The Online Versus Print Debate Continues

Kenyon Review editor David Lynn has a thoughtful post on the KROnline Blog about the debate between online and print.  What we like about David’s discussion is that he is honest about what worries many writers, especially those facing tenure or promotion in traditional English programs, but he also acknowledges that new technology and new media tend to win out in the end.

Having just finished a new short story, Lynn is considering whether he wants to send it to a more traditional paper-and-ink magazine — such as the one he edits and values so highly — or to an online journal:

Another possibility would be, as I’ve mentioned, to send the new story to any one of the dozens of electronic journals burgeoning on the Internet. But what would it mean for me to abandon print? Less status? Not least foregoing the tactile pleasure of holding the printed thing itself in my hand? How much is that worth?

I set out the questions this way to make the point that this is not merely a hypothetical: something precious to me as a writer is on the line. Because, of course, there’s the larger issue as well: what does the relationship between the print Kenyon Review and the electronic KROnline mean for the writing community? Should authors be as willing — more than merely willing, should they be as happy and enthusiastic — for their work to appear in our online journal as in print?

You can read the entirety of David Lynn’s post here.

Three Essay/CNF Contests Upcoming Soon

1.  Literal Latté is accepting entries for its Ames Essay Award until September 15

2. The Creative Nonfiction Prize from Hunger Mountain is open until September 10.  A one-thousand-dollar prize and publication of the winning work.

3. Real Simple magazine’s Life Lessons Essay Contest will award three thousand dollars and publication in the national magazine.  Deadline September 7.

Best of the Web 2009: Dzanc You!

Brevity had the great good fortune to publish Kate Petersen’s To All Those Who Say Write What You Know in our May 2008 issue, and now that essay has been reprinted in the great, good, growlin’ Best of the Web 2009 ** from the fine folks at Dzanc Books.

So here’s our shout out to Dzanc — everyone who loves web literature should order that book right now — and our ongoing appreciation to Kate Petersen, who blogs about her essay here:

When I began this piece, my river was the Avon, the part that wends through Bath on its way to the river Severn, and now it’s the Charles. (Neither of them made the list). I have known a river of two, whatever that meant, but it came first.

I like lists, a lot, so in one way, this piece was an easy exercise: Write a list of what you know. Lists within lists. Items gave way to memory which gave way to more items.

But in another way it was really hard. No matter what the proponents of write-what-you-know say, as writers of fiction, we claim for ourselves and our characters knowledge that surpasses our own. But in nonfiction, we can’t (or aren’t supposed to). I couldn’t create a scene, a landscape or experience I hadn’t had. Some of my characters have known war, but I haven’t, and so in a way, the essay became about windows – the unwatched TV, cruising altitude flying coach. How much I’ve seen and facing what direction has been, more often than not, accidental.

To that end, I suppose I was challenging those who say write what you know: Here it is. Two pages. A horse in a field. Some rivers. That’s what I can have? Which may also be a bit like a confession. Everything I know fits into less than 750 words, after editing, and when I read it now, I hear the unasked question, Is this enough?

But maybe it’s not a challenge or a confession. Perhaps I was just trying to write down the want — that gap between what we know (and therefore have), and all the rest of it, where the desire gets in.

–

** Also in Best of the Web 2009, Brevity essays by Terese Svoboda and Kathrine Leone Wright

Brevity Authors in The Best of the Web 2009

Our friends and heroes at Dzanc Books tell us that The Best of the Web 2009 is now available for pre-order (it will be in stores in late June) at the Dzanc website for $18.00.

The line-up for Best of the Web 2009 includes a kettle of fine stories, flashes, poems and essays, but from Brevity, we are proud to be represented by:

Terese Svoboda – How Catholic – Brevity 28

and

Kathrine Leone Wright – Why – Brevity 28

More info on the anthology and on ordering here.

Brevity 30 / Between Departure and Arrival

BREVITY 30

..has pulled into the station with a new collection of essays involving planes, trains, and cars, subways, airports, and bus stops. Maybe it’s that we’re right between spring and summer, or maybe it’s that we’re anxious for our impending vacations, but the work in this issue seems to put itself right between departure and arrival. This issue we welcome new and returning authors: Rigoberto González, Sierra Bellows, Maggie McKnight, Richard Robbins, Amanda Fields, Kianoosh Hashemzadeh, Christina Olson, Richard Gilbert, Robin Behn, A. Papatya Bucak, Jane Bernstein, and Shane Borrowman.

In our craft section this issue, author and editor Judith Kitchen offers “Ten (or Twenty) Points on Publishing, Plus a Few Playful Tidbits,” Kelli Russell examines how rejection can reduce us to feelings we thought we left behind in junior high, and Gretchen Clark contributes “An Interview with Kim Barnes on Short Nonfiction.”

And new book reviews of Jay Griffiths’ Wild: An Elemental Journey; of Michael Pollan’s In Defense of Food: An Eater’s Manifesto; of Patricia Klindienst’s The Earth Knows My Name: Food, Culture and Sustainability in the Gardens of Ethnic Americans, and of Tricia Tunstall’s Note by Note: A Celebration of the Piano Lesson.

Our visiting artist this issue is Sarah Truckey. We thank her for her fine photos.

The Online Credibility Battle

.. Brevity editor Dinty W. Moore is giving way too many interviews:

Lyric and Laid Back at Silk Road

“The credibility battle is being won in many ways, by pioneer online journals that have remained very selective in the work they publish, by somewhat newer ventures like McSweeney’s and Narrative and Blackbird that have the funding and staffing to act like “real” magazines and draw in the star power, and by conventional print magazines that are opening up more and more online content. I suppose there are some tenure committees that still turn up their collective egghead noses at online publications, but most writers I know, and especially if they are younger, don’t carry that prejudice any more.”

–

Oh, and if you are in Boston this weekend, he is also teaching, reading, and accepting an award as part of Grub Street’s Muse and the Marketplace.

On Rejection

Brevity has seen the number of submissions double over the last two years — around on hundreds per month, or up to 400 per 12-essay issue.  This means we are turning away lots of fine work.

Well, it isn’t easy, and we don’t enjoy it, this turning people down. There is no joy in saying “no.”

So to all of the writers who we have had to say “no thank you” to lately, our regrets.

– Dinty

Opium: 500 Words

Opium’s 500-Word Memoir Contest–judged by author and Oscar-nominee Tom Perrotta.

The rules? Write a memoir of 500 words or less. The winning memoir, along with a handful of finalists, will appear in Opium8 which will debut on May 1, 2009. For a shining example (and the rules)–a finalist from Opium5–check out Giancarlo DiTrapano’s heartaching memoir here: http://opiummagazine.com/contest.aspx

The Deadline: February 22, 2009
The Reward: $1,000, and publication in Opium8.
The Cost: $10 for a single entry; $17.50 for two (or you can now subscribe and enter for $25!)

How to Submit: Go to Opium’s new submissions system and enter!
The Judge: Tom Perrotta has written six novels, including Election, the New York Times best seller The Abstinence Teacher and Little Children. Election became an acclaimed movie directed by Alexander Payne, and Perrotta received an Oscar nomination for the screenplay of Little Children. Perrotta has taught at Yale and Harvard, and lives near Boston.

… try to be fresh, not familiar and safe, and edit ruthlessly.

Brevity editor Dinty W. Moore interviewed at Web del Sol:

AMG: Brevity accepts CNF submissions of 750 words or less. Why stop at 750 words?

DM: It started because I didn’t want to read long pieces on a computer screen.  Since then, I’ve learned all sorts of wonderful things about brief writing, flash nonfiction, micro-essays, and what I’ve learned makes the short form all the more intriguing. But the real first impulse was to save our eyesight.

AMG: When it comes to Brevity’s submissions, do you have a preference to certain styles and/or topics?

DM: As soon as I say that I’m tired of a topic – love of grandparents, for instance – someone submits an essay on that topic that blows my head open.  So we are open to anything, but try to be fresh, not familiar and safe, and edit ruthlessly.

AMG: What really makes a submission stand out?

DM: Tight prose, from the first sentence to the end, and surprise.  Take the reader somewhere she didn’t realize the piece was going.

Harper’s Hails Hohn and Our “Journal of Little Essays”

Harper’s Magazine’s Weekend Read Blog gives Brevity a nice shout out for the recent, wonderful mini-essay from Donovan Hohn, Snail Picking.

Here is what Harper’s had to say:

Donovan Hohn, an erstwhile editor at this magazine (and current contributing editor), has been writing terrific essays for Harper’s and others for a number of years. He has a lyrical way with line and a rigorous way with theme. He is attentive to the appearances of things, to the natural and its perversion by man. A little essay of Hohn’s that appeared in the journal of little essays, Brevity, begins:

I was, at age nine, a god of snails. On the quiet San Francisco cul-de-sac where my family lived, Helix aspera, the brown garden snail, was by far the most plentiful and least evasive wildlife around. Snails plied the long green fins of our neighbor’s agapanthus like barges transiting green canals. I’d unglue them from their shiny trails, hold them in mid-air, and poke their sensitive horns. They’d ripple and recoil.

It’s nice to be noticed.

Dzanc Books’ Best of the Web 2008 Invades the Internet

Today is Celebrate Dzanc Books’ Best of the Web on your Blog Day.

So, whoo hoo!

Really.  We love Dzanc, and love the way they are using social networking to open new avenues for small literary publishers.

Best of the Web 2008 anthology

Dzanc Books’ Best of the Web 2008 anthology is now available and can be ordered online, at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, or from Dzanc’s website.

We are happy as well that the following Brevity authors are included in what we hope is an annual publishing event:

Abby Frucht – Blue Shirt – Brevity

Robin Behn – Childbirth in Alabama – Brevity

What Dinty W. Moore Knows

Oronte Churm over at insidehighered.com has published a wide-ranging interview with Brevity editor Dinty W. Moore on subjects that include panic, desire, writing brief, John and Yoko, and the every-popular truth in memoir equation  An excerpt:

“Simply put, my belief is that a memoir writer, or creative nonfiction writer, has a pact with the reader that goes like this: ‘Memory is faulty, but I’ve done my damnedest. I’ve fact-checked where possible, wracked my brain where appropriate, sat outside my old house on Memory Avenue for a while and tried, tried, tried, to get it right, and this is what resulted. I’m not faking it, ginning it up for book sales, grinding an ax against my parents, or in any other conscious way deceiving the reader—or myself. I’ve worked hard to access my memory and get an honest version here. But yes, I admit some of it may be influenced by memory’s tricks.’  That’s all you can do, that’s all I expect of a writer.”

Best Creative Nonfiction: Redux

CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS: BEST CNF VOL. 3

–

For publication in the Best Creative Nonfiction, Vol. 3: Editors of

any publication, print or online, are invited to nominate up to 3

essays or articles from their 2007/2008 issues. Send one hard copy of

each piece to:

–

The Best Creative Nonfiction c/o Creative Nonfiction

5501 Walnut Street, suite 202

Pittsburgh, PA 15232

-

Or by email (pdf or Word attachments only):

bestcreativenonfiction@gmail.com

–

To be considered, work must be slated for publication before the end

of 2008. In the case of work not published by the nomination

deadline, please send page proofs or a Word manuscript.

–

Deadline for submissions is July 15, 2008.

Hey, We Thought of it First!

From the New York Times:

“In a time of glut and waste on every front, compression and economy have undeniable appeal. And if a great work of art is one that is essential in all its parts, that has nothing superfluous or that can be subtracted, working small may improve the odds.”

.
.
.

To be honest, though, they are talking about painting, not writing.

Be Forewarned

Brevity has already filled the Summer 2008 and Fall 2008 issues, and we are reading for January 2009. We will close off submissions for the summer early this year, on April 15th to be exact.

So now you have two reasons to rue the day.

Sweet!

There’s a new kid on the block, full of gooey goodness, or at least sugary promises:

SWEET: A Literary Confection
From the about page:

In 2002 Katherine Riegel and Ira Sukrungruang got married in Chiang Mai, Thailand, at one of the oldest temples in the country. (You should have seen them; they were beautiful). The marriage of Katie and Ira was also a marriage of cultures, a marriage of landscapes, a marriage of genres: poetry and creative nonfiction. So began an ongoing conservation about the two genres, where they intersect, diverge, and mix to create a frothy blend. We, at Sweet, want to include others in this conversation.

We like poetry like we like chocolate. We like creative nonfiction like we like marshmallows and graham crackers. Both are great separately and together. Sweet wants to cater to the chocolate aficionados and those who like their s’mores good and gooey.

Thoughts on Finding a Memoir’s Narrative Arc

From Gary Presley, author of the Brevity essay Proselegy and Coda

I’ve been banging my head against a memoir for two or three years – a book that’s only now crossed the copy-editing stage at the University of Iowa Press on the track to Fall 2008 publication (Seven Wheelchairs: A Life beyond Polio). As with most things written, the book went through more drafts than I wanted to make – from connected, related essays into a chronological narrative.

During the last state, I told a writer friend, unless you’re famous and can sell a gaggle of essays, a memoir writer may not think he is living a life with a rational, non-repetitive narrative arc, but he best find one if he wants to be published.

She replied with a question, “How would you explain narrative arc?”

She asked me that because I’ve never studied creative writing. I doubt I’ll ever be as famous as Grandma Moses – the famous folk artist painter – but I use her technique, which might be called primitive.

With that in mind, I told her I think a chronological narrative would have a “time arc.” When I wrote 100,000 words as a “memoir in essays,” I would pick a subject about disability, look at it from every direction, and write about it. I had essays about the disease; its treatment; the hospital environment; the rehabilitation environment; isolation upon my return home; about education and employment; and some discussing the nitty-gritty of disability.

The editor first said “Masterful essays, but there’s too much repetition. Try a chronological narrative arc.” I tried, but I felt too close to the material. Then the editor said “It’s lost some of its passion. Make the chapters more like the essays.”

There was the rub. It took me a long time to understand that if anger and frustration occurred when I was in the iron lung at age 17 that I did not need to re-state the origins of that anger and frustration when I brought up an anecdote later.

If I could put the effort in the Wayback Machine, I would outline anecdotes on index cards. Then before I began to write, and I would shuffle the cards around and play with their order – both in theme and in time.

Within the terminology of “narrative arc,” I think, is the idea that we build our lives around themes. My theme was living as a person with a disability in 20th USA, but the sub-themes are anger, and duality (the idea that a virus killed then-17-year-old-Gary and created crip-Gary, who is an entirely different bag of tricks) and a prosaic existentialism.

How that might translate in another writer’s life I cannot say, but I know this: we are different people to each individual we know, both because of their perceptions and because of the way we reveal ourselves to them. With that, there are an infinite number of stories to weave into any narrative arc.
___

Further discussion can be found through Google with the search words “creative nonfiction” and “narrative arc” alone or together, including A Conversation with Rebecca McClanahan in the Kenyon Review and a nidus Roundtable Discussion — The Age of Creative Nonfiction.

 

Lee Smith: Everything is Changing

When first encountering this snippet of Lee Smith’s WSJ Interview, I thought she was being pretty negative, but by the end of the paragraph, I saw what she meant. Anyone who just experienced the AWP Bookfair saw what she means as well. Brevity, I hope, is part of the change.

Do you think it’s more difficult to get published as a new voice today than before?

Ms. Smith: Absolutely. This is the horrible irony that just kills me, as I read this very important and exciting work. Because I think we have more excellent new writers who really have something to say, writing in America than we have ever had before. But the horrible irony is that there are fewer and fewer places for good fiction, literary fiction in particular, and poetry and creative nonfiction to be published. At the same time as the number of excellent new writers is growing, our country is dumbing down. People are not reading. Consequently, publishing is in a state where they are publishing less and less serious fiction, serious poetry. So here you have all these wonderful writers with essentially nowhere to publish. And this is giving rise to small literary outlets and particularly I think too, online magazines and to blogging. So there’s a whole different kind of thinking about writing and where it will be heard and read and seen coming in now. Everything is changing.

Oxford Bound, Spring 2008

The Mid-South Creative Nonfiction Conference

February 27 to March 2, 2008

The University of Mississippi

The conference schedule features one-on-one sessions with editors and agents and panel discussions offering concrete tips about the art, craft and business of writing creative nonfiction. Presenters and speakers include Samir Husni (University of Mississippi), Virginia Morell (National Geographic), Rebecca Skloot (The New York Times Magazine, University of Memphis), June Thomas (Slate.com), Michael Rosenwald, (The New Yorker, Esquire), Webster Younce (Houghton Mifflin), Dinty W. Moore (Brevity, Ohio University), Kristen Iversen (The Pinch, University of Memphis), Ted Moncreiff (Conde Nast Traveler), Charlie Conrad (Doubleday/Broadway), Keith Bellows (National Geographic Traveler), John T. Edge (Gourmet, University of Mississippi) and conference director Lee Gutkind, the award-winning editor and founder of Creative Nonfiction.

Intensive writing workshops will also be offered before the official start of the conference. Instructors include Rebecca Skloot, Michael Rosenwald, Dinty W. Moore and Kristen Iversen. Topics include “Structure,” “How to Begin Your Memoir,” “The Art and Craft of Characterization in Memoir,” “Scenes from a Notebook,” and “Writing Book Proposals and Query Letters.”

Subject: Re: Your Posted “S_ _T” Essay on Brevity

BREVITY never likes to find itself stuck in a rut, and to that end, we were entirely pleased to publish Janis Butler Holm’s provocative, some say “head-scratching,” essay entitled S_ _T. It is experimental, decidedly.

Marissa of Drake University took the time to write the author, on behalf of her class, seeking some insight into the work, and here is that exchange:

Professor Holm,

I am a sophomore undergraduate student at Drake University in Des Moines, IA. For my Reading/Writing Non-fiction class, we read your uniquely structured essay “S_ _T” that was posted on the Brevity site and were impressed. We all loved your essay because of its humor and for its clever lines.

However, the essay positively puzzled us and we are desperate to find out more–so I was assigned to contact you personally and to find out all you would tell us.

We are curious first about the title. What are the middle letters supposed to be? (Our class of 15 girls and a professor guessed slut, spot, shit, etc…) We also would love to hear more about it’s purpose, it’s source, and the reasoning behind the S and T format.

On behalf of the class, I would like to say thank you for writing a piece so mysterious and we would appreciate your time in helping us out.

Thanks Much,

Marissa

–

Marissa,
Thanks again for letting me know that your class enjoyed the essay–always good news to a writer’s ears. Here’s what I can tell you about the piece:

1) It’s part of a collection of nonconversations whose “voices” are named for letters of the alphabet. Other titles on the Web include “C Said, D Said,” “X Plus Y,” and “O, P” (at <http://www.bigbridge.org/poetjholm.htm> and <http://www.locusnovus.com/lnprojects/op/>). Unlike most of the other pieces, “S _ _ T” is nonfiction memoir.

2) I’m interested in what the French theorist Roland Barthes has called the open, or “writerly,” text–writing that invites the reader to play a larger role in meaning-making than do more conventional works.

3) I’m also interested in poststructuralist theories of identity, which suggest that we aren’t the unified egos we pretend to be but collections of contradictions and discontinuities.

4) From my point of view, “S _ _ T” can stand for any or all the words your class has come up with, and even some you haven’t. (Are the blanks necessarily letters? Can they be words? Should “_” be pronounced “Blank”? Etc.)

5) One of my goals is to craft pieces that both engage and call attention to our strong desire to make meaning.

Thanks, Marissa, for taking the time to ask me about “S _ _ T.” It’s always fun to find out how readers respond. Please give my regards to your professor and to your colleagues.

All the best,

Janis Butler Holm

1,041 subscriptions to The Missouri Review

Yes, BREVITY is a digital journal, but we still love our print brethren.  An interesting post on the fate of paper journals at Free Range Librarian:

God forbid I should ever suggest a university should deprive its scholars of access to a $25,000 journal on brain research, but it is worth observing that $25,000 could buy 568 subscriptions to ZZYZVA, or 694 subscriptions to The Sun, or 836 subscriptions to Tin House, or 1,041 subscriptions to The Missouri Review, or 1,136 subscriptions to White Crane. Plus—though admittedly I’ve never seen Brain Research—I’m guessing the artwork in the lit mags is prettier, and the poetry has to be for-sure better.

Sukrungruang’s Malnourished Medieval Beast

First, let me say that I’ll bet no one else ever used this title for a blog entry before today.  But Ira Sukrungruang, author of What If? in Brevity 24 and Chop Suey in Brevity 19, has a new blog,  The Clever Title,  which he describes thusly: The Clever Title devours books like a malnourished medieval beast. The Clever Title is not concerned with craft or criticism. It cares not about literary elitism or academic jargon. The Clever Title reads because it knows there are mysteries of the underworld left to discover. The Clever Title loves the written word the way children love their ragged blankies. The Clever Title relishes those moments cuddled on the couch, sitting under the oak on campus, sipping a cappuccino in a cafe, the bent spine of a book in hand. The Clever Title reads to understand and discover humanity, the self, the natural world, and the mysteries that lie beneath the couch cushions.

We describe it this way: interesting book discussions.  And fun.

That’s The Clever Title, coming to a computer screen near you.

Response: DOES BREVITY ONLY PUBLISH PUBLISHED WRITERS?

A thoughtful response to last week’s post

That was an interesting email you posted at the Brevity site from the reader who wanted to know if only published writers get published. While I agree with your assertion that there’s a reason we keep seeing certain writers published again and again in literary journals (they’re darn good writers), I also believe their success sometimes feeds on itself.

The problem with that is writers–even famous and the famously published ones– are a lot like songwriters: not everything they write is a great song. Yet, I’ve seen some good writers with name recognition get certain essays and stories published that were whiffs and misses (in my humble opinion). We recently studied an essay by a very well-known and established writer in one of my comp classes where I thought “if a student handed this in I’d suggest it needs some revision.” The essay, I felt, went off-topic in the middle, delayed the “what the hell is this about?” far too long, and hastily tied things up in an abrupt conclusion. Not only was this an essay that had been published once, but it got in that magical wheelhouse of the Society of Academic Gatekeepers where it had been printed and reprinted many times.

The bottomline is that I have far less precious time in front of an editor’s face with my piece than do writers whose reputations precede them. Whereas an editor might read through pages 4,5, and 6 to find the payoff from an established writer, I better sure as hell hook that editor in the first couple of paragraphs–and even then only if the story isn’t of the kind or sort the editor has a personal pet peeve about (re: “I don’t do coming-of-age stories. Next”).

And the famous writer isn’t going to have his/her submission crumpled and tossed in the recycle bin because he or she didn’t include an SASE or forgot to put the story title in bottom-left corner of every page.

That said, it would be unfair to paint all publications and all editing staffs with the same brush (as those good and sincere souls reading this who are feeling indignant because they know what I’m saying doesn’t apply to them or their publications). I’ve certainly received rejection letters that were fairly earned once I saw the issue come out saw all the strong writing in it (Brevity comes to mind). And I’ve certainly been surprised on occasion by a nice handwritten note from an editor. But I’ve more times than not in the submission game been made to feel like an unimportant number, someone burdening an already burdened staff who has been jaded and burnt out by the heavy load of submissions. I’ve certainly read more than my share of editorials and editor interviews in journals and magzines of the “if you want me to sniff your submission, you sure as hell better jump through these hoops correctly–because you wouldn’t believe the crap I have to put up with on a daily basis.”

Understood–and right back at you.

As a wise colleague of mine once said: “if you can’t handle the work load, don’t cash the check.” I realize many of these publications aren’t money-making enterprises, but I believe that if you can’t treat those who submit like human beings and remember EACH one of those submissions contains a naked part of the author’s soul, well, you should consider shutting the operation down and go do something you can handle with quality customer service–whether that be selling beads at a flea market or cutting meat at the local deli.

But the real question is why writers keep putting up with the abuse: a submission done right costs about $1 or more to send out. That adds up in a hurry–especially when the payoff is “two copies and a pat on the back” if that writer does miraculously get a bite. And especially when the rejection notes are more often than not robotic form letters stuffed in your SASE by college students or interns.

Editors sometimes think writers need to hear the hard truth about their writing. The truth is a lot of stuff that comes across their desks isn’t that good. Understood. But I also think editors need to hear the hard truth–like this–right back at them at times.

Best regards, Bill Milligan

–

Bill Milligan teaches composition, journalism, and creative nonfiction at Bay College in Escanaba, Michigan. As he has tenure and his dean doesn’t care if he ever publishes or not, he feels secure in sharing his feelings openly about the writing business. He can be reached at milligab39@yahoo.com Please feel free to use profanity when contacting him if it helps. He understands the therapeutic value of venting.

Brevity Bob Says, Click My Picture

Mailbag: DOES BREVITY ONLY PUBLISH ‘PUBLISHED’ WRITERS?

BREVITY received an interesting e-mail recently, and it got me to thinking about our purpose and our history. We’re about to launch Issue 25: the Silver Anniversary, so that’s as good a time as any to take stock.

Here’s an excerpt from the e-mail:

“I have enjoyed reading your journal (but) … honesty would go as far in your submission guidelines as it does in the essays themselves. Be honest upfront and say that every essay accepted is written by a published writer … Not everyone who reads your journal is a published writer. And not everyone who submits an essay is a published writer. But only those that are get published. Honesty is the best policy in all things … — Karen”

Keep reading here:

http://www.creativenonfiction.org/brevity/ednote.htm

SUB-LIT NEEDS DISSIDENT CREATIVE NONFICTION — !

The editors at SUB-LIT — “Sex. Literature, and Rock & Roll” — have let it be known that they are “in desperate need of creative nonfiction submissions. Tell your friends! Please repost!”

Check out the dissidence at www.sublit.com

Women’s Work, 1943-1945

Women’s Work, 1943-1945

By Rebecca McClanahan

Everything schnell, schnell, my boots for wooden clogs, and Mother refuses to relieve herself in the open bucket sloshing in the corner. Now to the sauna, schnell, schnell, our names rinsed from our bodies until we are all Ruth, our private places checked for hidden diamonds. They say if you give up your things quietly, they will return to you.

From Brevity’s Current Summer Issue. More Here.

Margaret Mary’s All Black and White Issue, Featuring Concise Literary Nonfiction

BREVITY

announces a new issue, Summer 2007

with

Abby Frucht , Rebecca McClanahan, Ira Sukrungruang, Barbara Hurd, Bonnie J. Rough, Jennifer Sinor, Carrie Oeding, Suzanne LaFetra, Charles Cantalupo, and Chris Orlet.

Topics this time around include women’s work, Selective Service, cockle shells, mussels, life’s fragility, ruby-throated hummingbirds, Stevie Wonder, animal crackers, baby wipes, beach umbrellas, dusk, and Rural Route 1.

We are also pleased to feature new book reviews, of the late Deborah Tall’s A Family of Strangers and David Griffith’s A Good War is Hard to Find.

All of it here: Brevity 24
==================

Now for the news:

1. BREVITY, and the entire full-time editorial staff, will be moving to Ohio University next month. Look for us in Ellis Hall. Our e-mail address (brevitymag@gmail.com) remains the same.

2. We’ve suspended reading new submissions for the summer, but look forward to reading your work in September.

3. We’re pleased to note that work from Brevity has been anthologized in Judith Kitchen’s Short Takes anthology, the forthcoming Best Creative Nonfiction anthology from W.W. Norton, and three recent writing textbooks. Additionally, Robert Atwan’s Best American Essays 2006 cites Creative Nonfiction’s Best of Brevity issue as one of the five notable special issues of the year. Thanks to all of our contributors.

Dinty

Is 750 Words Way Too Many?

Our friends at 400 Words think so.  This is a highly interesting new magazine (both print and web) looking for true stories on a rotating theme.  Right now the theme is work.

There is a word limit.  You can probably guess?

See more on the submission process at 400 Words Submissions.

My Father’s Noose: The Reviews

Grace Talusan’s haunting “My Father’s Noose” from BREVITY 23 has been getting some nice blog reviews lately, including The Writer’s Group Blog, Kelly Spitzer’s Picks of the Week and Un-Made Up.

While the notices are nice, you really should probably spend your browsing time wisely and read Grace’s piece, if you missed it the first time:

My Father’s Noose

When my father was a boy, his mother hung him.

Enter Tondo, a Manila slum, and stand in the kitchen of his childhood home. Look up. The crusty knot is still there, tied around the light fixture.

I imagine my father, Totoy, at ten. He hasn’t graduated yet to long pants and shoes; his shorts and T-shirt are faded and soft from the wear of three older brothers….

Continue here: http://www.creativenonfiction.org/brevity/brev23/talusan_noose.htm

Atlanta Bookfair

We are off to the AWP Conference in Atlanta. Though Brevity has never quite seen the wisdom of ponying up for a table at the bookfair, since we have nothing to sell (and no revenue to pay for the table), we’ll be there nonetheless, wandering from table to table, admiring our well-funded competition, pocketing free pens.

If you are there too, look for the nametag — Dinty — and say hello.

Dinty

Brevity 23: The Special Polar Bear Issue

The Spring 2007 Global Warming issue of BREVITY, the journal of concise literary nonfiction, has poked through the ice.  Brevity 23 features ten outstanding essayists — Robin Behn, Aimee Nezhukumatathil, Sandi Wisenberg, Anne Panning, Patricia O’Hara, Grace Talusan , Christopher Cocca, Joy Beshears Hagy, Mary Akers, and Leslie Stainton — exploring childbirth, urban sprawl, catachresis, candy cigarettes, and beyond.

We are also proud to announce our new Book Review section, including review essays by Lee Martin, Patrick Madden, Kim Dana Kupperman, Porter Shreve and Todd Davis.  Plus an adhesive new Craft Essay by Shane Borrowman.

BREVITY: A Journal of Concise Literary Nonfiction

So, You Like Small Stuff?

This is not nonfiction related, but it does celebrate brevity, so here goes:

Flashquake’s new contest, Less Is More: A Celebration of Micro-Flash.

We’re looking for your best micro-flash fiction (100 words or less), mini-poems called “Fibs,” and “micro” photographs taken with your cell phone or PDA camera. There is no entry fee, and we’re giving out cash prizes. But hurry — the contest opens at 12:01 on January 1, 2007 and closes at 12:00 on January 31.

See the contest guidelines at

http://www.flashquake.org/editorial/contest.html

Kudos to Blackbird: New Plath

Well, we can’t top this, so we are just passing along congratulations to another fine online journal:

RICHMOND, Va. (AP) – An unpublished sonnet that Sylvia Plath wrote in college while pondering themes in F. Scott Fitzgerald’s novel “The Great Gatsby” will appear Wednesday in a Virginia online literary journal.
Plath, who committed suicide in 1963 at the age of 30, wrote “Ennui” in 1955 in her senior year at Smith College, said Anna Journey, a graduate student in creative writing at Virginia Commonwealth University. Journey discovered the sonnet’s status while researching Plath archives at Indiana University.

The poem will be featured in Blackbird, published online by VCU’s English department and New Virginia Review.

Blackbird: http://www.blackbird.vcu.edu