Total Eclipse Recommendations
NewPages Newsletter #122 Featuring 47 Submission Opportunities & Upcoming Events
Happy April 8 where the majority of the United States can witness a once in a lifetime (maybe) eclipse. If you are a superstitious person who believes that eclipses are bad omens, NewPages has plenty of items to keep you busy and safely indoors on this day. The last time I can recall a similar eclipse, not with such totality, I was in elementary school and our entire school was out on the playground during the eclipse for a viewing party. I will not say when that was.
Next week April will already be half over with. What does this mean? This means you can look forward to our April eLitPak Newsletter packed full of literary goodness! It also means that submission opportunities will be ending. So don’t forget to review what journals and presses have mid-April deadlines like Blink-Ink, Consequence, Passager, and The Headlight Review. April 15 is also the last day to apply to the Kerouac Project of Orlando’s Writing Residency. Interested in participating in an eLitPak yourself? Learn more here.
In last week’s Lit Mag Covers :: Picks of the Week, Editor Denise Hill selected three striking covers that appealed to her. First up was Noah Lawrence-Holder’s lusciously colorful digital work The Table is Set gracing the Spring 2024 issue of Rain Taxi Review of Books Spring 2024. We then switch things up with a black and white work by visual artist Artemio Rodriguez on the cover of the Spring 2024 issue of Santa Monica Review. Last, but definitely not least, The New Guard Volume X features a play on a classic painting “Girl Without a Pearl Earring” by Brendan Young, Kiring Young, and Vanessas Battaglia. What do you think of her choices? What are your favorite lit mag covers you’ve seen recently?
The Magazine Stand features the latest issues of literary and alternative magazines. The spring 2024 issue of The Writing Disorder features an interview with Sandra Niemi, who recently wrote a biography about her famous Finnish aunt, Maila Nurmi, aka Vampira. Seems like a fitting read for a Total Eclipse Day, doesn’t it? Coming soon, learn about the latest issues from Superpresent and The Woven Tale Press.
Need help selecting your next book to read? Get help from our reviewers. Jami Macarty covers A Rupture in the Interiors by Valerie Witte. “The poems contemplate the phenomenon and vulnerabilities of skin, skin sensitivities and permeabilities, and how skin protects and maps a life, particularly that of a woman in a society that prizes female perfection.”
Macarty also gives her thoughts on Romance Language by Amy Glynn. In this collection, Glynn uses “semantic fancy,” received forms, such as the ghazal and sonnet, and subject- and occasion-driven free verse.”
Eleanor J. Bader reviews The Heart in Winter by Kevin Barry which follows Irish immigrant Tom Rourke as he sets aside all logic by falling in love at first sight with Polly Gillespie, a mail-order bride (not his). “While the novel is set in the late 19th century, the tale is timeless, a deeply-felt look at the mysteries of attraction and the wildly unpredictable rumblings of heart and mind.”
Come back to the NewPages Blog later this week for reviews of All for You by Dena Rueb Romero, A Ten Peso Burial for Which Truth I Sign by Garbriel Palacios, and Wandering Stars by Tommy Orange.
An interesting writing prompt idea if you are struggling for some inspiration. Having worked in both public and academic libraries throughout my high school and college years, shelf reading was a necessity as much as reshelving books that have been checked in. Shelf reading is essentially making sure that books are placed correctly on the shelves either alphabetically or by their call numbers. This is a perfect way for the book obsessed person to get lost in interesting sounding titles and get caught up to see what the blurb on the back had to say about their contents.
So the next time you are browsing, look at the titles near each other or at every fifth book. What can you make out from the titles? What story can you compose? What interesting verse starts playing its music in your mind? Think of it like Italo Calvino’s If on a winter’s night a traveler where in search of the next chapter you are introduced to a new book, a new story, which you are perpetually on a journey to find the ending to. By the end of the journey all the titles strung together form their own story.
Who has read this story? Oddly enough I did not read Calvino’s story in one of my many literature or writing classes, but I got to read it for my Philosophy & Literature class. Very interesting. Great class with an awesome professor who loved to get into heated discussions on everything.
Calls, Contests, & More
Below are this week’s writing contests, calls for submissions, and literary and writing events. Enjoy 47 opportunities to get your work published or to enhance your writing craft. Please note: only paid subscribers get access to this information! You can become a paid subscriber for only $5 a month and get early access to submission opportunities and events before they go live on our site.
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