March On, Women

re-posted in celebration of International Women's Day 2015, the original post is from 2012:

In honour of International Women’s Month, Michelle Elvy created a mini-blog fest featuring women around the world: "Thanks to everyone who participated in this gathering — your art and your words and your lives inspire."

March On, Women
Dance. Resurrect. Survive.
Quiet. Night. Nothing.
Poetry. Place. Passion.
Colour. Chablis. Celebration.
Caress. Care. Kitty Kat.
Whanau. Wrinkles. Nudes.
Words. Wishes. Roads.
Mystery. Masquerade. Monster.
Finally. Food for thought.

Michelle Elvy lives and writes and edits in New Zealand aboard her 43’ sailboat, Momo. She is the founding editor of the New Zealand initiative Flash Frontier: An Adventure in Short Fiction as well as 52|250: A Year of Flash, a project that grew during 2010-2011 to include nearly 200 writers and artists. She also edits at Blue Five Notebook and A Baker’s Dozen. Most recently, Michelle has been awarded the Research Grant by the New Zealand Society of Authors/ Auckland Museum Library for her project “Flashback: A New Zealand History in Micro Moments”.

March On, Women
a blog fest in honour of International Women’s Month

Related Links:
Gender+Race, web projects

now on: A More Diverse Universe Blog Tour

A More Diverse Universe is a blog initiative by a small group of bloggers who got together out of concern of the lack of diversity in fantasy fiction, particularly fantasy fiction of the epic nature by a blog tour. The idea of the blog tour: to highlights fantasy/sci fi/magical realism novels written by a person of color.

The call went up in August (here's the original call with introduction), and many, many bloggers followed. Yesterday the blog tour started, it runs from Sunday 23 to Saturday 29 September

The full schedule of the blog tour with links is online here: A More Diverse Universe: The Schedule

Hiromi Goto, current Writer-in-Residence at Athabasca University, has written an introduction for the blog tour: "The resonance of culture is difficult to measure. Essentialisms aside, one’s culture(s) creates a particular context of experience and understanding of the world. There is a grammar of seeing and perceiving that comes from being from a specific culture... I want to read stories and books that will let me see my world in different ways, not re-inscribe the world I’ve learned through the public education system and popular culture. Let me dream in a language not my own." (Hiromi Goto's Blog )

The hashtag for the blog tour on twitter is #diversiverse

2 ways of voices, or: a PS from the editor:
i wished i had come across the link to the blog tour earlier, when the call was out. in a coincidence, i chanced upon it after blogging about the very topic of global voices today, as part of the "It's Monday what are you reading" blog meme. a quote from the post: "You can easily read around the world and still stick with authors that entirely belong to your own hemisphere. Which will make it a very different read (and world impression) compared to reading around the world in the voice of the authors of the different continents." - here's the link: Ayiti, Africa, and stories that aren't a story (global reading challenge)

The Chalk Circle - Intercultural Prizewinning Essays

Award-winning editor Tara L. Masih put out a call in 2007 for Intercultural Essays dealing with the subjects of “culture, race, and a sense of place.” The prizewinners are gathered for the first time in The Chalk Circle - a ground-breaking anthology that explores many facets of culture not previously found under one cover. The powerful, honest, thoughtful voices—Native American, African American, Asian, European, Jewish, White—speak daringly on topics not often discussed in the open, on subjects such as racism, anti-Semitism, war, self-identity, gender, societal expectations.

The Chalk Cirlce received the Skipping Stones Honor Award that recognizes outstanding authentic books and teaching resources (more here: Skipping Stones)

"The Chalk Circle is intelligently and thoughtfully compiled, unified by a belief in writing to further our comprehension of what can (or should) define us, as individuals and as a global culture" - Tori Grant-Welhouse at Her Circle (link)

Tara L. Masih received a BA in English and a minor in sociology from C. W. Post College, and an MA in Writing and Publishing from Emerson College. She is editor of The Rose Metal Press Field Guide to Writing Flash Fiction, and her debut story collection, Where the Dog Star Never Glows, was a National Best Books Awards finalist.

The Chalk Circle - Intercultural Prizewinning Essays
paperback, 220 pages

Related links: books on gender + race , anthologies

Elevate Difference

Elevate Difference is a forum for thoughtful critique that aims to embody the myriad—and sometimes conflicting—viewpoints present in the struggle for political, social, and economic justice. The forum features reviews of books and films, with a focus on indie publishers and producers. The forum also features music reviews, interviews, etc.

2 selected book reviews from Elevate Difference:
"My Sisters Made of Light" by Jacqueline St. Joan (Press53), a book that is "traversing the diversity of Pakistan’s distinct cultures and classes" (review by Alicia Simoni).

"Each and Her" by Valerie Martínez (University of Arizona Press), a poetry collection that "bestows a quiet honor on the lives of nearly 500 victims ... many females, often students or factory workers, who have been (and continue to be) murdered in or around Juárez anc Chihuahua, Mexico. Justice often comes through awareness and empathy, and the way that Valerie Martínez reverently and tenderly handles her collection of meditations about this terrifying cultural pattern buoys the possibility of justice, and hopefully, a remedy."(review by Julie Ann Brandt).

About Elevate Difference
Elevate Difference is a volunteer-run publication, the Editorial Collective includes: Alicia Izharuddin, Andrea Dulanto, Annette Przygoda, Barbara Barrow, Brittany Shoot, Elizabeth Stannard Gromisch, Farhana Uddin, Gita Tewari, Gwen Emmons, Mandy Van Deven, Payal Patel, Priyanka Nandy, Tina Vasquez. There also is a call for contributors up: "Elevate Difference seeks writers who subscribe to our mission and want to write reviews and feature interviews with activists and culture-makers." - Contribute

Related links: gender and race, web projects

Black Nature (UGA)

Black Nature is the first anthology to focus on nature writing by African American poets, a genre that until now has not commonly been counted as one in which African American poets have participated. The anthology is edited by Camille T. Dungy, who selected 180 poems from 93 poets that provide unique perspectives on American social and literary history to broaden our concept of nature poetry and African American poetics.

"Dungy enlarges our understanding of the nexus between nature and culture, and introduces a 'new way of thinking about nature writing and writing by black Americans.'" —Booklist

This collection features major writers such as Phillis Wheatley, Rita Dove, Yusef Komunyakaa, Gwendolyn Brooks, Sterling Brown, Robert Hayden, Wanda Coleman, Natasha Trethewey, and Melvin B. Tolson as well as newer talents such as Douglas Kearney, Major Jackson, and Janice Harrington. Included are poets writing out of slavery, Reconstruction, the Harlem Renaissance, the Black Arts Movement, and late twentieth- and early twenty-first-century African American poetic movements. A preview is available online at googlebooks: Black Nature: Four Centuries of African American Nature Poetry

Camille T. Dungy is an associate professor in the Creative Writing Department at San Francisco State University. She is the author of two poetry collections, What to Eat, What to Drink, What to Leave for Poison and Suck on the Marrow, and has helped edit two other poetry anthologies.

About UGA
The University of Georgia Press is the only scholarly publisher within the University System of Georgia. A full member of the Association of American University Presses since 1940, the Press is also the oldest and largest book publisher in the state. With a full-time staff of 24 publishing professionals, the Press currently publishes 75-80 new books a year and has 1000 titles in print.

Black Nature
poetry collection
432 pages

related links: nature, gender/race, international, anthologies, poetry

The Glass Woman Prize

The Glass Woman Prize is awarded for a work of short fiction or creative non-fiction written by a woman. Winners of the Eights Prize have now been announced: The winning story (US$500) is Wanderer by Susan Gibb - for more about this story, visit the author's blog note. 

Second Prize (US$100) winner is Star Anise by Kari Nguyen. Third Prize (US$50) is A Virgin Fire by Andrea Price Berthot. Other top contenders for the Eight Glass Woman Prize are listed on the Glass Woman Prize Website.

About the Glass Woman Prize
This prize is an ongoing literary initiative by Beate Sigriddaughter, who explains: "I want women to be able to acknowledge, transparently, who we are, and that who we are is not trivial and unimportant, despite the fact that it is not typically rewarded in a man-made and money-motivated world."

The first glass woman prize was awared in March 2007, previous winning stories include: Sanctuary by Julie Innis, Notes from the Night by Louise Beech, The Story of My Life (So Far) by Gwendolyn Joyce Mintz, Vicky's Secret by Mary Saracino and Only the Homeless Find the Divine by Nanette Rayman Rivera. There is detailed archive page with more previous prize winners and links to their stories: Past Prize Winners. 

Beate Sigriddaughter grew up in Nürnberg, Germany and is now a resident of North Vancouver, British Columbia. She has published short stories and poetry, and has written several books. For more about her and her work, visit her biography page.

The Ninth Glass Woman Prize reading period is now in effect, from September 22, 2010 through March 21, 2011. For guidelines, visit the webpage: Glass Woman Prize.

related link: web projects, gender and race, prize winners

first issue: #3

#3 is a quarterly, independent not-for-profit journal bringing together art and art theory from various global contexts. The editors of #3 are interested in "collaborations with artists, designers, writers and curators from across all media and cultures."The first issue of #3 now launched - the full issue is available as pdf-download: #3 / Vol.1.

The issue features a wide range of themes: architecture, art, media, sociology, for example: "Trace & Intent" by Daniel Staincliffe, "Welcome to the Labyrinth (an excerpt from Sex, Death and Design in the Digital Culture)" by Ken Hollings, "Faces and Phases - an excerpt from "Mapping Our Histories: A Visual History of Black Lesbians in Post-Apartheid South Africa" by Zanele Muholi and
"A Constructed Conversation (between Kay Rosen and Virgina Woolf)" by Kay Rosen - if you like visuals / wordart, make sure to check out the Kay Rosen link, it leads to an online wordart exhibition room.

Also included: a thought-provoking interview with Paolo Pedercini, an artist and game designer who explores the intersection between gaming and politics - here one of the interview questions: "The anti-WTO slogan often credited to Jello Biafara, “Don’t hate the media, become the media,” is cited on your website, and you teach a course at Carnegie Mellon titled “Game Design for Artists, Mavericks, and Troublemakers.” You seem to theorize resistance to major entertainment corporations and, as you stated, are concerned with the opaqueness of more “serious” games."

#3 is edited by Josh McNamara, Neal MacInnes and Hana Tanimura.

website: http://www.journal3.org/
direct pdf-link: #3 / Vol.1

Everything Was Good-bye - Gurjinder Basran (Mother Tongue)

Everything Was Good-bye centers around Meena, a young Indo Canadian woman growing up in the lower mainland of British Columbia and traces her life as she struggles to assert her independence in a Punjabi community. Raised by her tradition bound widowed mother, Meena knows the freedoms of her Canadian peers can never be hers, but unlike her sisters, she is reluctant to submit to a life that is defined by a suitable marriage. Though a narrative moving between race and culture, it is ultimately a story of love, loss and self acceptance amidst shifting cultural ideals.

This novel won the Search for the Great B.C. Novel Contest, chosen from sixty-four manuscripts by Jack Hodgins, who described it as "a fascinating story, skillfully written, of a rebellious young woman's remarkable courage.”

Gurjinder Basran studied creative writing at Simon Fraser University and The Banff Center for the Arts. Her work was shortlisted for the 2008 Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award and earned her a place in the Vancouver Sun’s annual speculative arts and culture article, “Ones To Watch.” A 2006 graduate of Simon Fraser University’s award-winning Writer’s Studio, Gurjinder has read her work at the Vancouver International Writers Festival and has been both a panelist and facilitator on writing at the 2007 Writer’s Studio alumni symposium. She lives in Delta, British Columbia with her husband and two sons. This is her first novel.

About Mother Tongue Publishing
Formerly Mother Tongue Press, Mother Tongue Publishing concentrates on publishing unique, bold and stimulating books of British Columbia art history, fine art and literature. Recent publications include Rocksalt: An Anthology of Contemporary B.C. Poetry, edited by Mona Fertig & Harold Rhenisch, and 4 Poets - this new BC poets series features emerging and established BC poets in a fresh format that explores the broader scope of the poet’s work.

Gurjinder Basran: Everything Was Good-bye
novel, 288 pages
ISBN 978-1-896949-07-9

related links: international, gender+race

The politics of fiction + Reading and Race

3 recommended links:
1) TEDTalk video podcast: "The politics of fiction" by Eli Shafak
2) The Millions ethnicity essay by Edan Lepucki
3) Best of Web 2010 article in the Chicago Tribune


1) TEDTalks video podcast: Elif Shafak on the politics of fiction
TEDTalks is a daily video podcast of the best talks and performances from the TED Conference, where the world's leading thinkers and doers give the talk of their lives in 18 minutes. Elif Shafak was born in Strasbourg, France, in 1971. She is an award-winning novelist and the most widely read woman writer in Turkey. From the podcast:
"We tend to form clusters based on similarity, and then we produce stereotypes about other clusters of people. In my opinion, one way of transcending these cultural ghettos is through the art of storytelling. Stories cannot demolish frontiers, but they can punch holes in our mental walls. And through those holes, we can get a glimpse of the other, and sometimes even like what we see."

Just as her books, her speech receives biased comments, from "Stunningly and gently radical :)" to "Slow down, woman." A transcript of Elif Shafak' speech is online at bakikuleyi.livejournal: Elif Shafak: The politics of fiction

related books / categories in Daily s-Press
- International Short Fiction (World Literature Today)
- Zahra's Paradise(international graphic web novel)
- daily bookshelf: international
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2) The Millions ethnicity essay: Reading and Race: On Slavery in Fiction
The Millions is an online magazine offering coverage on books, arts, and culture since 2003. Recently, Edan Lepucki reflects on the books she read about African-Americans, and on fiction / non-fiction books about ethnicity:
"Reading narrative requires empathy. The character’s perspective becomes your own, and through this relationship you begin to feel as another person would. As I read Roots, I felt what Kunta Kinte felt, saw what he saw, and by becoming him, I understood intimately the horrors of slavery. It’s why nonfiction slave narratives, like those of Harriet Jacobs and Frederick Douglass, were so important to the abolitionist movement, and why fictional slave narratives persist today.
But stories also require complicity: the reader participates in the action of the story simply by imagining and interpreting it. As Zadie Smith points out in this short interview: "Fiction is like a hypothetical area in which to act. That’s what Aristotle thought—that fictional narrative was a place to imagine what you would do in this, that, or the other situation. I believe that, and it’s what I love most about fiction."
related books / categories in Daily s-Press
- Had Slaves by Catherine Sasanov
- How to Escape from a Leper Colony by Tiphanie Yanique
- daily bookshelf: gender + race
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3) Chicago Tribune article: "Best of the Web 2010" edited by Kathy Fish and Matt Bell
From the book section of the Chicago Tribune:
"Reading, poetry and prose written for the Web calls for a different kind of writing than one might find on the printed page and this annual volume is a terrific reminder of great possibilities and experiments in style and form." - Elizabeth Taylor, Literary Editor Chicago Tribune


related books / categories in Daily s-Press
- Best of the Web 2010 (Dzanc, edited by K. Fish + M. Bell)
- daily bookshelf: indie + small prize winners / best of anthologies

A Thousand Sisters - Lisa Shannon (Seal Press)

A Thousand Sisters is the story of how a single moment can change a life – and the lives of others. How a life’s mission can come to you, not in contemplation, but sprawled out on the couch, watching TV:

"I had a great life—a successful business, a fiancé, a home, and security. But in the wake of my Dad’s death, and soon-to-be thirty years old, I found myself depressed, camped out in my living room watching Oprah. It was there that I learned about Congo, widely called the worst place on earth to be a woman. Awakened to the atrocities –millions dead, women being raped and tortured, children starving and dying in shocking numbers –I had to do something. A Thousand Sisters chronicles how I raised sponsorships for Congolese women, beginning with a solo 30-mile run, and then founded Run for Congo Women..." - Lisa Shannon

Lisa Shannon recently spoke about Congo and her book with ABC World News, you can watch the interview online here.

Lisa Shannon presently serves as an ambassador for Women for Women International. She previously owned a photography production company, where she served as art director and producer. She lives in her hometown of Portland, Oregon. A Thousand Sisters is her first book.

About Seal Press
Inspired by the simple yet radical notion that a book can change a woman’s life, Seal Press is devoted to publishing titles that inform, reveal, engage, delight, and support women of all ages and backgrounds. Seal Press was founded in 1976 as a small DIY publisher to provide a forum for women writers and feminist issues, and since then, Seal has published groundbreaking books that represent the diverse voices and interests of women. "From cultural revelation to pop culture, our books are smart and fun, insightful and hilarious."

Lisa Shannon: A Thousand Sisters
non-fiction, 336 pages
ISBN: 1580052967

related links: the world these days, gender + race + age, non-fiction

Traveling with Virginia Woolf - Kristina Marie Darling (Ungovernable)

Traveling with Virignia Woolf is a nonfiction e-book that explores the role of artist colonies in the careers of women writers. By blending personal narrative with journalistic techniques, the author situates her visit to the Mary Anderson Center for the Arts within a broader literary and historical context. As the book unfolds, autobiography becomes a point of entry to questions about the role of solitude in one's writing life, the extent to which this has been available to women historically, and the rapidly changing literary landscape that contemporary female writers inhabit.

Kristina Marie Darling is the author of Night Songs (Gold Wake Press, 2010) and the editor of narrative (dis)continuities: prose experiments by younger american writers (VOX Press, 2011). She has been awarded fellowships and grants from the Vermont Studio Center, the Ragdale Foundation, and the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts. A graduate of Washington University, she currently studies philosophy at the University of Missouri, St. Louis.

About Ungovernable Press
Ungovernable Press is edited by translator and experimental poet Lars Palm. The press specializes in short e-books of poetry, essays, crime stories, and translations. Recent releases include David Wolach's book alter (ed), Adam Fieled's The White Album, Nate Pritts' Uniquely Constructed Self, and Brooklyn Copeland's Northernmost. Ungovernable Press was founded in 2008 and continues to seek and publish innovative writing.

Kristina Marie Darling: Traveling with Virginia Woolf
nonfiction e-book, 10 pages
online-pdf, free download

related links: on writing, about a place, e-books

Had Slaves - Catherine Sasanov (Firewheel Editions)

Had Slaves is Catherine Sasanov's third book of poems. Written out of her discovery of slaveholding among her Missouri ancestors, and the fragmented evidence left behind of the 11 men, women, and children held in their bondage, Had Slaves pieces together lives endured from slavery to Jim Crow across a landscape lost beneath big box stores, subdivisions, and tourist sites. Avoiding Gone With the Wind imagery, the book takes readers to slavery's less expected locale: where big house means log cabin and plantation is a small-grain farm with tarantulas mating in the corn. One author's look at a stumbled-upon past set in motion after finding the words, "Had slaves".

Catherine Sasanov is the author of two previous poetry collections, Traditions of Bread and Violence (Four Way Books) and All the Blood Tethers (Northeastern University Press), as well as the theater work, Las Horas de Belèn: A Book of Hours, commissioned by Mabou Mines. She is a recipient of fellowships and grants from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Rockefeller Foundation, and the Ludwig Vogelstein Foundation. She lives in Jamaica Plain, Massachusetts.

About Firewheel Editions/The Sentence Book Award:
Firewheel Editions is a non-profit organization. It publishes "Sentence: a Journal of Prose Poeticss" and sponsors the Sentence Book Award which goes annually to a manuscript consisting entirely or substantially of prose poems or other hard-to-define work situated in the grey areas between poetry and other genres. The press also offers an annual chapbook award, looking for innovative work that crosses genres, combines images and text, comes in formats other than the traditionally bound book, or that may have difficulty finding a publisher due to the nature, typography, or format of the work.

Had Slaves by Catherine Sasanov
poetry collection
99 pages, $18.00
ISBN: 978-0-9665754-8-4

related links: human condition, poetry

Lantern Review - Issue 1

Lantern Review: A Journal of Asian American Poetry provides a virtual space in which to promote and discuss the work of contemporary Asian American poets and artists, and seeks to publish expertly crafted work in a variety of forms and aesthetics, including traditional and experimental pieces, hybrid forms, multimedia work, and new translations. Lantern Review welcomes pieces from anglophone writers of all ethnic backgrounds whose work has a vested interest in issues relevant to the Asian diaspora in North America, as well as work created collaboratively in a community context.

Issue 1 of Lantern Review features poems by Angela Veronica Wong, Changming Yuan, Melissa Roxas, Frances Won, Vuong Quoc Vu, Ocean Vuong, Kevin Minh Allen, Maria T. Allocco, Jon Pineda, Subhashini Kaligotla, Eileen R. Tabios, Rachelle Cruz, Sankar Roy, Vanni Taing, Asterio Enrico N. Gutierrez, Jai Arun Ravine, Desmond Kon Zhicheng-Mingdé, Henry W. Leung, Luisa A. Igloria, & Barbara Jane Reyes; translations by Hsiao-Shih (Raechel) Lee visual art by Rebecca Y.M. Cheung, Ray Craig, Elaine Wang, and Steve Wing, and includes a special feature showcasing work created by members of the Kundiman community, as well as a book review of Sun Yung Shin's Skirt Full of Black, contributed by Craig Santos Perez.

About Lantern Review
Lantern Review was founded in 2009 by Iris A. Law & Mia Ayumi Malhotra, two college friends who had gone on to pursue graduate creative writing programs in different parts of the US. Lantern Review in online-only, and consists of an electronic journal and a blog.
We chose a lantern as our emblem because lanterns are cross-cultural symbols of beauty, hope, and enlightenment, have historically been a feature of community celebrations, and are also linked with exploration, discovery, and the forging of new paths. We hope that our name reflects our dual desires to shed light on the complex nature of Asian American poetry and to be a stage on which the question, “What is contemporary Asian American poetry and where is it headed?” can be played out.

Lantern Review Issue 1
90 pages, online issue

related links: first issues of new lit journals, east / west

The New Yorker: Summer Fiction: 20 Under 40

In June, The New Yorker released a double fiction issue. What made the headlines wasn't the release of a fiction issue, but the title and concept of it:

"Summer Fiction: 20 Under 40
Our Summer Fiction Issue features twenty young writers who capture the inventiveness and the vitality of contemporary American fiction."
The included authors are: Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Chris Adrian, Daniel Alarcón, David Bezmozgis, Sarah Shun-lien Bynum, Joshua Ferris, Jonathan Safran Foer, Nell Freudenberger, Rivka Galchen, Nicole Krauss, Dinaw Mengestu, Philipp Meyer, C E Morgan, Téa Obreht, Yiyun Li, ZZ Packer, Karen Russell, Salvatore Scibona, Gary Shteyngart, Wells Tower.

There are also several stories from the issue online: An Honest Exit by Dinaw Mengestu, The Erlking by Sarah Shun-lien Bynum, The Young Painters by Nicole Krauss.

Also available online are brief interviews with every writer: Author Q & A, the questionnaires are accompanied by an introduction by the editors and by a live chat transcript of the summer issue.

The introduction explains the base approach of the editors, and draws the parallel to their fiction issue of 1999: "Last winter, when we came up with the plan to devote this issue to young fiction writers who we believe are, or will be, key to their generation, we took a look at a similar issue that we published, in 1999, titled “The Future of American Fiction.” Back then, we had to decide how we were going to decide: did we want to choose the writers who had already proved themselves or those whom we expected to excel in years to come? A good list, we came to think, should include both." (sidenote: when the New Yorker's list was issued in 1999, it included future big-name authors such as David Foster Wallace, Jonathan Franzen and Jhumpa Lahiri.)

The 2010 summer issue caused a stir, discussions about the validity of such lists and the methodology - an effect that probably was both expected and intended by the editors. Here's another quote from the introduction: "The habit of list-making can seem arbitrary or absurd, leaving the list-makers endlessly open to second-guessing (although to encourage such second-guessing is perhaps the best reason to make lists)."

To read some of the essays and discussions stirred by the issue, try this search link: google search: "new yorker fiction 40 under 20 discussion" - and dip into essays like the Gawker's "How to Complain About the New Yorker's 20 Favorite Writers Under 40" or the MFA Weblog analysis "The New Yorker's 20 Under 40 List, and MFA Rankings". For some contemplation on writing, visit the "Special Rumpus lamentation with possible added pep talk" by Steve Almond.

The second-guessing indeed lead to additional lists - and also sparked an initative to create a list that focuses on small presses: Dzanc contacted nearly 100 independent publishers, agents, editors, bloggers and reviewers, and based on the feeback, put together: 20 Writers to Watch - An Alternate List

No surprise: like the New Yorker list, this list lead to some debates as to whom should have been included, and which group is missing, and how to compile such a list, and how to feel about it - see comments of the list, and this essay in the Nervous Breakdown: The Lists We Love to Hate: First the New Yorker, Now Dzanc?

editor's note: there is an additional review of "40 under 20" up in the blueprintreview blog, with a different angle: "New Yorker summer fiction issue / 2nd language authors

update, August 2010:
Luna Park featured a series on Race, Class, Gender & Sexuality in Indie Publishing. i contributed an article on gender ratios, and the effects on categorization - it includes this passage on the summer fiction issue:

"Categories influence the viewpoint — I was reminded of this again when The New Yorker launched their fiction issue in June. Instead of just calling it “Summer Reads,” they titled it: “20 under 40.” And that’s exactly what the reviews and discussions then picked up on: instead of focusing on the stories and authors, the focus moved to the age categorization, and the whole topic of “youth” vs” “aging”. What almost went unnoticed was the fact that the issue came in a fine balance of 10 male and 10 female authors, and with more than 30% non-native writers included. That’s another effect of categories: they define the directly accessible statistics."
(link: Tag Poc 50/50, or: the Complexities and Effects of Categorization)

Common Boundary: Stories of Immigration (Editions Bibliotekos)

Editions Bibliotekos announces the publication of its second book, Common Boundary: Stories of Immigration, an anthology of twenty-nine creative works (from nineteen contributors) that treat the theme of immigration (loneliness, alienation, self-questioning, doubt, and uncertainty about the past and future) with candor, humor, and insight. This is a book that will touch you in many ways as it hits home for virtually all of us, whoever we are, wherever we are. These stories might be timely because of what you read in the newspaper, but these stories are timeless since they continually intrigue us, constantly pull us back to take another look at origins and major questions.

In his Foreword, Jason Dubow writes: “. . . this book is really an anthology of anthologies: a collection of stories in which the old inextricably blends with the new, in which the tensions between what has been lost and what can be gained are grappled with (but, inevitably, not resolved), and in which the human capacity to imagine a future and make it real (more or less) is explored from a variety of different perspectives.”

The book is edited by Gregory F. Tague, Ph.D., Professor of English at St. Francis College (NY).

Contributors: Janice Eidus, Omer Hadžiselimović, John Guzlowski, Roy Jacobstein, M. Neelika Jayawardane, Rivka Keren, Eva Konstantopoulos, Dagmara J. Kurcz, Mitch Levenberg, Cassandra Lewis, Tim Nees, Muriel Nelson, George Rabasa, Nahid Rachlin, Ruth Sabath Rosenthal, Azarin A. Sadegh, Ruth Knafo Setton, Patty Somlo, Rewa Zeinati.
Honors and Awards Won by these Authors: O. Henry Prize, Bennet Cerf Award, PEN Syndicated Fiction Project Award, James Wright Poetry Prize, Pushcart Prize Nominations, NEA Grants and Fellowships, New Millenium Writings.

About Editions Bibliotekos
Editions Bibliotekos is a small press operating out of Brooklyn, NY, whose mission is “To produce books of literary merit that address important issues, complex ideas, and enduring themes.”
They are now seeking submissions for their anticipated third book, an anthology on the theme of "War" - guidelines.

Common Boundary: Stories of Immigration
Available immediately via Amazon.com
other outlets including bookstores (by request): in late July
198 pages; paperback; ISBN: 978-0982481936; $15.95US

editor's note: there is an additional (and more personal) review of "Common Boundary" up in the editor's blog: "currently reading: Common Boundary"

let a thousand dictionaries bloom - Sean Burn

let a thousand dictionaries bloom: a documentation from anti-racist arts-activist residency with stanley picker gallery / live art development agency

Sean Burn: "i was recently artist-activist with the stanley picker gallery and live art development agency, one of seven residencies under the collective banner louder than bombs. my week focused on anti-racism and central with a durational performance napalm perceptible : a dictionary for the bnp - redactin 'non-indigenous' words to leave a blank dictionary. like each ov us, language is ovcourse outta everywhere. a series ov interviews on identity, race, struggle alternatin with speeches from angela davis and nelson mandela played while challenges to some tabloid headlines and other visual poetry wz also on show. walls were written up in charcoal and reverse graffiti'd with putty rubbers to provide poetic responses to the vocabularies ov hate - this included let a thousand dictionaries bloom."

films and photos from the residency:
- film: let a thousand dictionaries bloom
- film: some tabloid headlies by sean burn
- photos: photostream

Sean Burn is a writer, performer and outsider artist with a growing international reputation. He is also actively involved nationally in disability arts. He was shortlisted for a dadafest disability arts award 2009 and is currently outside in artist in residence to the new gallery walsall in association with dash (disability arts shropshire). his twenty five poetry films have received many screenings worldwide, as well as at tate modern and national film theatre studios, london.

Stanley Picker Gallery: Louder Than Bombs
Over the course of seven weeks, the Stanley Picker Gallery handed over its entire exhibition space to host a series of week-long Live Art residencies. Co-curated with the Live Art Development Agency, London, through an open call for proposals, “Louder than Bombs”: Art, Action & Activism was an ambitious programme of public workshops and live events that focussed on challenging social, political and global issues of the day, addressed through the seven invited artist/activist’s individual working practices and the Gallery audience’s direct participation and responding involvement.

Sean Burn: let a thousand dictionaries bloom
28 pages
available as paperback ($5,70)
or as free download

related links
- art
- books available as download

Zahra’s Paradise - Amir and Khalil (First Second Book & coop)

So a Persian writer, an Arab artist and a Jewish editor walk into a room… Sounds like the beginning of a bad joke. Actually, that’s something like the start of this unusual editorial adventure, the first of its kind. Zahra's Paradise is an online, serial webcomic in various languages: English, Farsi, Arabic, French, Italian, Spanish, Hebrew and more. It is published by First Second books in cooperation with Casterman in French and Dutch, Rizzoli Lizard in Italian, and Norma Editorial in Spanish.

Zahra’s Paradise weaves together a composite of real people and events: Set in the aftermath of Iran’s fraudulent elections of 2009, this webcomic tells the fictional story of the search for Mehdi, a young protestor who has disappeared in the Islamic Republic’s gulags. Mehdi has vanished in an extrajudicial twilight zone where habeas corpus is suspended. What stops his memory from being obliterated is not the law. It is the grit and guts of a mother who refuses to surrender her son to fate and the tenacity of a brother—a blogger—who fuses culture and technology to explore and explode absence: the void in which Mehdi has vanished.

author Amir + artist Kahlil
The author Amir is an Iranian-American human rights activist, journalist and documentary filmmaker. He has lived and worked in the United States, Canada, Europe and Afghanistan. His essays and articles have appeared far and wide in the press. Khalil’s work as a fine artist has been much praised. He sculpts and creates ceramics and has been cartooning since he was very young. Zahra’s Paradise is his first graphic novel. The authors have chosen anonymity for obvious political reasons.

About First Second Book, Casterman, Rizzoli Lizard, Norma Editorial
First Second Book is an imprint of Roaring Brook Press, a division of Holtzbrinck Publishers. Casterman is a French comic publisher ("La maison Casterman a intégré le monde de la bande dessinée dans les années 1930 en éditant les albums de Tintin"). Rizzoli Lizard is an Italian comic publisher. Norma Editorial is a Spanish comic publisher.

Amir and Khalil: Zahra’s Paradise
online serial webcomic in English, Farsi, Arabic, French, Italian, Spanish and other languages
start reading at page 1

following the theme: more daily s-press books that focus on the theme of middle east / prohibited stories / east/west etc.

The Asian American Literary Review - Issue 1

The Asian American Literary Review is a space for writers who consider the designation “Asian American” a fruitful starting point for artistic vision and community. In showcasing the work of established and emerging writers, the journal aims to incubate dialogues and, just as importantly, open those dialogues to regional, national, and international audiences of all constituencies. AALR selects work that is, as Marianne Moore once put it, “an expression of our needs…[and] feeling, modified by the writer’s moral and technical insights.”

Published biannually, AALR features fiction, poetry, creative nonfiction, translations, comic art, interviews, and book reviews.

Issue 1, debuting in April 2010, features poetry by Cathy Song, Oliver de la Paz, Paisley Rekdal, April Naoko Heck, Mong-Lan, Eugene Gloria, Nick Carbo, and David Woo; Karen Tei Yamashita interviewed by Kandice Chuh; prose by Ed Lin, Marie Mutsuki Mockett, Sonya Chung, Hasanthika Sirisena, David Mura, Gary Pak, and Brian Ascalon Roley; fourm responses by Alexander Chee, David Mura, and Ru Freeman; and book reviews by Paul Lai, Timothy Yu, and Jennifer Ann Homany other Asian American authors.

About AALR
The Asian American Literary Review was founded by Lawrence-Minh Bùi Davis, Gerald Maa and Larry Shinagawa, and is sponsored by the Asian American Studies Program, University of Maryland, College Park. Regular AALR pieces can be found on Discover Nikkei, posted on Sundays.

The Asian American Literary Review - Issue 1
single issue, $12

kari edwards: NO GENDER (Belladonna)

kari edwards (1954 - 2006) was a poet, artist and gender activist, her work has appeared in numerous publications, and inspired others. This anthology follows her mandate of reclaiming the very words we speak and write, beginning with our authorial name:

"kari’s authorial “signature” undid the authorial body in favor of a visible obfuscation—strikethru: kari never just signed, but rather crossed out hir name and wrote “NO GENDER.” The erasure—well no, the palimpsestic remaking of the name into a symbol for the dismantling of enforced gender codes is a profound and provocative gesture—the name is still visible behind the NO GENDER, as if behind bars... kari’s genius moved others to their own words, art, action—following a mandate of reclaiming the very words we speak and write—writing our selves, our other(ed) bodies, into a foundational postgender post-genre state. This book is the start of what hopefully will be a much longer conversation." - by Julian T. Brolaski & erica kaufman

With contributions from Cara Benson, Frances Blau, Mark Brasuell, Julian T. Brolaski, Reed Bye, Marcus Civin, CAConrad, Donna de la Perrière, E. Tracy Grinnell, Rob Halpern, Jen Hofer, Brenda Iijima, Lisa Jarnot, erica kaufman, Kevin Killian, Wendy Kramer, Joseph Lease, Rachel Levitsky, Joan MacDonald, Bill Marsh, Chris Martin, Yedda Morrison, Eileen Myles, Akilah Oliver, Tim Peterson, Ellen Redbird, Leslie Scalapino, Michael Smoler, Sherman Souther, Eleni Stecopoulos, and Anne Waldman

kari edwards: NO GENDER is a Venn Diagram Production, which is the collaborative intersection between Belladonna Books and Litmus Press. This imprint actualizes the mutual commitment to publishing innovative, cross-genre, multicultural, feminist, and queer work by writers and artists working beyond and between borders.

About Belladonna
Founded as a reading and salon series by Rachel Levitsky at Bluestocking's Women's Bookstore on New York City's Lower East Side in 1999, Belladonna so far has featured over 150 writers of wildly diverse age and origin, writers who work in conversation and collaboration in and between multiple forms, languages, and critical fields. As performance and as printed text, the work collects, gathers over time and space, and forms a conversation about the feminist avant-garde, what it is and how it comes to be.
This year marks the tenth anniversary of Belladonna's mission to promote the work of women writers who are adventurous, experimental, politically involved, multi-form, multicultural, multi-gendered, impossible to define, delicious to talk about, unpredictable, and dangerous with language. Forhtcoming: The Wide Road by Lyn Hejinian & Carla Harryman

kari edwards: NO GENDER
Reflections on the Life & Work of kari edwards
Edited by Julian T. Brolaski, erica kaufman, and E. Tracy Grinnell
204 pages, $18
ISBN: 978-0-9819310-1-2

Gaze - Marthe Reed (Black Radish)

In the de-stabilized intersection of fashion, the war on terror, and cultural constructions of the feminine, Gaze explores the resulting tensions in a series of dichotomies central to an increasingly isolate and adversarial condition: Christianity/Islam, ancient/modern, sacred/secular, sexuality/spirituality, feminism/fundamentalism, power/resistance, self/other.
Rikki Ducornet says this about these intersections in Gaze: “In these moments the world is given breath, heat, and voice. All at once it approaches, and the beloved's unfettered body is revealed as the antidote to tyranny.” What we see and what we fail to see are constantly juxtaposed, exposing a flawed desire to “become.” Kate Bernheimer says of Gaze, “Too beautiful to articulate’—dressed, undressed, terrorized, and entrancing. These unveilings, these poems, how they haunt me. Riding Angela Carter on a poetry-horse, Reed hallucinates language with certain and dissolving rhythm. Gaze at them; go blind inside this mentalist’s mind. Marthe Reed is unrelenting, unrelentingly kind.”

Marthe Reed’s publications include Tender Box, A Wunderkammer (Lavender Ink) and two chapbooks (em)bodied bliss and zaum alliterations (Dusie Kollektiv). Her poetry has appeared in New American Writing, Golden Handcuffs Review, New Orleans Review, HOW2, MiPoesias, Exquisite Corpse, and Big Bridge, and is forthcoming from Ekleksographia and Fairy Tale Review.

About Black Radish Books
Black Radish Books was founded as a collective in 2009. Our editorial focus is to publish and promote innovative writing. Because we operate as a collective, our goal is to allow members to dictate the aesthetic. As such, our bent is best described as eclectic, with focus on the difficult and the surprising. Black Radish Books has two other books forthcoming this spring: Occultations by David Wolach, and Spectre by Mark Lamoureux. This summer look for The Incompossible by Carrie Hunter, Herso,- An Heirship in Waves by Susana Gardner, and The Dead Love Everyone by Jared Hayes. Ten more volumes of poetry are in the pipeline, coming out later this year and 2011.

Marthe Reed: Gaze
Poetry collection
94 pages; paperback; price $15.00
ISBN 978-0-9825731-0-5