Sampsonia Way

Sampsonia Way is an online magazine sponsored by City of Asylum/Pittsburgh celebrating literary free expression and supporting persecuted writers worldwide.

The magazine’s key staff includes exiled writers living on Sampsonia Way, a street in Pittsburgh that spans cultures and languages, which was conceived with their advice from within their own experience of exile and repression.

Sampsonia Way seeks to protect and advocate for writers who may be endangered, to educate the public about threats to writers and literary expression, and to create a community in which endangered writers thrive and literary culture is a valued part of everyday life.

The current Issue 9 — January 2012 includes the features "The Stage is My Gun: The Cultural Intifada of Juliano Mer-Khamis" by Olivia Stransky, "Reporting from Egypt: An Interview with Democracy Now's Sharif Abdel Kouddous" by Caitlyn Christensen and "Under Chávez: Media Harassed with Online Hacking, Phone Tapping and Censorship" by Gregorio Salazar.

Sampsonia Way is produced for City of Asylum/Pittsburgh by Silvia Duarte under a grant from the Queequeg Foundation. She is proud to produce a magazine of worldwide impact with a staff composed entirely of volunteers, part-time freelancers and consultants, and interns.

Sampsonia Way
international online magazine

The Language of Dragons - Yay Words

The Language of Dragons is a collection of dragon haiku and art, edited by Aubrie Cox in anticipation of the year of the dragon, which starts with the Chinese New Year on the 23rd January 2012.
The collection is available as PDF at Yay Words: The Language of Dragons - PDF

Aubrie Cox explains: "Back in October on Yay Words!, I asked my poet friends to write poems about trolls and/or tea and posted the results of it on Halloween as "Tea with Trolls." After a poll on Facebook and Twitter—it was whether folks wanted to write about sasquatch or dragons—and discovering 2012 was the Year of the Water dragon, I decided to plan another post for January first as a way to commemorate the New Year. Poets and artists were invited to contribute short form poetry and art featuring dragons and/or water and/or fire; anyone would submitted was guaranteed one piece for inclusion."

Contributors come from all over the world and include both well established and newer haiku poets. Cover art by Kris Kondo. A contributor list with website and twitter links is included at the end of the collection.

Aubrie Cox graduated from Millikin University with a B.A. in English literature and creative writing with a philosophy minor. At Millikin, she served as the senior editor for the student owned and operated publishing company Bronze Man Books, and editor-in-chief for the literary and fine arts magazine Collage. As of Fall 2011, she is attending Ball State University in pursuit of an M.A. in English creative writing. She regularly blogs poetry on Yay Words!, where she also does collaborative e-collections.

The Language of Dragons - website
The Language of Dragons - PDF
44 pages

Edge: curve, arc, circle - Sandra Davies

Edge: curve, arc, circle is a tale of learning, adaptation and celebration in neolithic Orkney written and illustrated by Sandra Davies. The book includes three episodes and seventeen original and apt illustrations in this coming-of-age tale set in Neolithic Orkney.

The first of the episodes, 'Curve of early learning' describes the hurts of childhood and early adolescence, the acquisition of understanding about one's environment and place in society. This episode is online as excerpt with paintings as part of the Language/Place edition #6 "at the edge": Curve of learning.

The second episode 'Arc of adaptation' tells of further changes, more deaths, but the discovery of humanity and, eventually love and respect. 'Circle of celebration' describes the journey by land and sea to the Ring of Brodgar for the celebration of the mid-winter solstic. An extensive preview of the book is online at blurb: Edge: curve, arc, circle.

Sandra explains: "This book was inspired firstly by Orkney and a visit to Isbister, known more popularly as 'Tomb of the Eagles'. It was brought into being because Michael D Brown asked for contributions for MuDJoB, the illustrations followed later, sparked by the celebration of MuDJoBs first anniversary."

Sandra Davies is an artist and printmaker and recently-emerged writer of fiction, with a long-established interest in family history. Born on the Essex coast, she now lives in Teesside in the north east of England, both places having the flat landscapes and sea-edged horizons considered essential for a sense of well-being. Her writing can be found at linesofcommunication. For some of her prints, visit: printuniverse/SandraDavies.

Sandra Davies: Edge: curve, arc, circle
15.95$ / 14.95 Euro

related links: about a place, art

Frankfurt Bookfair 2012: An Aotearoa Affair - A Blog Fest

Frankfurt Bookfair 2012: An Aotearoa Affair - A Blog Fest is a literary web initiative in anticipation of the Frankfurt Bookfair in October, where New Zealand is the Guest of Honour. The idea: to cross boundaries through writing from various perspectives and languages, to stretch across landscapes and timezones, to share experiences both common and unique to these countries and the people from there and living there.

The website just launched with an invite to join: "In these pages we’re highlighting Kiwi and German writers in 2012 and creating a space for interested readers and bloggers to connect and share related posts. If you are a Kiwi or German living anywhere in the world, or if you are from somewhere else but have settled in New Zealand or Germany, we want to hear from you."

The blog fest will present writers in a weekly series, and in special features. Added to that, a monthly blog carnival will feature New Zealand and German perspectives in many forms: poetry, fiction, non-fiction, travel, photography, art, etc. - the first edition is planned for February, deadline is February 5, the theme will be "Crossings". Guidelines for interested authors and bloggers: How to Join.

About Frankfurt Book Fair
The Frankfurt Book Fair is the biggest book and media fair in the world – with around 7,400 exhibitors from over 100 countries. In 2012, the Frankfurt Book Fair will take place from 10 to 14 October. The guest of honour is New Zealand. Previous guests of honour include Iceland, Argentina, China, and many more.

About the Blog Fest 
The editors of the Blog Fest are Michelle Elvy (New Zealand, founder of the flash initiative 52|250 A Year of Flash) and Dorothee Lang (Germany, editor BluePrintReview and founder of the language/place blog carnival). Michelle and Dorothee first met over their separate writing and editing projects in 2010 and soon discovered common ground -- both literally, as Michelle had lived many years in Germany and also through language and travel, poetry and photography.

Frankfurt Bookfair 2012: An Aotearoa Affair - A Blog Fest

Reading Challenges 2012: Ebooks, Global, Europe, Translations + suggestions & links

With the start of the new year many reading challenges opened a new page in the web. The challenges invite readers to join and focus on a defined theme for some of their yearly reading, and to share the titles of the books you read and/or reviews with other participants. Signup for most of the challenges is still open. Here are some of the challenges:

The 2012 Ebook Challenge invites you to read at least 5 e-books in 2012. It offers a monthly roundup post where participants can add their reviews, and also giveaways.

To tour Europe in books - that's the idea of the European Reading Challenge. The books can be anything – novels, short stories, memoirs, travel guides, cookbooks, biography, poetry, or any other genre. The task: Read up to 5 books by different European authors or books set in different European countries.

The Global Reading Challenge challenges you to expand your reading boundaries, go where you haven't been before, move a little outside your comfort zone by reading at least one book from each continent.

The goal of the Books in Translation Reading Challenge is self-explanatory: to read translations of books. "The books don't have to be in English; whatever language(s) you're comfortable reading in is good."

More challenges and challenge overlaps
More challenges can be found at A Novel Challenge - a blog that gathers reading challenge links. A hint from the guidelines: most challenges allow and encourage an overlap of challenges for those who take part in more than one challenge.

Reading Suggestions from this book blog
If you are interested in joining a challenge, and look for fitting books to read: here some categories to browse from this blog:

• Ebooks (Peppermint Bottle, Never Never Stories, Freight, Spiral Jetta, Life Cycle...)
• About a Place (The Tiger's Path - Iraq, A Foal Poem - Mexico,Open City - New York, Habit of a Foreign Sky - Asia, Spiral Jetty - USA, Ayiti - Haitia...)
• International (Foreign Flavours, Writers Abroad Anthology, Black Nature anthology, Oxford Book of Latin American Poetry...)

Blip Magazine + Mississippi Review Archives

Blip Magazine's Winter Issue 2012 is online: "It’s funny stuff, confounding stuff–curious, affecting, off-putting, inarticulate, beautiful and true, variously."

With the winter issue, a larger archive of former issues that reaches back to 1995 went online. Here's the story of it: In early 1995, the literary magazines Mississippi Review launched an online edition: MROnline. It was one of the first literary magazine, and featured original content not connected to the print edition.

In May 2010, after a change of organization, the archives of MROnline went offline. Now they were brought back by the editors of the past issues, and can be found in the Magazine Archive of Blip. The archives include links to the content pages, and also 2 PDF-issues: The LitMag at 100 and The Movies Issue.

The First Online Literary Magazines
Following the theme of first online literary magazines, there's a list with links to some of the first online literary online magazines up at The First Online Literary Magazines, an link page that belongs to BluePrintReview re/visit issue. Some of the early magazines aren't online anymore, some still have archives up, and some could be retrieved with help of the wayback machine.

Leaf Press 2012 co-op poem

Since 2009, the editors of Leaf Press organize a collaborate winter poem for the start of the year, collecting couplets from different poets, to publish as co-op poem on the first Monday of the new year.

The guidelines for 2012: "This year we ask for couplets again, not specifiying a theme, but asking you to write about what is on your mind this season, this place." Now the 2012 poem is online: Lines Drawn from Greening Winds

And  here, for the joy of poetic cooperation, the previous poems:
2011 - The Change in Winter Light
2010 - Cold
2009 - Snow

About Leaf Press
Leaf Press is an independent press located on Vancouver Island, British Columbia. Ursula Vaira founded Leaf in 2001 as a poetry chapbook publisher. Since 2007 Leaf has been publishing trade poetry while continuing the chapbook tradition and the weekly on-line Monday's Poem.

related links: web projects, international, poetry

Prompted - An International Collection of Poems

Prompted - An International Collection of Poems is a poetic charity project: all profits benefit LitWorld, a non-profit organization working towards global literacy.

The idea was conceived by an international group of poets that met at Robert Lee Brewer's Poetic Asides, and with the permission granted from Writer's Digest, were able to choose previous prompts from the site to use in the book. Edited by Pearl Ketover Prilik and published by Really Love Your Book , the project was completed in six months. The anthology includes a forward by Robert Lee Brewer.

Among the "prompts" included: type of person, inverted pyramid, prayer, location, love/anti-love poem, all I want, message in a bottle, water, time of day, and after leaving here.

The poets: Daniel Ari, Michele Brenton, Salvatore Buttaci, Anders Bylund, Janet Rice Carnahan, Diana Terrill Clark, RJ Clarken, Barbara Ehrentreu, Hannah Gosselin, Michael Grove, Jacqueline Hallenbeck, Patricia A. Hawkenson, Michelle Hed, Linda Hofke, Cara Holman, Jane Penland Hoover,  Khara House, S.E. Ingraham, De Jackson, Elizabeth Johnson, Iain Douglas kemp, Pearl Ketover Prilik, Kim King, Laurie Kolp, Andrew Kreider,  Catherine Lee, Amy Barlow Liberatore, Shannon Bo Lockard,  mike Maher., Nikki Markle,  Buddah Moskowitz, Bruce Niedt, Connie L. Peters, Nancy Posey,  Jane Shlensky,  Jay Sizemore, a.m. Trumble, Sara Vinas, Paula Wanken, and Claudette J. Young

Links and charity info
Prompted: An International Collection of Poems is now available through Amazon and Barnes&Noble. There also is a Kindle edition. For more details about the collection, visit Laurie Kolp's blog, and for more about the charity, visit litworld.org. A synopsis and biographies of the collection are online in the blog of the editor Pearl Ketover Prilik: Prompted (keep scrolling).

Related links: charity projects, poetry

see haiku here: Snowman series

Last week, haiga (haiku+artwork) artist Kuniharu Shimizu started a snowman series in his blog see haiku here.

The blog itself is home to more than 700 haiga. The first snowman of the series appeared on December 19, with an introduction to the theme, and an invitation to send snowman haiku: "The snowman is something of a special treat for me in the winter time ever since my child days. Here where I live, it does not snow much though the temperature goes down quite low. The snow falls occasionally but not enough to make a good clean snowman. Last year was different, we had days with heavy snow. Kids and adults (me included) were out in the field, eagerly making snowmen. We were all happy to have great winter friends, the snowmen. I will be posting snowman haiga for a while. I am looking for good snowman haiku. Anybody?" (Snowman haiku 1)

Since then, several Snowman haiku went online already. The image to the left is from Snowman haiku 7. There also is a haiku from BluePrintReview contributor Stella Pierides included, which is how I learned about the blog: Snowman haiku 5.

Note: Kuniharu Shimizu is currently looking for new snowman haiku to continue the series: "This is the last haiga of the snowman series. Yet, it is still in the middle of winter. If anyone come up with good snowman haiku during this season, please share it with me." (link )

For another selection of haiku with a winter mood (from winter nights to stillness to christmas trees), try this link from the archive: see haiku here - December 2010.

Kuniharu Shimizu
see haiku here is the blog of haiga (haiku+artwork) artist Kuniharu Shimizu: a priest of Tenrikyo, the advisor of World Haiku Association, and the judge of WHA Haiga Contest. Kuniharu Shimizu lives in Tenri, Japan, near a city called Nara.

related links: web projects, art, international, poetry

Inter/National Short Story Day 2011

Thursday 22nd December is the shortest day of the year. It also is Short Story Day in the UK. To celebrate prose’s short-yet-perfectly-crafted form, there's a special event website: http://www.nationalshortstoryday.co.uk/

The page features videoclips of short story readings and interviews and story recommendations, quotes and links to short story organisations, as well as links to story sources, publishers, and other pages of interest, like this TedTalk: The danger of a single story.

The Short Story Day invites to "pick up a short story and let your reading take you to territories previously unexplored."

Int'l Short Story Day
There also is a related international twitter account: Int'l ShortStory Day with more links and notes, here just 2 of the links:  a blog of daily short story reviews and a book giveaway.

If you are into story videoclips, check out the Short Story Day Facebook-page for additional short story clips and links.

website link:
Inter/National Short Story Day 2011

related links: short stories, writing events

Thrush - Inaugral Edition

Thrush is a new online journal that focuses exclusively on the poetry and poets. The journal will appear six times a year, in the months of January, March, May, July, September and November. A special edition is now online: Thrush Inaugral Edition - December 2011.

The inaugral edition features 23 poems by 10 poets: Maureen Alsop, Hélène Cardona, Cindy Goff, Nathalie Handal, Anna Journey, Ada Limón, Rachel McKibbens, Sheila Nickerson, Amber Tamblyn and Ocean Vuong.

About Thrush
Thrush is edited by Helen Vitoria (Editor in Chief) and Walter Bjorkman (Associate Editor + Web Design). The first regular edition will appear in January of 2012, for complete submission guidelines, please visit the submissions page. "Why the name Thrush? Thrushes are a species of bird, the songs of some considered to be among the most beautiful in the world. We love that and that is how we feel about poems."

Thrush
online poetry journal

related links: first issues, poetry

YB issue 5: Animals

How might we speak to the animals, yes, but also how might they speak to us, and what might they say?

The animals in YB Issue 5 are various and varied, mythical and fantastic, glorious and ordinary, urban and country. They come to us on four legs, on two, on eight, on none. They are terrestrial, arboreal, and aquatic. They have hopes and dreams and stories to tell…. The attempt to understand another animal is an imaginative leap as well as a moral undertaking, and the contributors to issue 5 have met the challenge, and wonderfully.

YB Issue 5 features poetry by Jason Badgley, Lisa Marie Basile, Carol Berg, Andrea Carlisle, Sherry Chandler, Mark deCarteret, Risa Denenberg, Kathleen Kirk, Karla Linn Merrifield, Neila Mezynski, George Moore, Dawn Pendergast, Vivian Prescott, Sarah J. Sloat, Linda Umans, and Leslee Rene Wright. The issue also includes a book review by Karla Linn Merrifield, and a gallery by Ron Kostar.

About YB:
YB is a journal of poetry, published twice a year, in June and December. Each issue has a theme; the last was Windows, here at the BluePrintBlog.  Each issue is also accompanied by an eBook, in the case of issue 5, available at Amazon. Issues 1-5 can also be reached from the YB main page, here.
The managing editor of YB is Rose Hunter, with assistant editor Sherry O'Keefe. Kindle edition by Sherry O'Keefe. 

YB Issue 5 Animals, online.

eBook (Amazon).