Subscriber News: October 2020
Recent Honors
Congratulations to John Shore. His novel Everywhere She's Not won the 2020 American Fiction Award for Best New Fiction, sponsored by American Book Fest. The 2021 awards program is now open through June 30, 2021. Everywhere She's Not was also a finalist for the Publisher’s Weekly BookLife Prize (Best General Fiction) and a finalist for the First Novel Prize at the Indie Book Awards. Visit his website to learn more. John tells us, "It was Winning Writers that alerted me to these contests. I get a lot of questions from writers wondering about the best ways for them to stay abreast of the latest writing contests, opportunities, and resources. I always point them straight to Winning Writers."
Congratulations to Judith Cody. Her poetry collection Garden on an Alien Star System is forthcoming from Finishing Line Press and is available for pre-order. She kindly shares a sample poem here. Visit this website to learn more about her work as a poet, photographer, and composer.
Congratulations to Diane Elayne Dees. Her poetry chapbook Coronary Truth was recently published by Kelsay Books. She kindly shares a sample poem here. From the book blurb: "Coronary Truth is a brief collection of poems that examine our shared experience of fragility through such diverse subjects as the lifespan of a dragonfly, the shock of a friend's heart attack, the navigation of blind fish, and the mystical waters of baptism. Sarah Law, poet and editor of Amethyst Review, says of this collection: "Water and breath inform Dees' lyrical language throughout, as does a conviction that poetry's own infused spirituality can create 'inexplicable channels of patterned light'...a belief amply and beautifully demonstrated in this selection." Visit Diane's website to learn more about her work, including this blog post about how she organized the poems into a manuscript.
Congratulations to Ankur Agarwal. His debut full-length poetry collection, The Four Colors, was published in July by Kolkata-based indie publisher Hawakal. From the book blurb: "The fifty-odd poems in this collection all reflect the different hues of life as well as different stages of growth of a person. The irrepressible current of life, in its various manifestations, runs through them all." Read a review at Litter Magazine and see four poems from the book at Kitaab International's website. Ankur will also have a poem included in the anthology Shimmer Spring, forthcoming from Hawakal in November.
Congratulations to Thelma T. Reyna. Her memoir-in-verse Dearest Papa was a finalist in two categories in the International Latino Book Awards, best biography and best poetry book in English. As the editor of Golden Foothills Press, she recently published a new anthology, When the Virus Came Calling: COVID-19 Strikes America, featuring work written in 2020 by 46 distinguished American contemporary poets and prose writers. Read about and purchase both of these books in the Golden Foothills Press online store.
Congratulations to Maroula Blades. Her flash fiction collection The World in an Eye was recently released by the UK publisher Chapeltown Books.
Congratulations to Terri Kirby Erickson. Her sixth poetry collection, A Sun Inside My Chest, was released this month by Press 53. She kindly shares a sample poem here. Poet and editor Rhett Iseman Trull says of this book, "A Sun Inside My Chest is one of those big books, the kind that fling themselves straight into our hearts and wedge there forever among the songs and prayers that sustain us...This powerful book is here, thank goodness, to show us that loss is a catalyst for loving more deeply, and in the dark night of the world, light will find us, whether or not we seek it."
Congratulations to Taylor Byas, B.J. Buckley, and Angele Ellis. They won first, second, and third prizes, respectively, in the 23rd annual Poetry Super Highway Poetry Contest. The most recent deadline was September 19. Prizes are a percentage of entry fees received.
Recent Publications
Winning Writers Editor Jendi Reiter was interviewed for Episode #10 of Joshua Corwin's poetry podcast Assiduous Dust. They produced an "On the Spot Collaborative Poem", a format that Joshua invented, which is generated by taking turns sharing phrases from found texts. Read their creation on Jendi's blog.
Scott Piner is hosting a virtual poetry reading on Zoom at 8:30 PM Central Time on Friday, October 23 (password = "magic"). His essay "Magical Memories" was published this month in the Dead Mule School of Southern Literature.
Lisa Schantl, the editor of Tint Journal, is hosting a livestreamed reading of work from the magazine on Tuesday, October 27 at 8:00 PM Central time on Tint Journal's YouTube channel. Tint is a literary magazine for writers who write in English as their second or non-native language. "Tinted Tales: Reading Across Cultures" will feature seven authors from around the world, plus music by Vienna-based singer-songwriter Ulli Grill.
Jeanne Foster's poem "At the Berkeley Rose Garden" was the Poem of the Week at Narrative Magazine for August 15.
Carolyn Howard-Johnson's poetry collection Imperfect Echoes was favorably reviewed on Amazon by poet and memoirist Elizabeth Kirschner, a past North Street Book Prize nonfiction winner. Kirschner wrote: "A self-proclaimed literary activist, Howard-Johnson wants the slipperiness of history, its tendency to drift into the haze of forgetfulness, to regain traction and agency, to have gravitas as a loci for instruction and an insistence for change."
Erika Dreifus was interviewed about her debut poetry collection, Birthright (Kelsay Books, 2019), in Ruben Quesada's Poetry Today column at the Kenyon Review's website.
David Kherdian's poetry collection Pandemic was released in June by his Cascade Press imprint and is available in print and Kindle editions. From the book blurb: "Writing from his home in the hills of Black Mountain, Kherdian shares his thoughts on the pandemic of 2020 through simple, unobtrusive verses—providing grace, prayer, and deliverance for all those in need."
Neil Perry Gordon was interviewed about writing historical fiction on Frank Block's podcast Blocktox to Writers on August 16. He was also interviewed by novelist Denise Turney at Off the Shelf Books, a podcast on Blog Talk Radio.
Joanie Holzer Schirm's family history My Dear Boy: A World War II story of Escape, Exile, and Revelation was chosen by the National Network of State Teachers of the Year Association for their recommended reading list. My Dear Boy re-creates the adventurous life story of her late father, who escaped Czechoslovakia during World War II, practiced medicine in China, and emigrated to the US.
Sofia Kioroglou's inspirational book In the Footsteps of Jesus: Greek Orthodox Pilgrimages is available from EasyWriter.gr. In this book, miraculous happenings in the Holy Land are described in a narrative style with vivid imagery based on interviews conducted by the author.
Freddy Niagara Fonseca's poetry collection The Bomb That Blew Up God will have its video premiere at 8:00 PM Central time on October 15.
Published: October 10, 2020
