Thursday, November 19 at 8:00 p.m., award winning writing Stuart Dybek will read on Western Michigan University's campus.It was a little dismaying to read the descriptions of the books, which you can do at http://www.publishersweekly.com/article/CA6704263.html, and realize how very much it was shaped by "boy" subjects. "Gritty, mostly honest-hearted ex-heroin addict protagonist Ricky Rice!...Rebellious Yankee son of a father who fell victim to the Depression!...[T]he men who built America’s intercontinental ballistic missile program in the 1950s and ‘60s!...Two 40-ish men seeking love and existential meaning!...Grann’s vigorous research mirrors Fawcett’s obsession with uncovering the mysteries of the jungle!...Philosopher and motorcycle repair-shop owner Crawford extols the value of making and fixing things in this masterful paean to what he calls manual competence!..." That's six of the ten.Read Ostriker's full article "Publishers Weekly Versus the Rest of Us" here.
1) Not enough books by women are being published relative to the total number being publishedRead full article here.
2) The books by women that are published are getting less marketing money relative to their counterparts by men, and are therefore catching fewer people's eyes
"Jennifer K. Sweeney's How to Live on Bread and Music is a remarkable achievement from the hand of a poet with a subtle and compassionate mindfulness."
— Afaa Michael Weaver
"The poetry of Chad Sweeney is exuberant, imagistic, and prophetic. . . . a poetry of awakening, of coming into knowledge."
—Paul Hoover
Jennifer K. Sweeney is the author of How to Live on Bread and Music, winner of the 2009 James Laughlin Award from the Academy of American Poets and the Perugia Press Prize. She is also the author of Salt Memory, which received the Main Street Rag Poetry Award. Nominated
four times for a Pushcart Prize, her poems have appeared in Southern Review, Spoon River, Crab Orchard, Hunger Mountain and Passages North where she won the 2009 Elinor Benedict Poetry Prize. She teaches poetry and writing privately, serves as assistant editor for DMQ Review and lives in Kalamazoo, Michigan.
Chad Sweeney is the author of three books of poetry: Parable of Hide and Seek (Alice James, 2010), Arranging the Blaze (Anhinga, 2009), and An Architecture (BlazeVox, 2007). He is the editor of Days I Moved Through Ordinary Sounds (City Lights, 2009) and coeditor of the literary journal Parthenon West Review. His work has appeared in Best American Poetry, Verse Daily and elsewhere. He is working toward a Ph.D. in literature/creative writing at WMU where he teaches poetry and serves as assistant editor of New Issues Press.
Read the article here.
The Fall 2009 issue of Third Coast is hot off the presses and flying straight into your mailboxes.
Congratulations to Bonnie Jo Campbell, who has just been named a National Book Award Finalist for American Salvage. We published a new story by Campbell, "Somewhere Warm," in the Spring 2009 issue of Third Coast.
an American colloquialism used to describe several (usually coastal) regions distinct from the West Coast and the East Coast of the United States ... most often used to refer to the Great Lakes region.
The new geniuses have been announced, and they include writers Heather McHugh, Edwidge Danticat, and Deborah Eisenberg. Asked about what she'd been up to since learning the news, McHugh replied that she'd "bought a pair of good walking shoes, a whole bag of used clothing at Value Village [thrift store], and a good gag" (LA Times "Jacket Copy"). I kind of love Ms. McHugh. She spoke more seriously, later, in this NPR interview , about wordplay, form, and pushing her writing further. We're pleased to see all three of these amazing women recognized.
"The Lexi Rudnitsky First Book Prize (formerly the Lexi Rudnitsky Poetry Prize) is a collaboration between Persea Books and The Lexi Rudnitsky Poetry Project. It sponsors the annual publication of a poetry collection by an American woman poet who has yet to publish a full-length book of poems. The winner receives an advance of $1,000.00 and publication of her collection by Persea.
In addition, beginning this year, the winner receives the option of an all-expenses-paid residency at the Civitella Ranieri Center, a renowned artists retreat housed in a fifteenth-century castle in Umbertide, Italy."
And really, who doesn't want to write at a castle in Italy?
Third Coast 2010 Fiction or Poetry Contest
Department of English
Western Michigan University
Kalamazoo, MI 49008-5331
Check out our contests page for complete details!
