pay attention: a river of stones

a river of stones
The challenge: to notice one thing properly every day during January ’11, and to write it down. The result: more than 350 people across the world paying more attention to what was around them, and writing small stones. The birth of a new community of daily writers. A new movement - a river of stones. Which now also turned into a book.

a river of stones - the book
This book contains a selection of these engaged moments, written both by experienced poets and complete beginners, and a guide to writing your own small stones: "You will receive 320 amazing small stones written by all of you lovely talented people, short prose pieces written by Kaspa & me, longer quotes by several small-stoners and an appendix with lots of information about how to write small stones." - Fiona Robyn

a river of stones - a quote and links
The river of stones started in January with a blog and a welcome-post, here's a quote from it: "Why would you want to join in? - Because choosing something to write about every day will help you to connect with yourselves, with others, and with the world. It will help you to love everything you see - the light and the dark, the happy and the sad, the beautiful and the ugly. You don't have to be a 'writer' to get involved. The process of paying attention is what's important." The month of writing small stones and sharing them online then sparked the open and ongoing community that is open to everyone who is interested in writing, reading and the world: Writing Our Way Back Home.

About the editors
Fiona Robyn is a novelist, Buddhist and creativity coach and blogs about being a writer at Writing Our Way Home. Kaspalita is a Buddhist priest and blogger and is engaged to Fiona.

pay attention: a river of stones
paperback: $10.56
download: $6.03
there also is a hardcover edition

Related Links: poetry, on writing, web projects

Elsie's World - Walter Bjorkman (GOSS183::CASA MENENDEZ)

Elsie’s World is a collection of most of the short stories that Walter Bjorkman wrote over a ten month period after returning to the format in 2009. The stories were not written with a collection in mind, that followed after a few of them had been published online and in print. Stop by at Voices for a first story: Sooz & Sid.

"I've never met Walter Bjorkman in person, but I know his characters as well as I know my own. We've collaborated on several projects in recent times, and his inimitable style keeps me playing along. His is an immigrant's tale – a writer who extends from a long line of proud Norwegians and their quirky family history of departures and arrivals, remembering and forgetting. And it is his immigrant heart that makes his stories sound so authentically American, and real." - Michelle Elvy

Walter Bjorkman is a writer, poet and beginning photographer from Brooklyn, NY now residing in Maryland. His poems have appeared in various issues of Poets & Artists (O&S), and stories and poems in issuses of OCHO and MiPoesias magazines.

About GOSS183::CASA MENENDEZ
Established in 1998, GOSS183::CASA MENENDEZ publishes poetry books and the literary journals OCHO, MiPOesias Magazine, and Oranges & Sardines, which also features visual works by contemporary artists. Poems that have first appeared in GOSS183 publications have been included in the anthologies of the Pushcart Prize, Best American Poetry, and others.

Walter Bjorkman: Elsie's World
150 pages, $18

related links: short stories

The Last Jewish Virgin - Janice Eidus (Red Hen)

The Last Jewish Virgin is Lilith Zeremba, a vibrant young woman in rebellion against her emotionally complex feminist mother. Lilith is determined to make her own way—on her own terms—in the world of fashion, but she unexpectedly finds herself in a place where mythology and sexuality collide. She meets two men to whom she is drawn in ways that feel dangerous and yet inevitable: the much older, wildly mercurial and mesmerizing Baron Rock, and Colin Abel, a young, radiant artist determined to make the world a better place, one socially progressive painting at a time.

The Last Jewish Virgin, an innovative, humorous, and universal tale of longing and redemption, refreshes and reinvents the classic vampire myth for a contemporary world in which love, faith, and politics are forever intersecting and evolving.

Janice Eidus two-time O.Henry Prize winner, author of The War Of The Rosens, lives in Brooklyn, New York and San Miguel de Allende, Mexico. An interview with her about the novel is online at Fiction Writers Review: Vampires are People, too.

About Red Hen Press
The mission of Red Hen Press is to discover, publish, and promote works of literary excellence that have been overlooked by mainstream presses, and to build audiences for literature in two ways: by fostering the literacy of youth and by bringing distinguished and emerging writers to the public stage.

Janice Eidus: The Last Jewish Virgin
160 pages
ISBN-10: 1597093939

Movie Plots - Nick Admussen (Epiphany)

 

Movie Plots by Nick Admussen is an experimental chapbook, both in content and format. It features a series of disorientingly absorbing prose poems that take thirty different film genres as points of departure for riffs on identity, the imagination, the meaning and coherency of life, and even more indefinable matters. Sample plots are available online at epiphany: Read a sample. 

But that's just half of the book's unique story. The book is published as "book kit", which consists of 1) a printer-ready PDF, 2) a limited-edition letterpress cover and 3) an instruction. There is a how-to-build-your-book-pages with trailer and guidelines online at Printing your book kit.

Nick Admussen is a doctoral candidate at Princeton University, currently researching contemporary Chinese prose poetry and living in Los Angeles. His poetry has most recently appeared in the Kenyon Review Online, Barrow Street, the Mid-American Review, and Blackbird.

About Ephiphany
Epiphany is committed to publishing literary work in which form is as valued as content: "We look for writing, wherever it may fall on the spectrum from experimental to traditional, that is thoroughly realized not only in its vision but also in its commitment to artistry. We are especially open to writers whose explorations of new territory may not yet have found validation elsewhere."

Nick Admussen: Movie Plots (Epiphany)
short stories
book kit: 5$

related links: experimental, short stories

Valentine Day Massacre (Cervena Barva)

It all started in February 2010, when author Susan Tepper put up a note in the fictionaut writing forum for a Valentine Writing Challenge with an egde. Here's the short version of it: "Get your Feb. 14 (V-Day Massacre) stories or poems ready to post. Only criteria: use the word "heart" or "hearts" somewhere in your piece."

The first stories and poems trickled in, more followed, and at some point, the challenge started to snowball. "Just wading through the challenge submissions - what I particularly like is how the pieces all present a dense network of heart & intellect - pure joy to read all of it on this special day," Marcus Speh commented.

More submissions kept arriving, sparking the idea for a printed collection. Which now, for Valentine 2011, came together: Valentine Day Massacre, edited by Susan Tepper, and published by Cervena Barva Press. The collection includes Valentine Massacre stories and poems by Meg Pokrass, Nora Nadjarian, Frank Hinton, Sheldon Lee Compton, xTx, Sam Rasnake, Susan Gibb, Ajay Nair and many others.

Susan Tepper is the author of Deer & Other Stories (Wilderness House Press, 2009) and the poetry collection Blue Edge. Over 100 of her stories, poems, interviews and essays have been published in journals worldwide. Susan hosts the reading series FIZZ at KGB Bar, and is Assistant Editor of Istanbul Literary Review.

Cervena Barva Press was inaugurated in April 2005. In a mere 5 years, Publisher Gloria Mindock has released 52 chapbooks and 20 full length books. Projected for this year are 7 more books. Cervena Barva Press has published authors Gary Fincke, Lucille Lang Day, CL Bledsoe, Nancy Mitchell, Kathleen Aguero, Linda Nemec Foster, George Held, Eric Greinke and many other unique voices.

Valentine Day Massacre
49 pages, $7.00

70 faces: Torah Poems - Rachel Barenblat (Phoenicia)

The poems in 70 faces are written in response to the weekly Torah portions in the Jewish lectionary. One by one they converse with the texts in Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy -- the legal material alongside the narrative parts of the Torah, the texts which are easy for moderns to relate to alongside the texts which may challenge us and our theologies. An excerpt of the collection is available online: 70 faces.

"Rachel Barenblat’s Torah poems open the doorway into sacred text so that we can walk in and make it our home. She invites us to bring all of our passion, doubt, humor, humility and chutzpah as we encounter these ancient words and bring them to Life.” - Rabbi Shefa Gold, author of Torah Journeys

Rachel Barenblat holds an MFA from the Bennington Writing Seminars. She is a Jewish Renewal rabbi, ordained in January of 2011. Since 2003 she has blogged as The Velveteen Rabbi; in 2008, her blog was named one of the top 25 blogs on the internet by TIME. This is her first full-length poetry collection.

About Phoenicia Publishing
Phoenicia Publishing, located in Montreal, publishes poetry, non-fiction, fiction, and photography, and is interested in "words and images that illuminate culture, spirit, and the human experience." The press's founder, Elizabeth Adams, says that a particular interest is on writing about travel between cultures — whether literally or more metaphorically — with the goal of enlarging our understanding of one another through experiences of change, displacement, disconnection, assimilation, sorrow, gratitude, longing and hope.

Rachel Barenblat: 70 Faces: Torah Poems
100 pages; $13.95

related links: human condition, philosophical, poetry

Wild Flight - Christine Rhein (Texas Tech)

Soaring across extensive terrain, from the working world of Detroit to American suburbia and pop culture, from the European landscape of World War II to present-day Iraq, Christine Rhein opens her personal world to the world at large in Wild Flight. In poems that explore the historical, social, and scientific as well as the poignant and humorous, Rhein relishes life’s juxtapositions.

“Wild Flight reveals a poet of versatility, one who has the ability to look at suffering with insight and present compelling social commentary. Christine Rhein is an uncompromising voice, whose poetry is profound, illuminating and always surprising.” —Melanie Buckowski, Chiron Review

Winner of the Walt McDonald First-Book Competition in Poetry. For a taste of Wild Flight, visit "Tuning" in The Writer's Almanac, and for a note on the process, visit "How a Poem Happens". 

Christine Rhein, formerly a mechanical engineer in the automotive industry, lives in Brighton, Michigan. Her poems have appeared in literary journals including The Gettysburg Review, Michigan Quarterly Review, and The Southern Review and have been selected for Poetry Daily, Verse Daily, Best New Poets, and The Writer's Almanac. Wild Flight is her first book.

About Texas Tech University Press
Texas Tech University Press, founded 1971, publishes nonfiction titles in various areas, including natural history and the natural sciences; Latin American literature and culture; and all aspects of the Great Plains and the American West. In addition, the Press publishes several scholarly journals, acclaimed series for young readers, an annual invited poetry collection, and literary fiction of Texas and the West.

Christine Rhein: Wild Flight
poetry, 120 pages
ISBN: 978-0-89672-667-3

related links: poetry, the human condition, prize winners

Sylvow - Douglas Thompson (Eibonvale)

In his novel Sylvow, Douglas Thompson follows his cast of characters through a spectacular clash between everyday life and life on the evolutionary scale – as society dissolves and is stripped away under the onslaught of surreal environmental disaster. The novel explores the disastrous state of civilization and its effect on both ourselves and the world around us – in the process touching on elements as diverse as literary surrealism, philosophical tract, horror, disaster novel and visionary science fiction.

"Thompson likes his maybes, his doubts and ambiguities, the darkness of the forests of our minds. Come in and enjoy this wild walk in the woods, and step out again unscathed –maybe." - Martin Bax, from the Introduction.

Douglas Thompson has published short stories in a wide range of magazines and anthologies, most recently New Writing Scotland, Chapman, Ambit, and reviewed architecture for The Herald. He won second prize in the Neil Gunn Writing Competition in 2007, and currently works as an architectural designer and computer 3d-visualiser. His first novel, Ultrameta, was published by Eibonvale Press in August 2009.

About Eibonvale Press
Eibonvale Press is a small press run by a writer, artist and reader who loves books. "It's as simple as that. It is not intended to be particularly commercial or make large sums of money for me or anyone concerned (though it would be nice if it did, of course!), but it aims to produce beautiful and lovingly-designed editions of excellent writing in modern horror, magic realism and the surreal."

Douglas Thompson: Sylvow
hardcover: 274 pages, £22.00
paperback: 308 pages,  £8.99

editor's note: there is a related review on visionary/desaster books (and films) online in the editor's blog, including a novel by Doris Lessing, Sylvow (with a quote), the film 2012, and our dealing with those future scenarios: "popcorn armageddon"

Curving the Line / Curvando la línea - Carmen Leñero (Leaf Press)

Curving the Line / Curvando la línea is the latest result of what has become a joyful exchange of poetry and language between two poets: Carmen Leñero and Lorna Crozier.

Their relationship began when Carmen, having been introduced to Lorna’s poetry through a friend, decided to translate some of them into Spanish and to set them to music. The result, in 2009, was La Perspectiva del Gato, published by Trilce Ediciones in Mexico City. With it came a CD of the songs. Curving the Line is Lorna’s translation of several of Carmen’s long poems, all of them previously published in Mexico.

Lorna says: “During her work on my poems, she and I corresponded, visited in her house in Mexico City and in mine on Vancouver Island. We stayed up late at night in my garden drinking wine, reading the poems out loud, and falling in love with each other and with the exactitude and magic of translation … What I so admire about her poems–their luminosity, their philosophical insights manifested through the senses, their elegance, their aphoristic wit–I pray the reader will find here.”

Mexican singer and writer Carmen Leñero has published twenty books in various genres. Her poetry, fiction and essays have won several literary awards and grants, including the 1998 Nacional Poetry Award Carlos Pellicer, and she has long been a member of the prestigious Sistema National de Creadores de Arte of the Mexican Ministry of Culture (CONACULTA).

Lorna Crozier is a Canadian poet. A Distinguished Professor at the University of Victoria, she is the recipient of several awards for poetry, including the Governor-General’s, and two honorary doctorates for her contributions to Canadian literature. In 2009 Trilce Ediciones in Mexico City published a collection of her poems translated into Spanish by Carmen Leñero. Her latest book is the memoir: "Small Beneath the Sky."

About Leaf Press
Leaf Press is an independent poetry publisher located on Vancouver Island, British Columbia. Other titles include: Falling Season by Beth Kope, My Nature by Christine Lowther and Flesh in the Inkwell by Winona Baker (previously featured in s-press here.)

Curving the Line / Curvando la línea
poetry by Carmen Leñero, translated by Lorna Crozier
52 pages, $16.95
ISBN: 978-1-926655-16-1

related links: bilingual authors, poetry

editor's note: there is an additional, more personal review of "Curving the Line" up in the editor's blog: "weekend reads"

Xu Xi - Habit of a Foreign Sky (Haven Books)

In her novel Habit of a Foreign Sky, Xu Xi explores the abrupt shift for Gail Szeto when her mother, her last family member, is killed in an accident. For Gail, a mixed-race, single mother who buried her young son only two years prior, all she has left is a hard-won career at a global investment bank. Life rapidly goes into free fall for this woman with a complicated past, who was once so sure of her direction in life, and who now isn't able to see a clear future path.

This novel is finalist for the Inaugral Man Asian Literary Prize. An audio interview with Xu Xi is online at: Xu Xi explains the multicultural appeal of the novel (recommended).

Xu Xi, an award-winning fiction writer and essayist, has edited several literary anthologies including Fifty-Fifty: New Hong Kong Writing. She currently teaches at Vermont College of Fine Arts and is Writer-in-Residence at City University of Hong Kong, where she founded the first international MFA program that specializes in Asian writing in English.

About Haven Books
Haven Books is a dynamic English-language press based in Hong Kong, their books focus primarily on Asian and international themes, and are enjoyed worldwide by readers of all ages. "We publish strong, fresh titles on a wide variety of topics - including exciting fiction, cookbooks, photography and travel books, children's illustrated books, young adult novels, and reference books. A founding member of the Independent Publishers of Hong Kong, Haven Books actively promotes Asia-based writers and literary organizations."

Habit of  a Foreign Sky - Xu Xi
ISBN 978-988-18967-2-8

related links: international, novels, prize/best of

On a Narrow Windowsill (Folded Word)

On a Narrow Windowsill: written on four continents and read on six, the works in this anthology celebrate the birth of a new literary form: the tweet. The editors J.S. Graustein and Rose Auslander note: "Ironically, the 140-character limit of the Twitter platform has inspired new and veteran writers alike to stretch traditional boundaries. Some experiment with abbreviated poetic forms. Others create back-story through innuendo. All make every word—every character—count. This collection will introduce you to 43 of these pioneers who venture out each day onto text's narrow windowsill. Come, join them, and sit a spell. There's room."

This collection of poems and stories from Folded Word's twitter-zines PicFic, Form.Reborn (now closed) and unFold, features the work of Nathalie Boisard-Beudin, Eric Burke, Ben White, Kaolin Fire, Karyn Eisler, Mel Bosworth  and others - here a full list of contributors and here a windowsill preview.

About Folded Word (+PicFic + unFold +Heron)
Folded Word is an independent press that continually seeks new ways of connecting readers to new literary voices. The editors say: "though we do sell our books and chapbooks, we offer free poetry and fiction to the public in our Twitter-zines PicFic and unFold, as well as our print broadside, Heron. We also value craftsmanship, both of literary works and the medium in which they are rendered--as demonstrated by our handcrafted Signature Series chapbooks. Folded Word is managed by J.S. Graustein with the support of Rose Auslander, Ben White, and the entire Folded family of contributors."

On a Narrow Windowsill
twitter fiction and poetry anthology
(note: if you order from now until 31 December 2010 you can enter to win every 2011 title Folded Word will publish. details on the Folded blog in Loads of Windowsills)

related links: twitter fiction, international, anthologies

Detailed Still - Karen Neuberg (Poets Wear Prada)

Imagine if we could look at that first moment about which all our future decisions on the way the world responds to us have been incrementally based.

Detailed Still is the debut poetry collection of Karen Neuberg, a preview is available online at Isuu: Detailled Still. "These poems seem not written, but conjured, as if imprinted by a mind alive to the 'tiny, Zen-bell voice,' insisting that questions reveal more than answers." - Dean Kostos, author of The Sentence That Ends with a Comma,

"Karen Neuberg’s marvelous accomplishment in Detailed Still is that each poem is like a tiny mirrored room that reflects and refracts experience, evoking all the complications of memory and desire. Time is this poet’s subject, and how desire is quickened or lost over time, and how we understand that only through memory." — Molly Peacock, author of The Second Blush

Karen Neuberg’s poems have appeared or are forthcoming in Barrow Street, Boxcar Poetry Review, Diner, and The Same, among others. She’s a Pushcart and Best of the Net nominee, holds an MFA from The New School, and is associate editor of Inertia Magazine.

About Poets Wear Prada
Poets Wear Prada / PWP Books is a small press based in Hoboken, New Jersey devoted to introducing new authors through limited edition, high-quality chaplets, primarily of poetry.

Karen Neuberg: Detailed Still
ISBN: 0981767869
28 pages, 10.00$

Making Good Use of August - Sherry O'Keefe (Finishing Line)

Sherry O'Keefe is a descendent of Montana pioneers and grew up in a remote power camp. Making Good Use of August is her first poetry chapbook.

"Making Good Use of August announces Sherry O'Keefe as a strong new voice in the poetry of place. Each poem in this collection while unique, builds a unified narrative image vast and detailed as a mural or tapestry. We vicariously see through O'Keefe and her people the small details remembered from a rural childhood, the bitterness of seduction and regret, and the difficulties and pleasures of navigating this modern life." -  Justin Evans, author of Working in the Bird House

"Sherry O'Keefe tells the stories of a world that "city kids won't know." Riding in the front seat of her pickup truck, the reader is treated to a tour only a lifelong resident can provide. Expertly navigating the back roads, she guides us through a vivid and idiosyncratic landscape, pointing out where all the best secrets are kept. O'Keefe has a wonderful eye for detail, a vision both quirky and deeply human." - Nina Corwin, Fifth Wednesday Journal

Sherry O'Keefe's most current work has appeared or is forthcoming in Switched-on Gutenberg, THEMA, Terrain. Org., PANK, Avatar Review, Fifth Wednesday Journal, Two Review, Babel Fruit, The High Desert Journal and Main Street Rag. Her full collection of poetry, Loss of Ignition, is making the rounds while she works on the editorial teams for Fifth Wednesday Journal and The Centrifugal Eye. She is the Poetry Editor for Soundzine.

About Finishing Line Press
Finishing Line Press is an award-winning small press publisher. New Releases: The Bracelet by Lou Amyx, Tropical Diagnosis by Virginia Aronson and Cracklers at Night by Rita Banerjee. Finishing Line Press is currently calling for manuscripts for teir 2011 New Women's Voices Chapbook Competition, details.

Outside Voices - Jake Berry & Jeffrey Side (Otoliths)

Outside Voices is the protocol of an 18-month transatlantic email correspondence between poet, musician and artist Jake Berry and Argotist-editor Jeffrey Side, it ranges across and intertwines a variety of topics that include: poetry and music; film and TV; the changes in culture over the past few decades; the differences in regional U.S. and U.K. accents; the difficulty of reaching the famous in order to interview them; the songwriter as poet and vice versa. Two excerpts of the book are online in Jeffrey Side's blog: Published Email Correspondence.

Jeffrey Side is the editor of Argotist Online, a magazine that it is devoted entirely to poetry and poetics and has an own Ebooks-section.

Jake Berry is a poet, musician and visual artist, and the author of Brambu Drezi, Species of Abandoned Light, Drafts of the Sorcery, and numerous other books. He has been an active member of the global arts and literary community for more than 25 years. Recently, he created a cut-up long poem with Craig Hill, which is available as free dowload: SIXIXSIX

About Otoliths
Otoliths is a magazine of many e-things, published by Mark Young, Australia. The online issue of Otoliths appears quarterly, the current issue is: southern spring, 2010. The publishing arm of Otoliths began as print editions of the e-zine Otoliths, but has since expanded to include books & chapbooks by authors associated with the journal. Recent publications include Unable to Fully California by Larry Sawyer and A Marzipan Factory by Grzegorz Wróblewski.

Jake Berry & Jeffrey Side: Outside Voices
Print: $13.45

naked beauty - John C. Goodman (Blue Yellow Dog)

In his poetry collection naked beauty, John C. Goodman's navigates through the real, the subconscious and the abstract "like a seasoned ship’s Captain... pushing us overboard (“there always seems to be a further place to fall”) then fishing us back up (“in a baptism of beginning”) to continue on this disturbing yet enlightening voyage toward the “wreckage of the future” - Frances Ward, editor of HammeredOut and Asphalt Tree Press

"John C. Goodman finds his poems in the quotidian objects, people and experiences of modern life. His poems capture the oscillating perspective of the poet's shifting italicized "I" - the transient flux of the experienced poet's identity - in which his "stream of experience" finds the extraordinary in the mundane, music amid the white noise of traffic, and beauty in the modern urban metropolis." - Mark McCawley, Fresh Raw Cuts, Urban Graffiti, Greensleeve Editions

John C. Goodman lives in St John’s, Newfoundland & Labrador, Canada. His novel, Talking to Wendigo (Turnstone Press) was short-listed for an Arthur Ellis Award. He is the editor of ditch, an online poetry magazine.

About Blue Yellow Dog
Blue Yellow Dog is a small press that is building on strong manuscript submissions from both young and experienced poets. Also available at Blue & Yellow Dog: Realities of Bifocal Translations by Felino A. Soriano (previously feature on s-Press), Rien Ici by Raymond Farr, DRUNKER/holding ember by Raymond Farr, and the first print issue of Blue & Yellow Dog Spring & Summer Issues 1 &2. Available soon: Matthew Johnstone’s Let’s be close Rope to mast, you Old light, Adam Fieled’s Equations, and Richard Kostelanetz’s chap book FICT IONS.

John C. Goodman: naked beauty
poetry
62 pages
ISBN 10-098-295350X

to the river - Rose Hunter (Artistically Declined)

to the river is Rose Hunter's first book of poetry. She weaves an interlinked collection of poems ranging from Sydney to Canada, to Vienna, to Mexico, and back again.

"Hunter's poems represent a map for the landscape of our everyday actions. At times simple and others intriguingly complex, Hunter’s wide range of influences are clearly evident throughout as she manages to touch on seemingly every subject possible." (full review) - Patrick Trotti, JMWW

"to the river is more than one woman’s journey through life: it’s a series of quests, each presenting its own challenges, and the question is: Will she survive the next? Read these poems and find out." (full review) - Molly Gaudry, author of We Take Me Apart

Rose Hunter blogs at Whoever Brought Me Here Will Have to Take Me Home. At the moment she is somewhere between Australia and Mexico, with the most important parts of her in Mexico. She is also the editor of the online poetry journal YB. Her collection of short stories, Another Night at the Circus, was previously featured on s-Press.

About Artistically Declined Press
Artistically Declined Press is devoted to the pairing of fantastic writing with great design, creating complete works of art. The press publishes books of fiction and poetry, the literary journal Sententia, and ADP.PDF's, a series of free ebooks, and is run by Ryan W. Bradley, who writes and lives in Oregon with his wife and two sons.

Rose Hunter: to the river
poetry collection
96 pages, $9

Angels Carry the Sun - Phoebe Wilcox (Lilly)

Angels Carry the Sun is the debut novel of Phoebe Wilcox. Set in the early 1980s, in a pocket of rural poverty in one of the wealthiest counties in Pennsylvania, it tells the story of Flora’s four-year obsession with Finn, her high school teacher, as revisited during the summer before she leaves for college. It is a lyrical, spirited, quirky and tender coming-of-age story.

You can listen to Phoebe Wilcox reading from Angels Carry the Sun in this book video, and here's Phoebe talking about her book.

"Beautiful, poetic, tragic. Witness the miracle of words that is Phoebe Wilcox...then back away slowly." - Matthew "Nobius" Evelsizer, Calliope Nerve Media

Phoebe Wilcox's poems and stories can be found in The Chaffey Review, Bartleby-Snopes, River Poets Journal, ginosko, Wild River Review, Gloom Cupboard, Sixers Review, and many other literary magazines. She is the author of a poetry chapbook, Recidivist (Lilly Press, April 2010). An excerpt from a second novel, Flower Symbolism for Dummies has been published in Wild Violet. Two of her short stories have been nominated for the Pushcart prize: "The Librarian and the Janitor", and "Carp with Water in Their Ears" (River Poets Journal Spring 2008, pdf journal link). Lilly Press has nominated Angels Carry the Sun for the PEN/Faulkner award.

About Lilly Press
Lilly Press is the publishing wing of River Poets Journal. The press publishes fiction/poetry chapbooks/anthologies/journals, and is interested in imaginative work that lasts in your memory long after the reading. Recent publications include River Poems - An Anthology.

Phoebe Wilcox: Angels Carry the Sun
novel
220 pages, $14.95
ISBN: 0980177561

Ten Walks/Two Talks - Jon Cotner and Andy Fitch (Ugly Duckling)

Ten Walks/Two Talks combines a series of sixty-minute, sixty-sentence walks around Manhattan with a pair of roving dialogues—one of which takes place during a late-night "philosophical" ramble through Central Park. Mapping 21st-century New York, Cotner and Fitch update the meandering and meditative form of Basho's travel diaries to construct a descriptive/dialogic fugue.

Jon Cotner and Andy Fitch have performed their dialogic improvisations across the country and internationally. They recently completed another collaborative manuscript called Conversations over Stolen Food. The audio magazine textsound (which is worth a visit itself) features 8+ hours of their solo and collaborative work in a special issue: Improvisations 2006-2010.

Fitch's critical study Not Intelligent, But Smart: Rethinking Joe Brainard is forthcoming from Dalkey Archive Press. Cotner lives in New York City. Fitch is an assistant professor in the University of Wyoming's MFA Program.

About Ugly Duckling Presse
Created by a group of artists and writers without commercial publishing experience, Ugly Duckling Presse has a unique publishing structure with a non-hierarchical editorial collective at its heart. Growing out of the Ugly Duckling zine of the early 1990s, and incorporated as a not-for-profit art & publishing collective in 2002, UDP produces small to mid-size editions of new poetry, translations, lost works, and artist’s books, averaging more than 25 titles a year. The Presse favors emerging, international, and “forgotten” writers with well-defined formal or conceptual projects that are difficult to place at other presses

Jon Cotner + Andy Fitch: Ten Walks/Two Talks
Poetry/Nonfiction
88 pages, $14
ISBN 978-1-933254-67-8

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 Beaufort Diaries - T. Cooper & A. Petrowsky (Melville)

The graphic novel The Beaufort Diaries tells the inspiring story of a polar bear who escapes extinction by going Hollywood. It may sound like a familiar story - boy goes to Hollywood, boy befriends big star, boy gets almost as famous as big star, boy finds fame tricky - but The Beaufort Diaries are subversively different. For one thing, the “boy” is a polar bear. For another thing, the “big star” is Leonardo DiCaprio. And together, they decide to make an action movie… about the environment.

The graphic novel is a collaboration between T. Cooper (story) and Alex Petrowsky (illustration). The illustrations are poster-like, full color images, sample pages are up on Petrowsky's Beaufort webpage, click the cover to open the illustrated pages), and just beyond the book is a book video that features Beaufort, and a story text excerpt is online in the Outlet: From “The Beaufort Diaries” by T. Cooper.

T. Cooper is also the author of two regular old novels, Lipshitz Six, or Two Angry Blondes and Some of the Parts, as well as co-editor of an anthology of short stories entitled A Fictional History of the United States with Huge Chunks Missing. He lives in New York with his family.

Alex Petrowsky is an enterpeneur, a nomad, an artist, an illustrator - for more of his projects, visit his webpage.

About Melville House PublishingMelville House is an independent publishing house born out of the book blog MobyLives and founded in Hoboken, New Jersey, which is also known as the Left Bank of New York City, and which is where Marlon Brando said to Eve Marie Saint (in "On the Waterfront," which was shot in Hoboken), "Come on, I'll walk you home. There are a lot of guys around here with only one thing on their mind." As it turns out, what's on the mind of a lot of those men -- and local women, too -- is good, solid literature, especially literary fiction, non-fiction and poetry. In an amazing coincidence, this is exactly what Melville House provides.