AZ Readings + A Lit Mag on Motherhood

On October 8, novelist Leslie Marmon Silko will read from her forthcoming memoir, Turquoise Ledge. Reading begins at 7:00 p.m. at the Heard Museum in Phoenix,

On October 9, poet Naomi Shihab Nye will present a lecture, "Our Shared Humanity: Place Making and Sustainability," at 7:30 p.m., Tempe Mission Palms Hotel. FREE.

On October 14, poet Kimiko Hahn reads at 7:30 p.m. in the Recital Hall at ASU's School of Music.

And a friend sent me info on Brain, Child, a literary magazine about motherhood which publishes fiction, essays and reviews. It looks like a smart read.

From the website:

“Work from Brain, Child won a Pushcart Prize in 2003 and was listed under "Notable Essays" in Best American Essays 2002. Brain, Child is distributed in independent bookstores, Barnes & Noble superstores, Borders, and select grocery stores around the U.S. and Canada. Circulation stands at 36,000, with subscribers from every state and as far away as Sweden, Egypt, and Hong Kong. The Washington Post says "A good read is what Brain, Child is all about."

Past contributors include Barbara Kingsolver, Jane Smiley, Barbara Ehrenreich, Antonya Nelson.

Read Any Good Blog Posts Lately?

Creative Nonfiction magazine is looking for narrative blog posts from 2009 to publish in an upcoming issue. From CNF's Facebook page: "Must tell a story and be able to stand alone. 2,000 words max, from 2009. To nominate your own blog, a friend's blog, a stranger's blog [go to] http://www.creativenonfiction.org/blog_nomination_open.html". Deadline is August 31.

New Journal for Short Stories

Electric Literature is a new journal for short stories. The first issue released in June 2009. EL will publish five stories bi-monthly and copies are available for $5 on Kindle, eBook, or iPhone/iPod Touch. For $10 they will print paperback copies on demand. And get this: they pay writers $1,000 for stories.

According to the website, EL's staff believes that "by publishing gripping narratives from America's best contemporary writers and embracing new forms of distribution, we hope to facilitate a renaissance of the short story."

The current issue features stories by T. Cooper, Michael Cunningham, Lydia Millet, Jim Shepard, and Diana Wagman.

No poetry or essays, just stories.

Summertime Story Looking for Good Home

I've been reading, writing, revising. I've surprised myself with how focused I've become. I have a story that needs a home, but this is not the easiest time to find journals that are looking for new work to publish. I've found a few that are still accepting submissions during this vacation season. The Boston Review, Fence, Oregon Literary Review, Crazyhorse, and Denver Syntax are all still open to submissions. There are many more, I'm sure, especially if you include snail-mail submissions or journals like Glimmertrain that require a reading or contest fee. But the going is tough.

I write the most in June and July, but I will probably be waiting until fall to send out what I write.

Toward 21st Century Rules for Short Story Submissions

I met with a group of fiction writers this weekend and the topic of conversation eventually turned to the task of submitting short stories for publication. No one I know either a) still does this or b) does it and likes it. And it has nothing to do with the fear of rejection. The problem is that the system is woefully outdated. Who in the world has time to fill out a SASE? Who wants to buy postage stamps for godssake? There have been articles written about the death of the SASE and how all literary journals will eventually be online or at least take online submissions. Still, progress in this area is moving slowly.

So here are my lists, based on recent personal experience, of who takes online submissions and who doesn't. I did not include journals that require a mandatory fee. And these lists are for short story subs only:

Journals that have an Online Submission Manager:
42 Opus
AGNI
Blatimore Review
Boston Review
Columbia: A Journal of Literature & Arts
Fence
Glimmertrain
One Story
The Kenyon Review
Ninth Letter
Our Stories
The Virginia Quarterly Review
Witness
Quarterly West
Tin House

Journals that take Email Submissions:
Blackbird
Columbia Review
Colorado Review
Denver Syntax
Literary Mama
Monkeybicycle
Pindeldyboz
The Summerset Review
The New Yorker
Oklahoma Review
Oregon Literary Review
The St. Ann's Review
McSweeny's Quarterly
Fantasy Magazine
Superstition Review
Storyglossia

Journals that Only Do Snail Mail (Boo!):
Alaska Quarterly Review
Antioch Review
Arts & Letters
Atlantic Monthly
Brooklyn Review
The Gettysburg Review
Granta
Harper's
Hawai'i Review
The Ledge
Louisiana Review
Nimrod
Southwestern American Literature
Wisconsin review
North American Review
The Sun
Indiana Review
Cimarron Review

Please correct me where I'm wrong and feel free to add to the list. For a more comprehensive list of publications that take electronic submissions go to www.duotrope.com