Foote were the featured presenters at a program about poetry and trauma healing on May 19 at the Lewisville Library in North Carolina. Foote is the author of Medic Against Bomb: A Doctor’s Poetry of War, and works with the Warrior Poetry Project at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center in Bethesda, MD. Erickson has written four collections of poetry, including her most recent, A Lake of Light and Clouds (Press 53, 2014). The program was profiled in the Winston-Salem Journal newspaper. Book sales at the event supported the Green Road Project, a healing garden for veterans. In other news, former US Poet Laureate Ted Kooser selected her poem "Hospital Parking Lot" for his May 18 column at American Life in Poetry, a project of the Poetry Foundation.
Published: June 9, 2015
