Incendiary Lit

Vital Signs
Emily Van Kley

Of many hometowns, this is the bleakest: main street
gap-toothed with abandoned buildings, three restaurants,
two gas stations, hockey rink, bakery, lakeside foodstore
where there may or may not be potatoes

at the end of a dust-scarved shelf. There are those of us
who drink ourselves to death and those who take a lighter hand,
but even teenagers know better

than to believe in immortality. The evidence is everywhere:
field by the church named for Johnny Mazes whose snow machine
defected in the close woods, whose helmet split

down the middle where there was no seam. Anne Fear
whose young body pin-balled the cab of a flipped van
and who woke with a cheesecloth memory. Softball
tournament named for the beautiful Ahonen twin

whose twenty-year-old heart fell away in the shower, halved shell
on the shore of an inland sea. For the misanthrope, there are
Superior’s silt-blasted wrecks, water so cold even wood won’t rot
decently. Flooded mine buildings thrusting their acidy tongues down

and down. Too many deer make for a starving winter,
which means you clutching your rifle in thin fall snow
are an instrument of some vital love.

—-

Emily Van Kley grew up in Northern Michigan, and to be honest, I couldn’t find a whole lot more out about her. Here is a story that she had published in Boston University’s Republic of Letters, also, buy the Winter 2009 (Volume 34.2) issue of the Florida Review. It’s another enjoyable read from FR, and includes 2 more poems from Van Kley (or is it just Kley?)

I can’t help it. I like Michael Cera. His innate awkwardness and comic timing is segueing nicely into a slightly smoother, awkwardness. But in a good way. Come on, he’s George Michael! Anyway, there’s a new movie coming out called Paper Hearts. It’s Michael Cera and his real life girlfriend Charlyne Yi in a romantic comedy. Though, from the trailer it seems to shy away from Get Over It territory and more into a bit of EdTV/tinged with Eternal Sunshine vibe. But, I could be reading way too much into the trailer.

Regardless of the movie entirely, there is a free contest. Details here. At Rotten Tomatoes. Wheeeeeeeee! Its to write a 140 character love poem (tweetable- and indeed submitted via twitter) and to follow the directions at Rotten Tomatoes. Michael and Charlyne will be picking their favorite, and a number of other winners. The grand prize is a trip to the Paper Hearts premiere. Woot. Free vacation! Here’s a trailer for the movie. Have fun.

Here is the link to Esquire’s Summer Fiction Contest.

The titles are:

1. “Twenty-Ten”

2. “An Insurrection”

3. “Never, Ever Bring This Up Again”

SO WRITE!!!

It’s simple enough for anyone who’s familiar with the Firestarter Exercises. Titles is a good exercise because of its ambiguity. A while ago NPR issued a challenge to fiction writers to write a story that included the image of a wedding cake in the middle of the road. Richard Bausch’s Tandolfo the Great introduced me to the collection NPR put together. It’s a fun assignment to try to work to your own whims.

Southeast Review is a sweet magazine out of FSU that publishes lots of great, accessible poetry and prose. They run three contest (with one of the best contest names) The World’s Best Short Short Story Contest for stories under 500 words (as well as a poetry and narrative nonfiction contest). I entered last year, and like any rejected  writer, I found fault in a few of the finalists published from last year’s issue, but the winner, and a number of the finalists were not only well written (all the stories, I can’t argue, were very well written) but also quirky and kinda up my alley so I can’t hold a grudge against them. One particular story made me question if Russell Edson had taken up a pseudonym. In other words, this is a safe journal to submit your work to. It’s not stuffily academic nor a breeding pool of nepotism. It’s a little Different. Here’s the info: First, don’t include your information on any of the pieces of writing. This is important. While ostensibly it shouldn’t matter much because all they have to do is white out the name, or sharpie it out or whatever, in the 1 in 300 chance that the contributor is local or friendly with a judge. But, as someone who’s dealt with (albeit only hundreds compared to the thousands of submissions the bigger journals get each year) reading submissions to a literary journal knows, it starts to get slightly offensive when people don’t read the 2 sentences of guidelines you make plainly available. Just a little. So, just be sure to include a cover letter that says “Hi, this is my name, this is what I’m submitting to your contest- ‘___’” and you’ll improve your standings just the teensiest bit (over f-ing up the rules, which may get you attention in high school, but later on people just start trashing submissions that LOOK like they’re a waste of time.

Deadline: March 20th
Fee: $15 ($10 for one narrative nonfiction essay)
Prize: $500 ($250 for nonfiction, so cry about it memoirists. :P)
Lengths:

WBSSSC: up to 3 stories per submission, each must be under 500 words
Poetry Contest: up to 5 poems or 10 pages.
(2nd ever) Narrative Nonfiction Contest: Up to 5,000 words.

Submit your shizz guys. You get a copy of the winning issue, and really, submitting to contests are the easiest way to justify buying an extraneous book in these tough times. Because, it’s not like buying a lottery ticket. It’s like buying a book and a raffle ticket. So get to it.

Or, $4,000 I guess. New Ohio Review (/nor) is running poetry and fiction contests with the deadline 3/10/09. Entry fee is $20 which includes a year’s subscription. Submission Length limits are up to ten pages of poetry or up to 4,000 words of prose. NOR is one of the few journals who pays in cashy-money for poems, so yet another reason to double check this quality journal with your hard earned money in hand and an urge to enter a contest. They require 2 cover letters for the contest, so be sure to read through their submission guidelines here.

Robert Olen Butler’s judging the Southeast Review’s annual flash fiction contest: The World’s Best Short-Short Story Contest. There’s the link, deadline is March 6th. Entry fee is $15 for 3 flash fiction pieces of up to 500 words. There are also Creative Non Fiction and poetry contests, so check it out, SER is a really sweet journal.

That November 30th deadline for the James Dickey Prize for Poetry is for a postmark though, luckily for those who almost missed this contest. (so many for’s in a sentence about a journal with five in the title, could that be my subconscious telling me that my writing isn’t quite up to their level? haha) Five Points is a cool accessible journal from GSU that publishes the likes of David Kirby, Steven Dunn and Billy Collins. Very very good stuff.

Rules: Poems under 50 lines (wonder how that works with prose poems?), send up to 3 poems. $20 entry fee (which includes a subscription to the fine Five Points journal) and prize is $1000.

OK, so there are 2 flash fiction/prose poetry prizes with deadlines soon:

Gulf Coast offers the Donald Barthelme Prize in Short Prose with a postmark deadline of December 20th, 2008. $15 entry (includes subscription) $500 prize, 3 pieces under 500 words.

and

River Styx offers the Schlafly Beer Micro-Fiction Contest, A prize of $1500, two cases of Schlafly beer, and publication in River Styx is given for the best micro-fiction story. The editors of River Styx will judge. 500 words maximum per story, up to three stories per entry. $20 entry fee. All entrants receive a one-year subscription to River Styx, postmarked by December 31st, 2008.

Beer for poets? How’d they know?

Hey! Yeah you guys, the ones who paint or photograph or draw or collage or even sculpt, Incendiary Lit wants to see your shizz. But there’s a twist. We’re going to be running a small contest for the best art/writing that you can fit onto a 5×7 sized sheet of paper. That’s going to be made as a short run printing, the majority given away for free, but at least 20 going to the artist. If your art/work fits on a 4×6 sized piece especially send it in, because we may print a second broadside (let’s call them broadsides) of that smaller size. If anyone’s interested, email (removing every single underscore) in__cen_dia_ry_Lit_(_at_)_g_ma_i_l.__c_om We’ll also have some sort of a prize (aside from the copies) to give to the winning combo, but we’re just not positive what that’ll be yet.

The word restriction? 500. The grand prize? $500. The reading fee? $15 for 3 stories, which is 500 pennies for each story. A penny a word. Maybe that’s a little incentive to spend your words wisely. The Best Part? You get a year’s subscription to Gulf Coast for entering. That’s just two issues, but Gulf Coast is a tome of a journal. And a very entertaining read. So check out the website even though they don’t seem to mention this contest which was sent out to their mailing list. Here’s the entire message, with all the actually important info.

Gulf Coast is happy to announce our inaugural Donald Barthelme Prize in Short Prose!

Prize DetailsNamed in honor of Gulf Coast’s founder, the Donald Barthelme Prize will award $500 and publication in the upcoming issue of Gulf Coast for a prose poem or piece of flash fiction. The 2008 prize-winning entry will be selected by Beckian Fritz Goldberg. Guidelines: Submit up to 3 previously unpublished prose poems or short stories, each no more than 500 words in length. Your name and address should appear on the cover letter only. All entries will be eligible for publication, though only one will receive our $500 prize. Your $15 reading fee, payable to “Gulf Coast,” will include a one-year subscription. Manuscripts will not be returned. Include an SASE for results. Postmark Deadline: December 20, 2008 Send Entries to: Barthelme Prize, Gulf Coast English Dept, University of Houston Houston, TX 77204-3013 Gulf Coast: A Journal of Literature and Fine Arts

We look forward to reading your entries!

All the best,
Laurie Ann Cedilnik
Managing Editor

Robert Brewer runs Writer’s Digest’s blog Poetic Asides. He’s running a little “Poem a Day” month again right now (November). This time the idea is to try to write a chapbook, so to write all of your poems along a certain theme. There are also individual writing exercises each day, and a lot of people saying what they think a chapbook is, or what makes a chapbook good.  There’s some talk of trying to organize a little contest with chapbooks written for the PaD thing, but nothing concrete.

This started at the beginning of the month, but you can catch up! It’s gonna be tough with NaNoWriMo at the same time. I’m going to try to catch up in the next couple days though. Happy writing.

I’ve never tried NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) before, though I have talked to people who have (Hi Karen) and seemed to enjoy the process very much. So, this being the first October in five or so years in which I don’t have 15+ units, I decided to try it. The idea is to write a 50,000 word+ novel in one month, regardless of actual quality. A first draft, or even a trash draft. It is essentially an exercise in quantity, so I’m all about it.

Check out the vast array of NaNoWriMo stuffs online like the official website,  Light Fantastic (who has tons of links to forums, webrings, mailing lists),  San Diego Writers, or this website that helps you find meet-up groups if you care to share your stories, woes, seek advice/solace/sanctuary.

In preparation for this upcoming month, let’s spend a week brainstorming different possibilities for fiction. We’ll make a daily list, focusing on one aspect of a novel each day: Locales (and why something would be cool there), quirky character traits, plotlines, names, and  themes/messages.

Today, brainstorm a list of at least fifteen quirky character traits that could come up in a book (be it blinking twice when someone’s lying, never opening a door with their left hand, wearing a side-pony tail, whatever) . Remember, NaNoWriMo is more about quantity and conclusion than spectacular quality. Essentially, it’s speed crapping a first draft of a novel under arbitrary time constraints. But why think of it like that when it can be an open challenge to the realm? (Damn you Lich King.)

That’s right, Glimmer Train’s monthly contest for August is the Very Short Fiction Award, which limits the piece at 3,000 words. Maybe I’ve read too much flash fiction in the last few years, but I usually feel long winded at 3,000 words. Damn you Amy Hempel! And your wickedly expansive terseness. Anyway, Yes, there is a mere 2 days until the deadline for this contest. This is MASSIVE! It’s like the PULITZER topped with dark chocolate whipped cream (which should exist, don’t you think?)! Or, at least it is one prize of twelve this year (there is, however, one other month in which a very short fiction contest is conducted). Whichever way you choose to see it, Glimmer Train’s an amazing journal for fiction. If you haven’t seen it definitely check it out. Interesting work. Click here for more information about the contest. Or here to see upcoming month’s submission themes or restrictions, or here, because, why not link to Glimmer Train one more time?

Pertinent info: Entry Fee: $15 per story. Prize: $1,200 and 20 copies of the journal (2nd $500, 3rd $300).  Max. Word Count: 3,000. Deadline: Online submissions close midnight (pacific) September 1. So, this Sunday night by 11:59 PM on the west coast.

Even though I didn’t win { } I look forward to reading the manuscript Yusef Komunyakaa chose as the student winner for the mtvU Poetry Prize, which is linked to the National Poetry Series.

All of the NPS winners this year are:

Kristin Naca of Minneapolis, Minnesota, Bird Eating Bird
Chosen by Yusef Komunyakaa , to be published by HarperCollins Publishers

Sarah O’Brien of Brookfield, Ohio, catch light
Chosen by David Shapiro, to be published by Coffee House Press

To all: CONGRATS!!!

His manuscript “Kurosawa’s Dog” beat out hundreds of others to win. Congratulations. For information on how to enter the 2009 Field Poetry Prize wait for a few months then click here.

Dennis Hinrichsen’s other books include Details from the Garden of Earthly Delights, Rain That Falls this Far and The Attractions of Heavenly Bodies. Of his most recent, Details… Yusef Komunyakaa said Hinrichsen’s work  “achieves a classical tone within an experimental shape, as the poems meander through a pulsating labyrinth of nuanced imagery.”

Field’s an example of a journal that I originally submitted to,*looks around to make sure no one overhears* without reading first. And I of course got rejected. But, undaunted, I made a wise move and entered the 2006 (or 2005, I forget which) book contest, and though the entry was completely wrong for them, I got a subscription and read the journal and saw the error of my ways. It’s a bit more edgy, experimental. Cerebral I guess is a good way to put it, but it’s not indecipherable either. So now I know that I should send the mostly poems with that cerebral slant to them, which I think most serious writers will write at least occasionally. Just something to keep in mind: read journals whenever you can before you submit your work to them.

Or maybe even less, depending on your time zone. Here’s the pertinent information, and here’s a shorthand of that:

Postmark deadline: Today, July 15th 2008

Page count: 48-64

Judge: Gerald Locklin

Fee/Prize: $20 (includes a copy of the winning book)/$1000 (and 25 copies of your book)

July 31st:

Kore Press First Award (for a woman’s first book of poetry) Prize: $1000, 48-70 page restriction, submit and pay online here. (if you send $45 you get your manuscript entered and copies of the three most recent winners, but just entrance is cheaper)

August 1st

Bellevue Literary Review(prizes for fiction, poetry and nonfiction) Naomi Shihab Nye will judge in poetry, Rosellen Brown in fiction, and Natalie Angier in creative nonfiction.Prize: $1000. Submit up to 3 poems (no more than 5 pages) or a piece of prose under 5000 words. Entry fee: $15 (an extra $5 will get you a year’s subscription to BLR also). Full submission guidelines here.

Rattle Poetry Prize (single poem). Prize: $5000 (and $100 to ten runner-up poems). Entrance fee: $16 (which gets you a year’s subscription to the tome that is Rattle, and you send up to four poems. Guidelines for online and postal submissions here.

August 15th

Chamber Press Chapbook Contest. Prize: $1000. Entry fee: $15. Length Restrictions: Up to 24 pages. Judged by Steve Orlen (who teaches in UA- Tuscon, and Warren Wilson’s MFA programs) . Full submission guidelines here.

August 29th

Katherine Anne Porter Prize (University of North Texas Press’s contest for book-length collection of short fiction) Prize: $1000. Entry fee: $25. Length restrictions: 100-200 pages. Click here for full submission guidelines.

That’s right, Indiana Review’s 1/2K Prize deadline is Monday June 9th, 2008. The postmark deadline means that the post office must acknowledge that it has received the letter/package from you on that date. Which means it has to be in the box before that day’s pick up, or you’ve just saved yourself $15 by not entering the contest. Though if IR makes minor exceptions, I’m not sure… some journals do and some don’t. Oh, you can also submit online, so if you’re savvy enough to be reading this, you can probably figure out their submission center thing. It’s pretty straightforward. Regardless, here’s the information one more time:

What is it? A contest for prose poems or flash fictions 500 words or less.

When is it? See an inch or so above this line for that answer.

How much is it? $15, which includes a year’s subscription to Indiana Review, which I highly, highly recommend. It’s definitely one of my favorite literary journals.

Who’s judging? Funny you should ask that, it’s Russell Edson. See the last post about the 1/2k prize here to read more about Edson.

Where can I submit online? Right here. The info’s about halfway down the page.

Is it judged anonymously? Yes, which means don’t put your little header with your name and address and phone/fax/email and city of birth and blood type on it. Just the piece of writing (if you really want to you can include the title too, I guess. haha) for consideration.

Why should I submit? Because you have some amazing prose poems/short-shorts that you feel convey not only emotion, but the extra special something that makes the reader immediately reread it. Also, because The Indiana Review comes out twice a year, and it’s almost guaranteed that you’ll find 2-3 pieces, at bare minimum, that you’ll enjoy. Which is at least 5 or 6 for $15 with both issues, which isn’t such a bad average compared to some other journals which shall remain nameless (just like your submissions, aside from a cover letter which lists the pieces submitted).

After reading a great deal of literary magazines I’ve come to hope that if I enter enough of the Indiana Review contests that I’ll eventually accrue a lifetime subscription. Every issue there are amazing poems, fiction, and even art. Also, ever since Sydney Brown’s creative nonfiction workshop I’ve had a soft-spot for the flash-fiction. The short short. Not sure who to blame for my prose poem affinity. Maybe Campbell McGrath. Yeah, I could probably safely blame my love for prose poems on his first book Capitalism.
The bastard.
Anyway, the Indiana Review 1/2K Prize is another one of those self-explanatory contest title names like “First Book of Poetry” or “Who can fart the bonfire started with a lighter?” though I’ve been told first prize for that last one isn’t quite as much as the hospital bills the second place winner receives, so it’s a gamble. The prize is for prose poems or short-shorts that are 500 words or less. 1/2 of 1K, 1,000. Yeah. 1000×0.5, even.
Entry Fee: $15 ($27 overseas)- which includes a year’s subscription to IR. Definitely well worth it. Consider it a bonus gift for subscribing, you’re entered into a sweepstakes where you could win $1000 and critical acclaim! HOORRAYYYY! But really, you never know who’s going to like your style, your flair for story structure, your unique image sets, so why not spend the $15 and ensure yourself two 200 page collections of poetry, fiction, nonfiction and reviews that I personally guarantee you’ll enjoy at least 1/3 of. If you don’t I’ll personally apologize in a form-email that I’ve already composed.
Deadline: June 9th! That’s right, very soon. That’s the postmark deadline. You can also submit online for the Indiana Review 1/2k Prize here.
Final Judge: You know the deal, the regular readers for the Indiana Review sort through the hundreds or thousands of pieces submitted, and narrow them down substantially. Then they move onto the senior editors who narrow it down to a reasonable number for the guest judge. Or it goes from readers to judge, depends on the contest, but if you make it past the early screening your prose poem/short short will be judged by none other than Russell Edson. I think Webdelsol summed up his biography best so I’ll shamelessly copy-paste that here for convenience: Russell Edson was born in Connecticut in 1935 and currently resides there with his wife Frances. Edson, who jokingly has called himself “Little Mr. Prose Poem,” is inarguably the foremost writer of prose poetry in America, having written exclusively in that form before it became fashionable. In a forthcoming study of the American prose poem, Michel Delville suggests that one of Edson’s typical “recipes” for his prose poems involves a modern everyman who suddenly tumbles into an alternative reality in which he loses control over himself, sometimes to the point of being irremediably absorbed–both figuratively and literally–by his immediate and, most often, domestic everyday environment. . . . Constantly fusing and confusing the banal and the bizarre, Edson delights in having a seemingly innocuous situation undergo the most unlikely and uncanny metamorphoses. . . .
I mean, it’s not a biography, but the pertinent information for someone who’s judging a writing contest. I first read Edson in Stand Up Poetry, Charles Harper Webb’s kick ass anthology. So send in to the 1/2k prize. What were you going to do with that $15 anyway? Buy two drinks at dinner? A frappuccino for yourself and two friends? 1/2 of a shirt? Get some good literature and an extra reason to be excited to see the mailman.

That’s right, get your three poems together, your $15 check, and mail that paper to Boulevard. Here’s the link to the information, and here’s the info:

Open to anyone who hasn’t published a book of poetry (standard, chapbooks ok, as long as nothing’s been ‘with a national distributor’)

Price: $15 (includes a one year subscription)
# of poems: 3
Deadline: Today (5/15/08)