Kore Press Chapbook Competition

For female writers of short ficton, it's just a month away!


kore press chapbook competition

judge

Lydia Davis

deadline

31 October

prize

The 2008 Fiction Award Winner will receive $1,000 plus publication as a stand-alone short-story chapbook.

guidelines

This competition is open to any woman writing in English, regardless of nationality.

Please submit one copy of a previously unpublished short story, a cover sheet, and a $15 reading fee payable to Kore Press. Please make sure your name, address, phone numbers and email address is on the cover sheet (see below).

All entrants will be notified of results via email. If you wish, you may send a self-addressed stamped postcard to confirm we received your manuscript. Please note that manuscripts cannot be returned.

Cover sheet should include:

* name
* address
* daytime and evening telephone numbers
* email address
* title of manuscript


Manuscripts must be:

* a minimum of 4,000 words and a maximum of 12,000 words
* on standard white paper, doublespaced
* paginated
* unbound
* anonymous (do not include your name anywhere on the manuscript)
* original fiction written by the applicant (translations are not eligible)
* unpublished at the time of submission


If the story is accepted elsewhere during our deliberation process, please notify us immediately.

Send submissions to:

Kore Press, Short Fiction Award
P.O. Box 3044
Tucson, AZ 85702-3044

AWP Registrations Slipping Away

14 gone... 11 left... Get 'em while the gettin's good!

Tim O'Brien

From Kateri:

Sorry for the late notice, but I just found out that Tim O'Brien will be giving a talk at Vassar College in Poughkeepsie, NY, this Thursday, Sept. 27, at 5:30.
If anybody wants to go or needs directions, let me know, especially if you want to meet up--the Vassar Chapel is a huge place!

Here's the link for more info: http://www.vassar.edu/headlines/2007/tim-obrien.html

~Kateri

Internship Opportunities

Ridgefield and Bedford magazines are looking for editorial interns. If you'd like to get more info, call Lee Bodkin, editor, at 203-431-1708 (x. 111).

In Remembrance

All - I was saddened to learn the other day that two of my all-time favorite English professors that taught me during undergraduate studies at SCSU passed away recently. Dan Ort and Leanne Smith influenced my writing life greatly, and me personally. For all of you who have experienced my encouragement during workshops to "pump up" your writing, or to stretch what you can do with a particular sentence, or to maximize the power of the words you use to describe a scene, all of that came from Dan Ort. I still have a satire piece about dieting I worked on with him, all of his scribbles to push the writing even farther still intact. Leanne Smith was the type of professor who pushed you to express your own opinions. I'll never forget a paper I wrote for American Literature about The Scarlet Letter. Although my point of view was outside the conventional, I got an A because I articulated the position with tight writing.

There are many who influence us in our lives, who help us become who we are. Both of these professors were that for me. I always wanted to touch base with them to let them know what became of me and how they influenced my success in life -- and never had the chance, although both didn't live far away.

Here are some of Dan's books a friend emailed to me. I haven't read them in forever. But thought you might want to take a look.

IS THIS THE END OF LITTLE RICO?
DANIEL ORT
$12.95, 72 pages
ISBN 0-914061-73-9
Two looks at the role of storytelling in the life of an ordinary and not so ordinary man, followed by a personal meditation on mortality and art and — astonishingly — amnesia.

MY MOTHER ALWAYS CALLED ME BY MY BROTHER'S NAME
DANIEL ORT
$14.95, 128 pages
ISBN 0-914061-45-3
hardcover, limited edition, signed—$40.00
More clever essays on computers, cinnamon rolls, family life, and dying from the author of Ort Bran.

ORT BRAN
DANIEL ORT
hardcover $20.00; pbk $14.95, 128 pages
hardcover: ISBN 0-914061-18-6; paperback ISBN 0-914061-12-7
Amused looks at hospitals, commercials, cocktail parties, cats vs. dogs, weddings, and a variety of contemporary phenomena from a wry personal viewpoint. Some of these essays were previously published in The New York Times, to which the author, a professor at South Connecticut State University, frequently contributes.

Recently Published Essay

I just had the following essay published in the September issue of Short Bites: The Vermont Shortbread Company E-zine. Hope you enjoy it!

Rediscovering Coffee, Cafes, and the Art of Conversation

By Anne Witkavitch

Lately I've been doing something new: Reconnecting with people in my life. Somehow most had become impressionistic blurs as I raced by them at top speed, running in life's perpetual marathon, sprinting towards a finish line with about as much success as trying to walk up a down escalator with my feet tied together. The catalyst for this rediscovery has been a little dark bean from Columbia.

Grind it, brew it, smell it, swig it - I'm not talking about the tinny, watery, brown liquid in a cup variety. I mean "real coffee," the rich, roasted brew whose aroma arouses a desire to sit, savor, and sip its delicious blend in the company of others. I readily admit my addiction to this aromatic cup of comfort -- hot or cold -and it has become a must-have staple in a life of ups and downs, opportunities and challenges, fast lane cruising and slow Sunday driving.

A good cup of coffee used to mean nabbing a java from one of a multitude of Starbucks kiosks lined up in the airport concourse. Today it no longer feels politically correct to drink my coffee on the run. Coffee has become a revelation for me and I am born again in my desire to feel it flow through my veins. I have made coffee in my life somewhat of a social custom, much like it is in Europe, and it provides me with the perfect excuse to slow down and give myself a break.

I now schedule early morning catch-ups over coffee with my friends, a pleasant, peaceful way to start any day. I regularly visit the coffee shop at work to grab a cup and socialize with colleagues I rarely see come out from behind their laptops, except to get their midday caffeine fix. My husband and I often rock in our chairs on the front porch, lingering over a late night cup, warming our hands around the base of our mugs as we share that rare moment of together time while the children sleep soundly in their beds.

Whether it is the desire for caffeine, company, or conversation that enchants me, I'm not quite sure. I do know that coffee has raised the bar on my quality of life - and, oddly, has also exponentially increased the number of holiday cards I am sending this year.

Ferris Bueller said, "Life moves pretty fast. If you don't stop and look around once in awhile, you could miss it." My little friend, the bean, has taught me to slow down and smell the coffee. As I saunter and sip my favorite house blend, I notice that the people in my life are now, at last, coming into focus. For now, I'm content with stepping off the fast track and joining the fun walk instead.

Anne Witkavitch is a Connecticut-based writer, whose musings about being a 21st century mother juggling family, career, and graduate school while pursuing her publishing dreams can be found on her blog: www.theeclecticwriter.typepad.com. There's nothing she loves more than to enjoy her cup of coffee with a thick slice of Vermont Shortbread!

CHRYSALIS BLOG FOR PRE-EMERGING WRITERS

Hi All,

I am working toward publication of my work in Lit Mags and journals, and decided to create a blog for other "pre-emerging" writers like me.

http://chrysaliswriters.blogspot.com/

Interested in sharing your experience in submitting work and/or other info. of interest to pre-emerging writers....? Check out Chrysalis and let me know. Tech help/suggestions appreciated as well. I'm a rookie.

Hope you are well.

Best,

Carmen

Dates for January Residency

The January residency, in Danbury, will take place from January 1-7.

January 1 will be a travel day with the welcome convocation in the evening.

January 7 will be a travel day only.

There will be a full schedule of activity on January 2-6.

January Residency

The January residency will be in Danbury. The hope is for Puerto Rico in January 2009. Details forthcoming on January 2008 residency dates.

Dan Pope at WestConn

Reading Oct. 24, 7:30 pm, Reimold Theatre
Student Fiction Workshop Oct. 25, 7:00 pm

Dan Pope is the author of In the Cherry Tree (Picador, October 2003). His stories have appeared recently in McSweeney's (No. 4), Gettysburg Review, Night Train, Witness, Crazyhorse, Iowa Review, and other magazines. He is a graduate of the Iowa Writer's Workshop, where he attended on a Truman Capote Fellowship. He is a winner of the Glenn Schaeffer Award from the International Institute of Modern Letters and a grant in fiction from the Connecticut Commission on the Arts.

Dan Pope’s brilliant novel chronicles a childhood summer lived beneath the rumblings of an unhappy marriage. An ethnography of American suburban boyhood circa 1974, In the Cherry Tree takes you back to when you could name every actor on “The Big Valley,” wield dialogue from The Poseidon Adventure as a secret code to baffle the uninitiated, sing “The Night Chicago Died” from start to finish verbatim, and pronounce with absolute confidence that Elton John ruled and John Denver sucked. In lucid, deceptively simple prose, Pope explores childhood’s ardent faith in things worth knowing, just because. And in the necessity of judgments, the endless listing and rating of athletes, pop stars and movies - creating systems of order and value by which to live, while the Mom and the Dad, as Pope’s narrator calls them, battle it out in the next room.

Tender yet unsentimental, raucously funny, In the Cherry Tree evokes not only a time and place, but a kind of imagination that adulthood almost inevitably extinguishes in us all. You may not realize how much you’ve forgotten about being twelve years old until this novel reminds you. Anyone who was young in the suburbs a quarter century ago will be transported instantly back - for better and for worse - to familiar ground. Thought you’d left 1974 behind forever? Ready or not, here you go.

"In the manner of Alice McDermott’s That Night, or Evan Connell’s Mrs. Bridge, Dan Pope’s small, deft novel turns suburban malaise into both comedy and elegy. It’s a gem."
-- Rand Cooper, author of The Last to Go

"Dan Pope's novel doesn't capture the world of twelve-year-old boys in the 1970s so much as it liberates it. Filled with music, cars, obtuse older siblings, parents who are struggling with their own demons, and (increasingly, tentatively) girls, In the Cherry Tree gets every nuance right--the alliances and rivalries, the exuberance and sorrow, but above all the brilliant mix of intelligence and unintelligence that characterizes preteen life."
-- Ben Greenman, author of Superbad

--------------------------------------------------------
Participation in the Student Workshop is by permission. Mr. Pope will deliver a brief craft lecture and will discuss two student stories. To attend, students must contact Prof. Clements, MFA in Professional Writing, Berkshire 117, clementsb@wcsu.edu. Seating is limited. Students who want their stories or excerpts considered must submit them to Prof. Clements no later than noon on Monday, October 8.

Journals Looking for Work

Two well respected literary journals, The Missouri Review and Sycamore Review, are looking for submissions in poetry, fiction, short plays, and creative nonfiction. Both publications are also sponsoring awards that range from $1000 to $3500. Check them out at www.missourireview.edu and www.sycamorereview.com

Free AWP Registration

As sponsors of this year's AWP conference (see awpwriter.org/conference/2008awpconf.php), the MFA program receives 25 free student registrations.

If you would like to attend the conference, please email a request to me. First-come, first-serve.

bc

Attention all Fourth-Semester Students

To graduate at the end of this semester, you must fill out an application for graduation form (available at www.wcsu.edu/graduate/forms.asp) and submit it to the Graduate Studies office by October 1.

Thesis proposals should be in my hands (or my inbox) when I arrive at the office Monday morning at 8 am.

Kerouac: Your good isn't good enough

Maybe this will help take the sting out of rejection.
The New York Times' David Oshinsky discusses how scholars have recently gone through the Alfred A. Knopf Inc. archive and discovered some eye-openers in the rejection pile.

Some highlights:

• Jack Kerouac: “His frenetic and scrambling prose perfectly express the feverish travels of the Beat Generation. But is that enough? I don’t think so”).
• Vladimir Nabokov's “Lolita”: Too racy
  
• James Baldwin’s “Giovanni’s Room”: “hopelessly bad”

Komunyakaa in New Haven

Yusef Komunyakaa will read at the Beinecke on Thursday, September 20, 4 pm. This event is free and open to the public. The Beinecke Library is located at 121 Wall Street, New Haven. Pulitzer Prize winner Yusef Komunyakaa is the author of many collections of poetry, including Pleasure Dome: New & Collected Poems, 1975-1999, Talking Dirty to the Gods, Dien Cai Dau, and Neon Vernacular: New & Selected Poems 1977-1989. He has received awards from the Louisiana Arts Council, and the National Endowment for the Arts, and he was awarded the Bronze Star for his service in Vietnam, where he served as a correspondent and managing editor of the Southern Cross.For more information about and examples of Yusef Komunyakaa's work please visit:
http://www.poets.org/poet.php/prmPID/22
http://www.english.uiuc.edu/maps/poets/g_l/komunyakaa/poetry.htm
http://www.ibiblio.org/ipa/komunyakaa.php
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yusef_Komunyakaa

9/11 Website of Connection - This won't make you feel good.

Being that it is 9/11 - I was watching Link TV about the women who lost their husband's at Ground Zero and how they spurred on the 9/11 report which was tainted by the administration and their hand picked committee cronies. Long story short, an independent journalist started asking questions about what the President knew and didn't know. He started connecting news articles, TV reports, and information and connecting them together. While one of these articles alone wouldn't mean much to casual news viewer/reader like us, when you connect the articles and draw out a clear pattern - we were wide open for attack and little was done to stop it. Take a look at the website and read some of the articles as they connect. I truly believe without the internet and the interconnection of stories, media, and information, this could never be clear in a slush pile of paper documents. This is a good example of what we are discussing in the OMG concerning how new technology offers a new view of media and reading.

Even if you are skeptical, take a look and explore, it is an amazing compilation regardless of what you make of the connections.

Let me know what you think.

http://www.cooperativeresearch.org/project.jsp?project=911_project

Be well,
Ron Samul

Dana Fradon, New Yorker Cartoonist

From Dean Vaden-Goad,

Mr. Dana Fradon, well-known cartoonist for the New Yorker Magazine, will speak at WestConn's Midtown Campus on Thursday night, Sept. 27th, 7:30 pm, Science Building 125 (auditorium)
Free to all. Reception to follow.

Students and faculty in Art, Illustration, Writing, Communication, English, Psychology, Political Science, Philosophy, Sociology, History, Anthropology, Business -- and everyone who likes good humor and reading -- will be interested in hearing and seeing what he has to offer us. Mr. Fradon has spent his whole career working for the New Yorker Magazine. His cartoons are so well regarded by the magazine, they are printed the week they are drawn and written -- pretty uncommon success.

He will join us to talk with us about making this kind of career and what life is like as a cartoonist for a major magazine. We would love for you to come, bring your friends and neighbors (and bring your classes)! It will be a very nice evening.

To read more:
http://www.wcsu.edu/newsevents/fradon.asp

PAID Graduate Resarch Assistant Opportunities

WestConn will be partnering with several community groups to deliver a "community health report card", which will deliver a report and website posting managed by the university. This project creates the opportunity for several graduate research assistants who possess one or more of the following skill sets:

1. research skills (collect, verify and report on data from a variety of sources)
2. technical skills (work with University Computing to prepare materials for the website)
3. editing and writing skills (prepare final report)

Please share the attached position announcement and application with your students. The time commitment would be approximately 15 hours per week, but is flexible. The university would like to have the students in place by the end of the month.

[please contact Brian immediately for application if you are interested in pursuing this... that means you, especially, Laura Tuite]

WLAD Internship

From the university Career Dev. Center:

We have a posting for a co-op internship with WLAD for their news area. If you have any students who would consider an un-paid internship in media, with an emphasis on news writing please tell them to come to the Career Development Center, Student Center 227. This opening is available for this Fall.

Connecticut River Review

Greetings writers! CRR is the poetry journal of the CT Poetry Society. I am the new editor of the journal and invite you to submit poetry. Our reading period is October to February. You can snail-mail to me at:

Lisa Siedlarz, Editor
CT River Review
53 Pearl Street
New Haven, CT 06511

or you can e-mail submissions to me at: Bearbucca@sbcglobal.net

Also, is anyone interested in interning with me? I could use a reader.

Cheers!
Lisa

"Being"

Some of you might remember that piece I read at the residency late one night at the pub called "Being," or as you might remember it, "that thing about the elephant."
Anyway, it was published today at a place called A Cautionary Tale.

Read the story here

Richard Thompson

If any of you are interested in witnessing the masterful collaboration of story, poetry, and song I recommend Richard Thompson’s gorgeous ballad, 1952 Vincent Black Lightning. I have admired this song for years, and you can see Richard Thompson, a genius guitar player, perform the hell out of it on UTUBE. Some great lines:
“And if fate should break my stride, then I'll give you my Vincent to ride”
“Says James, in my opinion, there's nothing in this world, beats a 52 Vincent and a red headed girl”
“Now Nortons and Indians and Greeveses (and Harleys)won't do, they don't have a soul like a Vincent 52”

SEE it here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=azB7B8hrVZY&mode=related&search=

For all you Denis Johnson fans

The New York Times gushes in its review of Denis Johnson's new novel "Tree of Smoke."

Good morning and please listen to me: Denis Johnson is a true American artist, and “Tree of Smoke” is a tremendous book, a strange entertainment, very long but very fast, a great whirly ride that starts out sad and gets sadder and sadder, loops unpredictably out and around, and then lurches down so suddenly at the very end that it will make your stomach flop.

Read the entire review here.