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

CALLS FOR SUBMISSIONS

Opportunities Knock

THE PEEKING CAT publishes a magazine and annual anthology and offers editorial services. They are always open for submissions to the magazine but the deadline date for the 2017 anthology is August 31.  Appropriate material for consideration: poetry (all forms), nonfiction (up to 1,000 words), artwork and photography. A broad range of subjects are well despite the “cat” in the title. Detailed submissions guidelines are HERE. No demographic restrictions.

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. No demographic restrictions.

HERMENEUTIC CHAOS LITERARY JOURNAL is published six times a year. “We welcome submissions by authors from diverse backgrounds and literary preferences. We admire all forms of experimental, hybrid and avant-garde literature, collaborative writings, visual and graphic outpourings – anything that literature is capable of. Our primary interest lies in works which inspire an active cathartic response, and not a sentimental passivity. To achieve this end, we seek poetry and prose where imagination, symbolism, metaphors, lexical ingenuity and a strong imagery guide reality to examine the creative chaos beyond its straitjacket cliff.” This journal is interested in poetry, fiction and nonfiction. Details HERE. No demographic restrictions.

APOGEE JOURNAL features literature and art “that engages with identity politics, incuding but not limited to: race, gender, asexuality, class, ability and intersectional identity.” The journal is published in print biannually and welcomes fiction, nonfiction, poetry and visual art. Details HERE. No demographic restrictions.

UP THE STAIRCASE QUARTERLY is an online lit publication featuring poetry, art, interviews and reviews. The deadline for the summer issue (themed AudioVisual) is June 15th. Details HERE. No demographic restrictions.

PERMAFROST MAGAZINE, a publication of the University of Alaska, Fairbanks is “Located at 64° 50′ N (198 miles from the Arctic Circle), Permafrost Magazine is the farthest north literary journal for writing and the arts. We’re proud of Permafrost’s thirty-five years as interior Alaska’s foremost literary magazine . . .  Permafrost seeks original voices from all over the world.” The reading period for the print edition is May 1 – November 30. There is a $3 submission fee. Fiction, poetry, hybrid and artwork are welcome. Details HERE. This publication sponsors contests. All are closed now but watch for upcoming.

COMPETITIONS/AWARDS

  • 2040AWARDS PROGRAM is open to minorities – “ethnic authors or those from an ethnic background over the age of 18” – and entries of translations and from the International Community are welcome as well. 2040 is seeks fiction, creative nonfiction, collections, essays.  The grand prize is $1,000. The runner-up award is $500.  There is a $25 reading fee. Details HERE. Deadline is July 7.
  • ELEANOR TAYLOR BLAND CRIME FICTION WRITERS OF COLOR AWARD for 2017 is accepting application through June 15, 2017 this annual awards $1,500 or the winner. Details HERE.
  • WUNDOR POETRY CONTEST, an inaugural contest, is themed “Spring” and the deadline is 31 May 2017. There are entrance fees.  There is no indication of a financial award but there is pubication for the winner.  Details HERE.
  • THE SECOND ANNUAL LOUISE MERIWETHER FIRST BOOK PRIZE is now through July 31 for works by women or nonbinary author of color. The award is $5,000 and publication by Feminist Press. Details HERE.

EVENTS

  • WRITING RESISTANCE: INVESTIGATING/SUBVERTING FORM & NARRATIVE, A Writing Worksop Series of Apogee Journal with the NY Writers Coalition and funding from the Brooklyn Arts Council. “Apogee editors and contributors will lead nine craft based writing and editing workshops. True to our mission of creating accessible and socially engaged programming, this workshop will be affordable, inclusive, and attentive to the ways identity informs reading and writing practices.” The cost is $25 per class. The series started in April.  Remaining classes are: Flash Fiction with Robert Lopez (May 17); What Song Told Me with Stacy Parker Le Melle (May 20); Radicalizing the Personal Essay or Narrative Poem with Lorde and Baldwin at the Helm with JP Howard (May 20).  Workshops are in Brooklyn, NY. Details HERE.
  • SISTERS IN CRIME is a thirty-year-old professional association founded “to promote the ongoing advancement, recognition and professional development of women crime writers. Today the Triangle area (North Carolina) hosts a thirty-year celebration – an Ice Cream Social – for writers, publishers an readers at Page-Walker House, Cary, North Carolina.  Admission is free; tickets for ice cream are $7 for Adults, $5 Ages 4 – 12; children 3 and under are free. Details are HERE at Triangle area chapter’s site.
  • SISTERS IN CRIME list of conferences, events and trade shows scheduled around the country is HERE.
  • EDINBURGH INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL (open-air cinema) Edinburgh International Film Festival’s hugely popular open-air cinema runs through June 16-June 18 at St. Andrew Square Garden. Details HERE..

NEWS and INFORMATION

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.

THE WORDPLAY SHOP: books, tools and supplies for poets, writers and readers

ABOUT THE POET BY DAY

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Atttn.: San Mateo ~ STOP THE SEPARATION OF FAMILIES, IMMIGRANT RAPID RESPONSE NEIGHBORHOOD CANVAS organized by Faith in Action

Organized by Faith in Action Bay Area.

The Immigrant Rapid Response hotline is up and running in the San Francisco Bay Area. We now have teams with hundreds of volunteers ready to converge whenever an ICE raid is taking place in our neighborhoods. The teams are trained to witness and record the event and ensure that the rights of immigrants are protected. Now, we need to make sure our neighbors in the immigrant community are aware of the hotline.

Help distribute the rapid response hotline information in UUSM’s own neighborhood. We will meet at UUSM on Saturday and spread out to canvass the neighborhood with posters and cards. For questions, email rapidresponse@faithinactionba.org. Please RSVP HERE.

MEET AT: Unitarian Universalists of San Mateo, 300 E. Santa Inez Avenue, San Mateo, CA 94401 @ 10 a.m. on Saturday, May 6th.

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“Pangur Bán” ~ The Gift of a 9th Century Irish Poem Revisited in “The White Cat and the Monk” & “The Secret of the Kells”

The White Cat and the Monk was a 2016 Christmas gift to me from my son and daughter-in-law. It’s a charmingly illustrated retelling of an old Irish poem, Pangur Bán, a lovely gift and a lovely addition to my bookshelves.

I wasn’t familiar with the poem, so the gift inspired – as such gifts are want to do – a few hours of pleasurable reading and research, an effort lightly akin to the endeavors of the anonymous but renown author of the poem. Pangur Bán was written by a 9th Century monk somewhere inside or in the vicinity of Reichenau Abby, which is on Reichenau Island in Lake Constance in the south of Germany.

The page of the Reichenau Primer on which Pangur Bán is written. It is now housed in St. Paul’s Abbey – a Benedictine Abby – in the Lavanttal, a market town in Carinthia, Austria. (public domain photograph)

The poet monk tells of a white cat who shares his work and living space. While the monk single-mindedly finds pleasure in scholarly pursuits, the white cat finds pleasure in single-mindedly chasing mice.

There are many translations of Pangur Bán, notably by W. H. Auden and Seamus Heaney. The most famous translation – which turned out to be my favorite – is by Robin Flowler (1881-1946), an English poet and scholar, a Celticist, Anglo-Saxonist and translator of Gaelic.

The Scholar and His Cat, Pangur Bán

I and Pangur Bán my cat,
‘Tis a like task we are at:
Hunting mice is his delight,
Hunting words I sit all night.

Better far than praise of men
‘Tis to sit with book and pen;
Pangur bears me no ill-will,
He too plies his simple skill.

‘Tis a merry task to see
At our tasks how glad are we,
When at home we sit and find
Entertainment to our mind.

Oftentimes a mouse will stray
In the hero Pangur’s way;
Oftentimes my keen thought set
Takes a meaning in its net.

‘Gainst the wall he sets his eye
Full and fierce and sharp and sly;
‘Gainst the wall of knowledge I
All my little wisdom try.

When a mouse darts from its den,
O how glad is Pangur then!
O what gladness do I prove
When I solve the doubts I love!

So in peace our task we ply,
Pangur Ban, my cat, and I;
In our arts we find our bliss,
I have mine and he has his.

Practice every day has made
Pangur perfect in his trade;
I get wisdom day and night
Turning darkness into light.

-translated from the Gaelic by Robin Flowler

THE SECRET OF THE KELLS

Featuring Pangur Bán, both cat and poem

In 2009 the Flatiron Film Company released an animated film, The Secret of Kells, which is inspired by a mix of history, Celtic mythology, magic and fantasy. One of the characters is a white cat, Pangur Bán,  and during the credits Pangur Bán is read in modern Irish.

If you are viewing this by email subscription, you’ll likely have to link through to the site to view this video, the Pangur Bán Song from the film.

The Secret of the Kells is a relief from horrifying news and the overflow of often vapid and violent movie offerings. The pace of the film is relaxed. Unlike a lot of movies, it doesn’t yell at you. It does engage with story and beautiful animation reminiscent of traditional Irish art.

Though the story is a fiction, it is grounded in history: an Ireland besieged by Viking raids and a mythical mystical take on the production and preservation of The Book of Kells, an early illustrated (illuminated) New Testament. The Book of Kells is housed now at Trinity College Library in Dublin. The film incorporates the Irish poetic genre – aisling – developed in Irish poetry of the 17th and 18th centuries and in which Ireland appears in a poet’s dream as a woman – maiden, mother or crone – and bemoans the state of Ireland.

The White Cat and the Monk was written by JoEllen Bogart and illustrated by Sydney Smith. It was short-listed for the Governor General’s Literary Awards, Young People’s Literature (Illustrated Books). It was named New York Times Best Illustrated Children’s Book and listed on Brain Pickings’ Best Children’s Books of 2016.

The Secret of the Kells was nominated for an Oscar and won several other film awards including the Audience Award of the Annecy International Animated Film Festival. It has an overall approval rating of 91% on Rotten Tomatoes where the consensus is “Beautifully drawn and refreshingly calm. The Secret of the Kells harkens back to animation’s gold age …”

 

Aisling

Pierre-Cécile Puvis de Chavannes: An Aisling, 1883 – Public Domain
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PEN AMERICA, World Voices Festival … Gender and Power in the Age of Trump

“PEN America stands at the intersection of literature and human rights to protect open expression in the United States and worldwide.”

“Join more than 150 writers and artists from 40 countries as PEN World Voices takes on today’s restive relationship between Gender and Power in the age of Trump. In this moment of unprecedented threats to freedom and truth and of emboldened mobilization and resistance the Festival will use the lens of literature to examine bigotry, misogyny, and xenophobia. Celebrate the transcendent power of art to enable people to see beyond their differences with conversations, readings, and workshops taking place throughout New York City.”

PEN America has announced that leading Russian and American journalist and author Masha Gessen, will deliver the Arthur Miller Freedom to Write Lecture, followed by a conversation with comedian and political commentator Samantha Bee on the closing night of the PEN World Voices Festival (May 7, 5 pm, Cooper Union Office of Continuing Education and Public Programs, NYC. Tickets/Details HERE).

My apologies for the late alert on this.  I just found out about it. However, there are three more days left on the schedule for PEN World Voices Festival. For a complete schedule of events, visit: penworldvoices.org (Programming and participants subject to change.) J.D.

MARSHA GESEEN TO DELIVER ARTHUR MILLER LECTURE

May 7, 5 pm, Cooper Union Office of Continuing Education and Public Programs, NYC

by

Angelo Piro, the Digital Communications Assistant at PEN America.

This year the thirteenth annual Festival, taking place in New York from May 1-7, will address some of the vital issues of the Trump era, with a special focus on the fractious relationship between gender and power. At a moment of historic threats to freedom and truth, Ms. Gessen and Ms. Bee, both activists in their own rights, will speak to Gessen’s experience with Russian censorship and suppression of dissent, and parallels between the current administration and other authoritarian regimes.

Named for playwright Arthur Miller, an ardent advocate for free expression and longtime leader of PEN, the annual lecture is a hallmark of the Festival. In past years, the Freedom to Write Lecture has been delivered by Umberto Eco, Orhan Pamuk, Salman Rushdie, Wole Soyinka, and Justice Sonia Sotomayor. The event will take place at The Great Hall at Cooper Union on Sunday, May 7 at 5pm. Tickets for this and all Festival events are available at worldvoicesfestival.org

Masha Gessen (b. 1967): Russian-American journalist, author, translator and activist, outspoken critic of Russian President Vladimir Putin and U.S. President Donald Trump

Masha Gessen is the author of ten books of nonfiction, most recently The Future Is History: How Totalitarianism Reclaimed Russia, coming from Riverhead in October. [The book is available for preorder.] Ms. Gessen is a contributing opinion writer to The New York Times and a frequent contributor to the New York Review of Books, among other publications.

Samantha Bee (b. 1969) is a Canadian-American comedian, writer, producer, political commentator, actress, media critic, and television host

Samantha Bee has quickly established herself as having one of the most unique and sharp comedic voices on television. Bee departed The Daily Show in 2015 and currently holds the title for being the longest-serving regular Daily Show correspondent of all time. In 2016, Bee received global and critical recognition from the success of her very own award-winning weekly late night comedy series, Full Frontal with Samantha Bee.

These are just a few of the other 150+ writers and poets presenting at this year’s Festival. If you are reading this post by way of an email subscription, it’s likely you’ll have to link through to the site to view the slide show.

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About PEN America

PEN America stands at the intersection of literature and human rights to protect open expression in the United States and worldwide. We champion the freedom to write, recognizing the power of the word to transform the world. Our mission is to unite writers and their allies to celebrate creative expression and defend the liberties that make it possible.

About the PEN World Voices Festival

Founded in the aftermath of September 11, 2001, by Salman Rushdie, Esther Allen, and Michael Roberts with the aim of broadening channels of dialogue between the U.S. and the world, PEN World Voices is the only international literary festival in America, and the only one in the world with a human rights focus. The Festival attracts the best-known writers from across the globe and has garnered international acclaim as a premier literary event. Since its founding 13 years ago, PEN World Voices has presented more than 1,500 writers and artists from 118 countries speaking 56 languages.

The Village Voice serves as official media sponsor of the 2017 PEN World Voices Festival.

The Festival is made possible in part through the generosity of Kaplen Brothers Fund, Ford Foundation, National Endowment for the Arts, Robert Sterling Clark Foundation, Stavros Niarchos Foundation, Embrey Family Foundation, Amazon Crossing, New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council.

Twitter: @PENworldvoices/#PENFest
Facebook: facebook.com/PENworldvoices
Instagram: @pen_america
Tumblr: penamerican.tumblr.com

Thanks to PEN America and Angelo Piro for this piece, to Isabelle Deconinck for the slide show photographs and to reader Maureen D and to Tatyana at http://www.arts-ny.com for the heads-up; photo credits, Masha Geeson courtesy of Bengt Oberger under CC BY-SA 4.0 license and Samantha Bee courtesy of Justin Hoch under CC BY-SA 2.0. Slide show photographs are under author or photographer copyright.