Glimmer Train July/August Fiction Open Winners

Glimmer Train has just chosen the winning stories for their July/August Fiction Open competition. This competition is held twice a year and is open to all writers. Stories generally range from 3000-6000 words, though up to 28,000 is fine. The next – and last! – Fiction Open will open on January 1. Glimmer Train’s monthly submission calendar may be viewed here.

First place: Laura Roque [pictured] of Hialeah, Florida, wins $3000 for “Lady-Ghost Roles." Her story will be published in Issue 105 of Glimmer Train Stories.

Second place: Ben Nadler, of Albany, New York, wins $1000 for “Shalom Bayit.” His story will also be published in an upcoming issue.

Third place: Clark Knowles, of Portsmouth, New Hampshire, wins $600 for “In Dublin.” His story will also be published in an upcoming issue.

A PDF of the Top 25 winners can be found here.

Deadline soon approaching!
Short Story Award for New Writers: November 10
This competition is open to all writers whose fiction has not appeared in a print publication with a circulation over 5000. No theme restrictions. Most submissions to this category run 500-5000 word but can go up to 12,000. First place prize wins $2500 and publication in Glimmer Train Stories. Second/third: $500/$300 and consideration for publication. Click here for complete guidelines.

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Glimmer Train July/August Very Short Fiction Award Winners

Glimmer Train has just chosen the winning stories for their July/August Very Short Fiction Award. This competition is held twice a year and is open to all writers for stories with a word count under 3000. The next – and last! – Very Short Fiction competition will open on January 1. Glimmer Train’s monthly submission calendar may be viewed here.

1st place goes to Peter Sheehy, of Astoria, New York, who wins $2000 for “Things Frozen Then.” His story will be published in Issue 105 of Glimmer Train Stories. [Photo credit: Henry Porter]

2nd place goes to Ted Mathys, of St. Louis, Missouri, who wins $500 for “High Plains.”

3rd place goes to Cassandra Verhaegen, of Corvallis, Oregon, who wins $300 for “California Orange.”

Here’s a PDF of the Top 25.

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Driftwood Press Graphic Novels

Driftwood Press has recently announced that they will now accept submissions for graphic novel manuscripts to add to their catalog.

To better understand what they are looking for, the editors note that some of their favorite graphic artists are Jaime & Gilbert Hernandez, Joe Sacco, Brecht Evens, Taiyo Matsumoto, Anders Nilsen, Jillian Tamaki, Christophe Chaboute, Eleanor Davis, Gipi, Simon Hanselmann, Michael DeForge, David Lapham, and Inio Asano.

Interested writers/artists are asked to submit a sample, partial, or full manuscript. The publishers do not match up artists/storytellers. This is a traditional, paid publishing contract arrangement.

For more information, visit the Driftwood Press graphic novels submission page.

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ONU Scholarship & Publication for Young Poet

The English Department at Ohio Northern University has opened a new Single Poem Broadside contest for currently enrolled high school juniors and seniors.

Young writers may submit one original, self-authored poem of 30 lines or less by November 1, 2018 in any form, style or aesthetic approach.

ONU Associate Professor of Creative Writing Dr. Jennifer Moore [pictured] will judge the submissions.

The winning entry will receive $100, letterpress broadside publication of the poem, ten copies, and the ONU English Department Talent Award of $4000 per year for four years (upon application and acceptance to ONU).

For more contests open to young writers and publications for young writers and readers, visit the NewPages Young Writers Guide.

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New Lit on the Block :: The 4x2 Project

What do you do if you’re a lit mag that has been successfully publishing poets at all stages of their careers for two decades? Well, you start a NEW publication, of course, with an entirely NEW mission! The 4x2 Project is exactly that.

What do you do if you’re a lit mag that has been successfully publishing poets at all stages of their careers for two decades? Well, you start a NEW publication, of course, with an entirely NEW mission! The 4x2 Project is exactly that.

From the editors of The Barrow Street Journal, The 4x2 Project is an online poetry journal featuring new and emerging poets who have not yet published a chapbook or full-length collection.

The name says it all: Every two months, four new poets are featured, with previous contributors being archived at the site. “The object,” Managing Editor Michael Broek explains, “is to provide a brief, highly readable survey of the best emerging voices.”

Started in 1998, Barrow Street Journal has published hundreds of poets, and poems from the Journal have been honored in Best American Poetry twelve times. “The impetus to start 4x2,” Broek says, “was to move more fully into the online realm with a new vision, focused solely on writers who have not yet (but hopefully will soon!) published a book. There are very few venues that focus exclusively on new voices, and 4x2 is intended to highlight those new writers in a concise but powerful format.”

Publishing poetry exclusively online is not without its challenges, Broek notes, “mostly concerning the technology! We don’t have any restrictions on form, and one of our recent poems, ‘Man’s West Once,’ by Susan Kay Anderson, is terrific, but it is long and has really intriguing spacing and formatting that moves all over the page. Getting a poem like that to appear correctly on the screen isn’t easy, but it is a great poem, so we made it work! Considering its length, it’s also not a poem that could be easily accommodated in a print journal, so one of the joys of this is that we don’t have to worry about page count.”

It's this distinction that many editors, writers, and readers appreciate about the online environment, as well as just the convenience and accessibility of online journals. “We are all busy,” Broek laments, “and sometimes when a journal comes in the mail, there’s just no time to digest it all. In this concise format, only featuring four poets at a time, readers can expect to get a snapshot of what’s cutting edge and fresh.” From the first two issues, readers can experience works by Susan Kay Anderson, Miranda Beeson, Emily McKay, Pablo Medina, Doug Ramspeck, Mahtem Shiferraw, Sophia Starmack, and W. R. Weinstein.

Writers looking to submit can expect that all works are read by editors of Barrow Street Journal — Melissa Hotchkiss, Lorna Blake, and Patricia Carlin — as well as the Managing Editor, Michael Broek. Each editor has years of experience editing Barrow Street Journal and are all poets themselves with full-length collections. Submissions are online, and each submission is read by at least two editors. The turnaround time is usually less than one month.

“While we have decades of rewarding experience publishing the print journal,” Broek adds, “the 4x2 is still developing. Eventually, we’d like to add additional features, such as audio of the poets reading their work.”

Keeping it new, fresh, and cutting edge is what helps to create a strong publication with a long history. Here’s to just that for The 4x2 Project.

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New Lit on the Block :: Okay Donkey

If the idea of snuggling up to a stack of submissions sounds like the most romantic way to spend your evening with the one you love, then you can pretty much imagine the lives of Genevieve Kersten and Eric Andrew Newman, editors of the newest online venue for poetry and flash fiction: Okay Donkey.

If the idea of snuggling up to a stack of submissions sounds like the most romantic way to spend your evening with the one you love, then you can pretty much imagine the lives of Genevieve Kersten and Eric Andrew Newman, editors of the newest online venue for poetry and flash fiction: Okay Donkey.

Publishing one new poem every Wednesday and one new flash fiction every Friday, Okay Donkey readers can enjoy a mix the eclectic and weird, as Kersten says. “We also strive to include diverse voices in our magazine, whether it's writers looking for their first publication, self-taught writers without an MFA, queer writers, or POC writers.”

Some of this openness stems from the editors’ own backgrounds. Poetry Editor Genevieve Kersten has a B.A. in Studies in Cinema and Media Culture from University of Minnesota-Twin Cities and an M.A. from North Park Theological Seminary in Chicago. Flash Fiction Editor Eric Andrew Newman has a B.A. in English from University of San Diego with an emphasis in Creative Writing and an M.S. in Library Science from Dominican University.

Kersten explains their motivation to start a lit mag: “We’re both writers ourselves, and we've always loved to engage in the literary community as readers and supporters of lit mags. We've been on literary Twitter for a while now and love interacting with other writers and lit mags. Starting our own lit mag just seemed like the next step in the natural progression of our literary journey.”

Since starting the publication, Kersten comments and the ups and downs: “They’re really the same thing. We get so many amazing submissions and can only publish a few on the site. Since it's just the two of us, sometimes the sheer amount of submissions we get can overwhelm us, but there really is nothing more exciting than finding a true gem from a writer we haven't heard of in the inbox.”

The editorial process, and the site itself, Kersten explains as “low-fi”: “We’re partners in life, as well as at the magazine, so most of the work gets done at home in the evenings and on weekends. Since it's just the two of us, each editor gives every submission in their genre the first read. If they really like a piece, they'll hand it off to the other editor. Then we decide which pieces to publish. We don't always agree and ultimately each of us has autonomy over our own genre. We prioritize a quick turnaround time.”

In recognizing some of the contributors to the publication, Kersten wanted to give a special shout out to friends who entrusted the editors with their work early on in the process, “when Okay Donkey was just an idea and not yet a full-fledged magazine. They didn't know what it was about or if it would be any good but were still willing to hand over their best stuff. This is Michael Alessi, Chelsea Harris and Dan Sanders for flash fiction, and Ted Mico, Erin Rice and Brian Dau for poetry. Without their excellent work, we don't know if our launch would have been as successful as it was.”

As that success continues, Kersten says they’re looking to organize an Okay Donkey reading in Los Angeles, and possibly Chicago (“our long-time home”) as well as an annual Okay Donkey Flash Fiction Contest and Okay Donkey Poetry Contest. This may take a bit more tech and financial resources, but Kersten adds, “We want our writers to know that we strongly believe in the accessibility of submitting to literary magazines, so even though we might start a tip jar submission system in the future, or charge a small fee for contest entries, we'll always have free submission options available.”

As for the name – one of our core questions with new lit mags is getting to that etymology – Kersten reveals, “It's really too stupid and embarrassing to mention. If we ever meet some of our readers in person, maybe we'll tell them the story over drinks sometime.” I’m looking forward to having that drink with you! In the meantime, we can all enjoy reading Okay Donkey.

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Carolyn Kuebler on "Service"

"Literature is not efficient," writes New England Review Editor Carolyn Kuebler in the Editor's Note to V39 N3. "Reading it, writing it, and publishing it all require a seemingly unreasonable investment in time. Journals like ours take part in this economy of inefficiency by keeping our doors open to writing from everyone, everywhere." She goes on to discuss the weight placed on editors to make selections from thousands of unsolicited submissions, which open publications with good reputations face.

"Because of this openness to new writing, we have to say 'no' far more often than we say 'yes,' which can give writers a kind of 'who do they think they are' feeling of resentment. It also sets literary editors up as gatekeepers, as if reading and evaluating manuscripts were in some way equivalent to being a bouncer at an exclusive nightclub or a troll under the bridge. To me, the problem with the image of a gatekeeper is that it implies that the lit mag is some steadfast entity that simply exists, and that editors are only blocking the way to it. But without the efforts of those same people who are reading the manuscripts, there would be no there there."

Instead, Kuebler entreats readers (and writers) to consider "lit mags and their staff of editors and readers in terms of service," with many of those working behind the scenes doing so for little or no pay, and putting "aside their own agendas and literary preferences, and often their own writing, in service of another’s."

I get it. I hope others do, too. Thanks Carolyn - and countless other editors, readers, and all of those who give selflessly in the service of literature to make these publications 'there.'

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