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SUNDAY ANNOUNCEMENTS: Calls for Submissions, Contests, Events and other News and Information

CALLS FOR SUBMISSIONS

Opportunities Knock

ARTFUL DODGE (Ohio), a publication of The College of Wooster with support from The Ohio Arts Council, publishes American fiction, poetry and narrative essay and contemporary literature in translation.  Guidelines are HERE.  

THE BeZINE submissions for the May 2017 issues (theme: Honesty and Transparency, the Post-truth Era) should be in by May 10th latest.  Publication date is May 15th. Poetry, essays,fiction and creative nonfiction, art and photography, music (videos), and whatever lends itself to online presentation is welcome for consideration. Please check out a few issues first and the Intro./Mission Statement and Submission Guidelines. Email submissions to bardogroup@gmail.com

3 ELEMENTS REVIEW is an online zine publishing poetry, fiction and nonfiction quarterly. Today is the last day to submit for the summer issue but submissions for the fall issue open tomorrow (May 1) and extend through July 31.  As of today the three elements for the fall issue have not been announced. Submission guidelines HERE.  

ZYMBOL, Hybrid Literature for Surreal Brains, publishes books (effective 2018) and a magazine. Of the magazine this press writes: “Zymbol magazine is published on an annual basis and we are open to all genres and styles of writing. Each edition will have a small section dedicated to the our symboilst and surrealist roots, but will also publish general poetry, fiction, memoir, flash and mixed-genre work.” Details HERE.

KILLING THE BUDDHA is an online zine featuring religion, culture and politics. “It began on November 13, 2000, when Peter Manseau and Jeff Sharlet invited readers who are both hostile and drawn to talk of God to join them in building an electronic Tower of Babel, a Talmudic cathedral of stories about faith lost and found. They named it after a saying of the Chinese Buddhist sage Lin Chi.” Genres they lean toward publishing include “reportage, essays, criticism, rants, prayers.” They are disinclined to publish poetry and fiction. Details HERE.

ANTÍPHON, providing a showcase or the best in contemporary British and international poetry has an open call for submissions (though May 31) for issue 21.  Details HERE.

CHERRY TREE, A National Literary Journal @ Washington College welcomes submission of “poetry, fiction, creative nonfiction and literary shade.” Reading period is three months only from August 1 through October 1. Payment is $20 and 2 copies.  Submission guidelines HERE.

WRITER’S ALLIANCE OF GAINSVILLE [WAG] fosters creative expression through the written word has an open call for submissions through May 31, 2017  for its eighth annual edition of Bacopa Literary Review, an international print journal. Prizes are one $400 prize in each for a flash story, poetry, literary fiction, and creative nonfiction. There is a submission fee of $3. All published authors receive a copy of the print journal and will also be promoted online after publication. Details HERE.

THE SOUTHHAMPTON REVIEW a publication of Stony Brook Southhampton (graduate arts campus, MFA program in New York), will open for reading from August 15 – October 15. This pubication features fiction, poetry, nonfiction, plays and screenplays, and art (fine art, photography, cartoons, illustration). Details HERE.

CONTESTS

  • Red Hen Press, 2017 BENJAMIN SALTMAN POETRY AWARD , $3,000 and four-week residency. Deadline: October 31 Details HERE.
  • Red Hen Press, 2017 RED HEN PRESS FICTION AWARD, $1,000 and publication. Deadline: August 31. Details HERE.
  • The Idaho Prize for Poetry is an annual, national competition offering $1,000 plus publication by Lost Horse Press for a book-length poetry manuscript. Manuscripts are accepted for review through May 15 and the winner announced on August 15. Details HERE.
  • Spokane Prize for Short Fiction,Willow Springs Books, in collaboration with Lost Horse Press, invites submissions for The 2016 Spokane Prize for Short Fiction: $2,000 plus publication by LOST HORSE PRESS/Willow Springs Books. Submission deadline: June 1, 2016 Details HERE.

EVENTS

  • NaPoWriMo, 30 poems in 30 days: The theme for May is a story a day. Check it out HERE.
  • CATSKILL INTERPRETIVE CENTER BOOK FAIR, free event on Saturday June 24, 2017 from 10 a.m. – 4 p.m. CATSKILL INTERPRETIVE CENTER 5096 NEW YORK 28, MOUNT TREMPER, NY, 12457 Details HERE.
  • LOST HORSE PRESS is pleased to present PIE & WHISKEY & MOTHERS: Reading, Pie Eating, Whiskey Drinking & Book Signing featuring Kate Lebo & Sam Ligon Saturday, 13 May 2017 • 1 pm • Sandpoint Library Rude Girls Room
    Free Admission • Everyone’s invited! Spokane, Washington Details HERE.

“The chamber choir, for which I sing, along with two other local choirs (Stannington Mixed and Thurgoland Community Choir) and the talented Inyerface Arts musicians and soloists, are performing John Rutter’s Requiem as the core of a concert on Saturday, 27th May at the magnificent Victoria Hall in Sheffield. It would be very much appreciated it if you were able to share this amongst your friends, who might enjoy an amazing choral experience … Thank you.” John Anstie (My Poetry Library), is a singer, musician, poet and a member of The BeZine core team.

Kudos

NEWS and OTHER INFORMATION

BONUS

If you are reading this post from an email subscription, you’ll likely have to link through to view this video of Stephen Fry reading John Keats’ Ode to a Nightingale:

Stephen Fry’s The Ode Less Traveled is one of The Poet by Day recommended reads. In it encourages delight in writing poetry and offers some fine tools to build the confidence in aspiring poets, introducing metre, rhyme, form, diction and poetics.

The recommended read: On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century by Timothy Snyder. Left, right or center – American or not – it’s a must read.

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“BROKEN HOMES,” Single Moms, Remarkable Sons … Gill Scott-Heron, jazz poet

Gill Scott-Heron (1949-2011), American jazz poet, spoken-word poet, muscian and author
Gill Scott-Heron (1949-2011), American jazz poet, spoken-word poet, musician and author

“All I really want to say
Is that the problems come and go
But the sunshine seems to stay . . . “

My son sent me On Coming from a Broken Home (an excerpt from the album, I’m New Here) for Mother’s Day in 2011.  Since then I publish some version of this piece every two years. I think Gil Scott-Heron’s message here is important. 

Gil Scott-Heron died around this time in 2011. He’d started out fiery and angry. Some will remember his forceful The Revolution Will Be Televised and other such works. He was always an artist of political integrity. It showed in actions such as refusing to perform in Tel Aviv because “we do not like wars.”  Over time his style mellowed, but his ideals remained.

Gil Scott-Heron is considered by many to be the grandfather of rap and the father of political rap.  Famously, he didn’t accept those titles; he was critical of young rappers, felt they needed to study more, to promote change and not perpetuate the status-quo.  He is quoted in ChickenBones: A Journal as saying …

“They need to study music. I played in several bands before I began my career as a poet. There’s a big difference between putting words over some music, and blending those same words into the music. There’s not a lot of humor. They use a lot of slang and colloquialisms, and you don’t really see inside the person. Instead, you just get a lot of posturing.”

In the poem shared today it’s interesting to see what Heron does with his personal experience.  I like that there’s nothing of the victim mentality in this piece. I like the way he talks of dealing with life as it is. I appreciate that he points out that single-parent homes are not always the result of abandonment but are often made so due to parents who were lost in war or in jobs as police officers, firefighters or pilots.

“They lost their lives, but not what their lives stood for.” 

On Coming From a Broken Home (video below, escerpt from I‘m New Here) is a good example of how art can explain, validate and give us new perspectives … perhaps even encourage us to talk with one another. The piece is from Gil Scott-Heron’s last studio album, I’m New Here. It came out in 2010 not long before he died.

As always if you are viewing this post from an email, you will have to click on the link to this site to see and hear the piece.

Header photograph/Heron at the WOMARD festival in Bristol England, 1988 by Robman94 under CC BY SA 2.0 license.

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HEADS-UP SHEFFIELD and surrounding area: Save the Date, May 27th

“The chamber choir, for which I sing, along with two other local choirs (Stannington Mixed and Thurgoland Community Choir) and the talented Inyerface Arts musicians and soloists, are performing John Rutter’s Requiem as the core of a concert on Saturday, 27th May at the magnificent Victoria Hall in Sheffield. It would be very much appreciated it if you were able to share this amongst your friends, who might enjoy an amazing choral experience … Thank you.” John Anstie (My Poetry Library), is a singer, musician, poet and a member of The BeZine core team.

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War Paint, a poem

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you could trace her travels around that house and yard
by a trail of lipstick-ringed cigarette butts and lost Bics ~

she’d painted a deep red outline with a slender brush
and tenderly she colored inside the lines with a lighter rose,
licking and pouting as she examined her artwork, the bright
bathroom light illuminating the central silky plumpness of
those two perfectly arched wings, reminiscent of
the airline logo of her once-upon-a-time employer . . .

Bon jour, Monsieur!
hair tossed, a provocative shoulder shrug

testing a flirt on no one in particular, aching for the days
when she didn’t need make-up to dare the whole world,
the days when her only war paint was her juicy raw youth

© 2013, poem, Jamie Dedes, All rights reserved; Illustration ~ courtesy of morgueFile

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