Subscriber News: March 2024
Recent Honors
Congratulations to Joan Gelfand. Her memoir Outside Voices: A Memoir of the Berkeley Revolution was published in January by Post Hill Press, an imprint of Simon & Schuster. Outside Voices tells her story of coming of age as a writer and feminist in the 1970s, as she processes the loss of her father and questions her Jewish upbringing. She was interviewed about the inspiration for her book in SF Gate's Bay City Books column in January. Outside Voices also made it onto Amazon's Hot New Releases list on its publication date, as well as hitting bestseller status in several categories, and was reviewed in Publishers Weekly. Visit her website's Events page for upcoming readings in Berkeley, Seattle, Los Angeles and NYC.
Congratulations to AT Hincapie. His poetry manuscript What Survives a Fire was a finalist for the 2023 Helena Whitehill Book Award from Tupelo Press. The most recent submission period for this $1,000 prize for manuscripts of poetry or creative nonfiction was August 15-October 31.
Congratulations to James K. Zimmerman. His poetry collection The Further Adventures of Zen Patriarch Dōgen will be published this month by The Poetry Box. The poems are inspired by the life and teachings of Dōgen Zenji, a thirteenth-century Japanese monk credited with bringing Chan Buddhism to Japan and founding the Sōto school of Zen. He kindly shares a sample poem here.
Congratulations to Sue Fagalde Lick. Her poetry collection Blue Chip Stamp Guitar is forthcoming from The Poetry Box. This collection recounts how a cheap guitar that she owned as a teenager has been her faithful companion through the loves and losses of adulthood.
Congratulations to Emily-Sue Sloane. Her poetry collection Disconnects and Other Broken Threads is forthcoming from The Poetry Box. "The poems’ directness about suffering, loss and injustice tears at our hearts and asks us to recognize what needs healing or that we must grieve bravely what may never be healed. Sloane sees, feels and speaks with honesty that will not accept the glib comfort of pretense," writes poet-activist Scudder Parker about this collection.
Congratulations to Cedar Koons. Her novel Murder at Sleeping Tiger, the first installment of her Sheriff Ulysses Walker series, tied for first prize in the Best Mystery category of the 2023 Next Generation Indie Book Awards. Book two in the series, A Thirst for Murder, was released this month. From the book description: "Sheriff Walker of Taos, New Mexico is cruising to re-election when a prominent acequia commissioner is murdered in an apparent dispute over water rights, followed by two other murders also related to water, a contentious issue in arid northern New Mexico. Before long Ulysses is investigating violence and corruption with roots deep in New Mexico politics going back to the bad old days of the notorious Santa Fe Ring." Find all of Cedar's fiction, poetry, and nonfiction books on her website.
Congratulations to P.M. Flynn. His poetry collection Shadows on Moss was released in January by Wipf and Stock. He kindly shares a sample poem here. From the book description: "Shadows on Moss is full of bamboo, toys, churches, road trips, graves, angels, mannequins, shadows, valentines, and trees galore, or where an opera, pool halls, seagulls, storms, divorce, the center of the universe, and new worlds are found." Geoffrey Gatza, publisher of BlazeVOX, says: "Shadows on Moss by P. M. Flynn is as accomplished as it is expansive in its vision of what poetry can be. From a humorous retelling of Eliot's 'The Waste Land,' to heartfelt poems that converge around the center of the universe, Flynn engages the absurdities of life, imagination, relationships, boundaries, and belonging with a unique mythic resonance. At once steely and familiar, these poems invite us to sit with the world in all its beauty and contradictions."
Congratulations to Terri Kirby Erickson. Her poem "Magician, with Parkinson's" won the 2023 Board of Regents Annals Poetry Prize. The poem had been published in Annals of Internal Medicine (June 2023), one of the most widely cited medical journals in the world. The prize is awarded to the best poem published in Annals each year. The editors said, "The Annals Poetry Prize was established and funded by the American College of Physicians' Board of Regents in 2011. This is the first time all three judges selected the same poem as their first choice." Terri will be reading this winning poem and other poems from her most recent collection, Night Talks: New & Selected Poems (Press 53), at The Bookhouse, 120 Reynolda Village, Winston-Salem, NC, on Saturday, April 6, at 6:00 p.m. Eastern time.
Recent Publications
Winning Writers Editor Jendi Reiter's poems "Kill Your Darlings" and "Commendatore", from their series of poems about characters on "The Sopranos", were published in Lammergeier, Issue 16 (Winter 2024). Jendi was interviewed in this issue as their featured poet. In other news, Jendi's poems "Satisfaction" and "Reading 'Sexuality Beyond Consent' with My Cat'" were published in Action, Spectacle (Winter 2023, Part II).
Richard Eric Johnson's literary work will be archived in the Vietnam Veterans Collection at La Salle University's Connelly Library Special Collections. Richard says, "It is a great honor to have my work archived alongside so many wonderful authors who served in Viet Nam and have gone on to write, paint, sing and speak of their experiences in Viet Nam and so much more as well. I am always in awe of all that you do and the incredible track record of Winning Writers."
Gail Thomas will be a panelist on "The Poetry of Aging: A Reading and Discussion" along with fellow poets Owen Lewis, Doug Anderson, and Martha Rhodes, and Dr. Robert Abrams, Professor of Psychiatry in Geriatric Medicine. The event will be held twice: Friday, April 5, at 4:00 pm, at Forbes Library, 20 West Street, Northampton, MA, and Saturday, April 6, at 4:00 pm, at the Stockbridge Library, 46 Main Street, Stockbridge, MA.
R.T. Castleberry's poem "The Current Situation" was published in The Loch Raven Review. "An Inconvenient Destination" and "A Wariness in Eden" appeared in Dissident Voice. "These Things Need to Be Said", "Shedding Mistakes", and "Foraging Sleep" were published in Caveat Lector, Vol. 34, No. 1.
Eva Tortora had a letter to the editor published in the New York Daily News in November.
Samantha Terrell's poem "Communication" was published in Spillwords in January. Her work was also featured in Seasonal Fruits Magazine, Vol. 1 Issue 3 (Winter Solstice 2023).
Annie Dawid was featured on the New Books Network podcast talking about her recently released novel Paradise Undone: A Novel of Jonestown (Inkspot Publishing, 2023). She was interviewed on the Bookable Space podcast by Dr. Yvonne Battle-Felton in November (Episode 14), and interviewed in the Denver Gazette in December. More reviews appeared in Writing to Be Read, Women Writers, Women's Books, and CookieBiscuit. Paradise Undone was the "Book of the Week" for February 16 at 24 Symbols, an e-book subscription service.
Duane L. Herrmann's story "Return Improbable" was published in January at MasticadoresUSA. His poems "Texas Exit", "Verbena", "Prairie Sightings", "Memoirs of Childhood", and "Waiting for Return" were published in the Croatian online journal Zvona i Nari. The journal I Write Her published six pieces of his flash fiction, one of which was partially re-posted by Vixen of Verse (England). His article "Dawning places rising across Africa", about the spread of Bahá'í worship and community centers across the continent, was published in the South African journal Voertaal in English and Afrikaans. Duane was profiled in Kaw Valley Senior Monthly (February 2024) in a cover story with the headline "Duane Herrmann: Documenting the History of the Bahá'í Faith in Kansas".
Shobana Gomes's video "A Prayer for World Peace" can be viewed on YouTube.
Published: March 5, 2024
