Happy Holidays from New Issues

The New Issues office will be closed from Friday, December 24th to Monday, January 3rd.
We hope you have a great holiday and receive all the poetry books on your wish list.

New Issues Poets Receive NEA Literature Fellowships

Congratulations to Jericho Brown (Please, 2008), Lisa Lewis (Vivisect, 2010), and Donald Platt (Dirt Angels, 2009).  These poets each were awarded a 2011 Literature Fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts worth $25,000.

2011 Grant Awards: Literature Fellowships: Creative Writing (Poetry)

Gordon Wins National Book Award for Fiction

Jaimy Gordon, Advisory Editor at New Issues and creative writing professor here at WMU, has just won the National Book Award for her novel Lord of Misrule. Jaimy translated Marie Beig's Hermine: An Animal Life from the German. Congratulations Jaimy!

Call for Submissions: New Issues Poetry Prize

Postmark Deadline: November 30, 2010

$2,000 and publication for a first book of poems
Judge: David Wojahn

New Issues Press is taking submissions for the 2011 New Issues Poetry Prize, an award for a first book of poems. The winner is chosen by a guest judge. The 2011 prize will be judged by David Wojahn, author of Interrogation Palace.

Guidelines for the 2011 prize are available on our website.

New Issues also offers publication to manuscripts in addition to the winner.

New Issues Poetry Prize Past Winners:

• 2010: Jeff Hoffman, Journal of American Foreign Policy (Judge: Linda Gregerson)
• 2009: Judy Halebsky, Sky=Empty (Judge: Marvin Bell)
• 2008: Justin Marks, A Million in Prizes (Judge: Carl Phillips)
• 2007: Sandra Beasley, Theories of Falling (Judge: Marie Howe)
• 2006: Jason Bredle, Standing in Line for the Beast (Judge: Barbara Hamby)
• 2005: Katie Peterson, This One Tree (Judge: William Olsen)
• 2004: Kevin Boyle, A Home for Wayward Girls (Judge: Rodney Jones)
• 2003: Cynie Cory; Barbara Maloutas; Louise Mathias; Bradley Paul; Heidi Lynn Staples; Ever Saskya; Matthew Thorburn (Judge: Brenda Hillman)
• 2002: Paul Guest, The Resurrection of the Body and the Ruin of the World (Judge: Campbell McGrath)
• 2001: Sarah Mangold, Household Mechanics (Judge: C.D. Wright
• 2000: Elizabeth Powell, Republic of Self (Judge: C.K. Williams)
• 1999: Joy Manesiotis, They Sing to Her Bones (Judge: Marianne Boruch)
• 1998: Malena Mörling, Ocean Avenue (Judge: Philip Levine)
• 1997: Marsha de la O, Black Hope (Judge: Chase Twichell)

Beckian Fritz Goldberg at WMU

Beckian Fritz Goldberg will be reading at Western Michigan University on Thursday, November 4th.

When: Thursday, Nov 4 at 8 p.m.

Where: WMU's Bernhard Center, Room 105-107

Who: Beckian Fritz Goldberg, author of Reliquary Fever: New and Selected Poems Goldberg holds an M.F.A. from Vermont College and is the author of six volumes of poetry. Goldberg is currently Professor of English at Arizona State University.


More Info

Heather Sellers's Memoir

Congratulations to Heather Sellers, author of The Boys I Borrow (New Issues 2007), on the publication of her memoir You Don’t Look Like Anyone I Know.

Book Launch Party for You Don’t Look Like Anyone I Know
A memoir by Heather Sellers
Washington Square Gallery (next to Pereddies), 453 Washington Ave., Holland MI

For a full listing of events, visit her website: www.heathersellers.com

WMU's THIRD COAST Celebrates 15 Years

Celebrating 15 years of Third Coast magazine and the release of our Fall 2010 issue with readings, live music, and refreshments!

Date: Saturday, November 6th, from 7-9pm
Location: Kalamazoo Book Arts Center, Suite 103A, Park Trades Center, 326 W. Kalamazoo Avenue, Kalamazoo, MI

Featuring readings by Austin Bunn, Monica Berlin, Nancy Eimers, and William Olsen, and original music by Joe Gross:

AUSTIN BUNN – Austin Bunn’s full-length plays and solo pieces have been performed and developed variously, including works at The New Harmony Project, Iowa New Play Festival, University of Oregon EcoDrama Festival, The Lark NYC, Playwrights’ Theatre of NJ, and others. His non-fiction and fiction writing have appeared in Best American Fantasy, The Pushcart Prize Anthology, and The New York Times Magazine. He teaches at Grand Valley State University.

MONICA BERLIN – Monica Berlin’s recent poems have appeared in DIAGRAM, Rhino, and New Orleans Review, among others. In Spring 2009 she won the Thomas R. Hruska Memorial Nonfiction prize from Passages North. Berlin in an Associate Professor at Knox College.

NANCY EIMERS – Nancy Eimers’ fourth poetry collection, Oz, is forthcoming in winter 2011 from Carnegie Mellon University Press. She teaches creative writing at Western Michigan University and at the Vermont College of Fine Arts.

WILLIAM OLSEN - William Olsen has four collections of poetry, including Avenue Of Vanishing. A fifth collection, Sand Theory, will be brought out by Northwestern University Press April 2011. He has won fellowships from Breadloaf, the NEA, and the Guggenheim. He teaches at Western Michigan University, where he edits New Issues Poetry and Prose.

Third Coast, a national literary magazine based at Western Michigan University, is edited entirely by WMU graduate and undergraduate students. Works first published in Third Coast have recently been selected for The PEN/O. Henry Prize Stories, The Pushcart Prize - Best of the Small Presses series, Best New Poets, and The Best American Poetry Series.

Mörling Wins Lannan Fellowship

Congratulations to Malena Mörling, author of Ocean Avenue (New Issues, 1999), winner of the 1998 New Issues Poetry Prize. She has received a 2010 Lannan Literary Fellowship from the Lannan Foundation. "The fellowships recognize writers of distinctive literary merit who demonstrate potential for continued outstanding work."

New Book: Reliquary Fever: New and Selected Poems by Beckian Fritz Goldberg

Reliquary Fever: New and Selected Poems
$18.00 paper | 215 Pages
ISBN: 978-1-930974-94-4
Publication Date: Oct 1, 2010
Buy: Amazon.com | spdbooks.org

Reliquary Fever: New and Selected Poems gathers the work of Beckian Fritz Goldberg, one of her generation’s premiere voices and its fiercest proponent of a free imagination. From the beginning of her career and in all of her six acclaimed volumes, Goldberg's poetry has rendered labels — narrative, meditative, lyric, experimental — irrelevant. It is quickened instead by the body as it experiences itself in an open environment: un-codified, stranded by longing and love and grief, defiantly caring in the midst of our violent cultural moment, at once creaturely and divine, precisely sensory, and somehow pluralized by every harrowing turn. With artfully conversational intensity her new poems extend her vision of an earthly cosmos that resurrects itself daily.

Beckian Fritz Goldberg holds an M.F.A. from Vermont College and is the author of six volumes of poetry. Her work has appeared widely in anthologies and journals including, The American Poetry Review, The Best American Poetry l995, Field, The Gettysburg Review, Harper’s, The Iowa Review, New American Poets of the 90’s and The Massachusetts Review. She has been awardedthe Theodore Roethke Poetry Prize, The Gettysburg Review Annual Poetry Award, The University of Akron Press Poetry Prize, the Field Poetry Prize, and a Pushcart Prize. Goldberg is currently Professor of English at Arizona State University.

Beckian Fritz Goldberg will be reading at Western Michigan University on Thursday, November 4th.

New Book: Vivisect by Lisa Lewis

Vivisect
$15.00 paper | 79 Pages
ISBN: 978-1-930974-92-0
Publication Date: Oct 1, 2010
Buy: Amazon.com | spdbooks.org

"The remarkable dynamism of this book comes partly from the struggle it enacts between the confessional and postmodern modes. As the title Vivisect suggests, Lewis often seems to slice right into the living body, exposing the heart itself still beating with its dark secrets. But if language is the scalpel, it is also the flesh, offering at times a tough or slippery resistance, and revealing, when penetrated, more language that leads in multiple and unexpected directions, yet, like the mind, keeps circling back irresistibly to the troubling subjects it most wants to avoid. The result is rich, powerful, and complex poetry that gathers more weight with each reading." —Jeffrey Harrison

Lisa Lewis’s previous collections are The Unbeliever (Brittingham Prize), Silent Treatment (National Poetry Series), Story Box (Poetry West Chapbook Contest), and Burned House with Swimming Pool (American Poetry Journal Book Prize). Her work has appeared in many literary journals and anthologies, including the American Poetry Review, Kenyon Review, American Literary Review, Fence, Rattle, Missouri Review, Washington Square, the Pushcart Prize anthology, and two editions of Best American Poetry. She directs the creative writing program at Oklahoma State University and serves as poetry editor for the Cimarron Review.

"Knowledge" on Poetry Daily

Keith Ekiss Gets Broadsided

"Exterpation" from Keith Ekiss's new poetry collection Pima Road Notebook was turned into a beautiful electronic broadside by artist Douglas Culhane.

Judy Halebsky Events

Language and Migration: Lecture and Poetry Reading by Judy Halebsky, author of Sky=Empty, selected by Marvin Bell for the 2009 New Issues Poetry Prize.

UC Berkeley
October 7th, 12:00-1:30
2223 Fulton St
6th floor conference room

Judy Halebsky is a contributing editor and translator for the bilingual poetry journal Eki Mae. Residencies at the MacDowell Colony and the Millay Colony have supported her work. Originally from Halifax, Nova Scotia, she spent five years in Japan studying art and literature on fellowships from the Japanese Ministry of Education. She teaches writing and world literature at Dominican University of California and is artist-in-residence at Theatre of Yugen.

More info on this event

Grand Valley Writers Series: Khaled Mattawa

Khaled Mattawa, author of Tocqueville, will be giving a reading at Grand Valley State University on Wednesday, September 22nd.

KHALED MATTAWA, poet and translator
WEDNESDAY, SEPT. 22
READING, 7PM, KIRKHOF 2263

The Grand Valley Writers Series
1 Campus Drive, Allendale, MI 49401-9401

JACK RIDL, author of Losing Season
THURSDAY, SEPT. 23
CRAFT TALK, 4PM KIRKHOF 2216
READING, 5:30PM KIRKHOF 2216

ADAM SCHUITEMA, Author of Freshwater Boys
TUESDAY, SEPT. 28
READING, 7PM, ALUMNI HOUSE

SUZANNE RIVECCA, author of Death is Not An Option
DISTINGUISHED GVSU ALUMNA
THURSDAY, OCTOBER 7th
Q&A and READING, 2:30-3:45, KIRKHOF 2216

LAURA KASISCHKE, Author of In a Perfect World and Eden Springs
WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 3
CRAFT TALK, 3PM, KIRKHOF 2263
READING, 5PM, ALUMNI HOUSE

DINTY MOORE
THURSDAY, APRIL 7
CRAFT TALK, 2:30PM, KIRKHOF 2215
READING, 5PM, ALUMNI HOUSE

Wayne Miller at Hope College

Wayne Miller
Tuesday, September 21, 2010
Jazz begins at 6:30 p.m.; reading begins at 7:00 p.m.

All Visiting Writers Series readings are free and open to the public.

Readings are held at the Knickerbocker Theatre, 86 East 8th Street, downtown Holland, unless otherwise noted.

The Jack Ridl Visiting Writers Series
Hope College
Holland, Michigan

Detroit Michigan Writers' Retreat: Sept 17 and 18

Friday, September 17

6:30 p.m. - Reception
College for Creative Studies, Center Galleries
201 East Kirby, Detroit, MI 48202-4034

7:30 p.m.- Reading (open to the public $10) featuring Thomas Lux, Quincy Troupe, Patricia Smith, Michael Thomas, Meg Kearney and Khaled Mattawa.

College for Creative Studies, Wendell W. Anderson Jr. Auditorium
Walter B. Ford II Building (located next door to the Center Galleries on Frederick Douglass between John R. and Brush Streets) Book Sales from The Book Beat

Saturday, September 18

All programs (Must be registered) will take place at

The Arts League of Michigan -Virgil H. Carr Center

311 E. Grand River, Detroit, MI 48226

(313) 965-8430, www.artsleague.com

This is a beautiful recently restored building in the heart of Downtown's Paradise Valley, very near the Detroit Opera House and YMCA.


More info: http://motownwriters.blogspot.com/2010/09/detroit-michigan-writers-retreat-sept.html

Khaled Mattawa Wins Academy Fellowship

Khaled Mattawa, author of Tocqueville (New Issues, 2010), has been named the recipient of the 2010 Academy Fellowship from the Academy of American Poets.

The Fellowship is awarded once a year to a poet for distinguished poetic achievement and provides a stipend of $25,000.

Previous recipients include Li-Young Lee, Gwendolyn Brooks, W. S. Merwin, and James Wright.

Khaled Mattawa will be honored at the fourth annual Poets Forum, October 28-30, in New York City. They will read from their work at the Poets Awards Ceremony and be part of intimate panel discussions on contemporary poetry presented by the Academy of American Poets. (from the press release)

Khaled Mattawa in Big Rapids, MI

The poet Khaled Mattawa will be giving a reading from his new book Tocqueville on Wednesday, September 15th, 4 o'clock, at Great Lakes Book and Supply.

Khaled Mattawa was born in Libya and immigrated to the U.S. in his teens. He is the author of three previous books of poetry and has translated eight volumes of contemporary Arabic poetry and co-edited two anthologies of Arab American literature. He has received a Guggenheim fellowship, an NEA translation grant, the Alfred Hodder Fellowship from Princeton University, the PEN American Center Poetry Translation Prize, and three Pushcart Prizes. Mattawa teaches in the MFA (Creative Writing) Program at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor.

Great Lakes Book and Supply
840 Clark St
Big Rapids, MI 49307
(231) 796-1112
greatlakesbook.com



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New Issues at the Kerrytown BookFest Sunday

On Sunday, September 12th, from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m., New Issues will be at Booth #109 during the Kerrytown BookFest 2010 (315 Detroit St, Ann Arbor, MI 48104).  Talk to the editors, pick up the latest publications, and get some great deals of Michigan poetry.

Book Signings:
1:30 - Khaled Mattawa
2:00 - Josie Kearns
2:30 - Deanne Lundin
3:00 - John Rybicki
3:30 - Linda Nemec Foster
4:00 - Mary Ann Samyn

Poetry Reading
Sunday, September 12th, 5 p.m. to 6:30 p.m.
Crazy Wisdom Bookstore, 114 South Main St, Ann Arbor, MI 48104 (www.crazywisdom.net)
Poetry reading by Khaled Mattawa, Mary Ann Samyn, Josie Kearns, John Rybicki, Deanne Lundin and Linda Nemec Foster. Reading sponsored by MCACA.


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Scott Blackwood's Novel Finalist for PEN USA Award

Congratulations to Scott Blackwood, author of We Agreed to Meet Just Here (AWP Award Series in the Novel). His book was named a finalist by PEN USA for the 2010 Literary Award for fiction.

"We Agreed to Meet Just Here is a lyrical mystery about disappearance, told in precise and luminous prose." —Robert Eversz

For further information, visit www.penusa.org or contact awards@penusa.org

Poetry Daily Features New Issues Poets

"Knowledge" by Lisa Lewis, from Vivisect. Featured on September 5, 2010.

"Ode to the Creosote Bush" by Keith Ekiss, from Pima Road Notebook. Featured on September 3, 2010.

New Book: Pima Road Notebook by Keith Ekiss

Pima Road Notebook
$15.00 paper | 73 Pages
ISBN: 978-1-930974-93-7
Publication Date: Sept 1, 2010
Buy: Amazon.com | spdbooks.org

"Pima Road Notebook, Keith Ekiss’s remarkable first collection, contrasts the finite imagination of the American dream with the enduring serenity and mystery of the Sonoran Desert, where the ridiculous—fairways and greens—compete with the sublime—saguaros and palo verdes."—Michael Collier

Keith Ekiss is a former Wallace Stegner Fellow and Jones Lecturer at Stanford University and the past recipient of scholarships and residencies from the Bread Loaf and Squaw Valley Writers’ Conferences, Santa Fe Art Institute, Millay Colony for the Arts, and the Petrified Forest National Park. He lives in San Francisco.

Find more information on our website: here
And here: keithekiss.com

Linda Nemec Foster September Events

Sunday, September 12, 2010
Kerrytown Book Festival in Ann Arbor. Linda Nemec Foster will sign copies of her poetry book, Talking Diamonds, at the New Issues Press booth at 3:30 PM. She will also give a poetry reading with other New Issues authors (Khaled Mattawa, Josie Kearns, John Rybicki, Deanne Lundin, Mary Ann Samyn) at the Crazy Wisdom Bookstore in Ann Arbor from 5:00-6:30 PM.

Wednesday, September 15, 2010 from 6:00-9:00 PM
Linda Nemec Foster will conduct a poetry workshop entitled, A Passion for Poetry, based on the current art exhibit at the Saugatuck Center for the Arts. Workshop takes place at the Center, 400 Culver Street, Saugatuck, MI 49453. For more info, contact Krista Reuter, Program Director or go to their website www.sc4a.org

Monday, September, 20, 2010 at 7:00 PM
Linda Nemec Foster will read at the Wellspring Literary Series, which is a partnership between the English Department at Central Michigan University and the Art Reach Center in Mt. Pleasant. The reading will take place at the Art Reach Center, 111 E. Broadway, Mt. Pleasant, MI. 48858, at 7pm on Monday, 9/20. For further information, contact Robert Fanning (seedthievery@gmail.com).

New Issues Fundraiser This Sunday

Everyone is invited to join us this Sunday, August 29th, 2 to 6 p.m. at Bell's Eccentric Cafe, 355 E. Kalamazoo Ave., for the second annual New Issues Fundraiser, a Celebration of Kalamazoo Poetry.  A $5 donation will be requested at the door. Support a small press!

Poetry reading begins at 3 p.m. Poets participating will include Rob Haight, Linda Nemec Foster, Phillip Sterling, Conrad Hilberry, Di Seuss, Adam Clay, Richard Katrovas, Arnie Johnston, Jennifer Sweeney, Chad Sweeney, Denise Miller, Nancy Eimers, Daneen Wardrop, Susan Ramsey, Elizabeth Kerlikowske, Denise Miller, John Rybicki, Gail Martin, and Lynn Pattison.

Check out the latest publications from New Issues. Eat cookies. Drink delicious, locally-brewed beer. Listen to Joe Gross play music. See the amazing talent we have here in Kalamazoo.


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Khaled Mattawa: September Events in Michigan

Khaled Mattawa, author of Tocqueville (New Issues, 2010), will be visiting classrooms, participating in literary events, and giving readings throughout Michigan this September.

This reading series is funded in part by a grant from The Michigan Council for Arts and Cultural Affairs (MCACA). For more information about these events, contact new-issues@wmich.edu.



Friday, September 3rd, 8 - 8:30 p.m.
Detroit Institute of Arts, 5200 Woodward Ave., Detroit, MI 48202 (www.dia.org) Poetry reading by Khaled Mattawa, author of Tocqueville.

Come and check out the New Issues booth in the Bookfair. Book signings by Michigan Poets Josie Kearns, Khaled Mattawa, Linda Nemec Foster, John Rybicki, and Mary Ann Samyn.

Sunday, September 12th, 11 a.m. to 5 p.m.
Kerrytown BookFest 2010, 315 Detroit St, Ann Arbor, MI 48104 (www.kerrytownbookfest.org) Book signings by Michigan poets at the New Issues booth.

Sunday, September 12th, 5 p.m. to 6:30 p.m.
Crazy Wisdom Bookstore, 114 South Main St, Ann Arbor, MI 48104 (www.crazywisdom.net) Poetry reading by Khaled Mattawa, Mary Ann Samyn, Josie Kearns, John Rybicki, Deanne Lundin and Linda Nemec Foster.

Wednesday, September 15th, 4 p.m.
Great Lakes Book and Supply, 840 Clark St, Big Rapids, MI 49307 (www.greatlakesbook.com) Poetry reading by Khaled Mattawa, author of Tocqueville.

Friday, September 17th, 6:30 p.m. reception, 7:30 p.m. reading
College for Creative Studies, Wendell W. Anderson Jr. Auditorium, Walter B Ford II Building, 201 East Kirby, Detroit, MI 48202-4034 (www.collegeforcreativestudies.edu) Poetry reading by Khaled Mattawa, Quincy Troupe, Patricia Smith, Thomas Lux, Michael Thomas, Meg Kearney, and others.

Saturday, September 18th
The Arts League of Michigan, Detroit, MI 48226 (www.artsleague.com) An assortment of literary programs featuring Khaled Mattawa.

Wednesday, September 22nd, 7 p.m.
Grand Valley State University, Kirkoff Center, Room 2263, Allendale, MI, 49401 (www.gvsu.edu) Poetry reading by Khaled Mattawa, author of Tocqueville.

Friday, September 24th, 7 p.m.
Literary Life Bookstore, 758 Wealthy St SE, Grand Rapids, MI, 49503 (www.literarylifebookstore.com) Poetry reading by Khaled Mattawa, author of Tocqueville.

Wednesday, September 29th, 11 a.m.
Henry Ford Community College, Forfa Auditorium, 5101 Evergreen Road, Dearborn, MI 48128 (www.hfcc.edu) Poetry reading by Khaled Mattawa, author of Tocqueville.

This reading series is funded by the Michigan Council for Arts and Cultural Affiars

Now Accepting Submissions: 2011 Green Rose Prize

The 2011 Green Rose Prize:

$2,000 and publication for a book of poems by an established poet. Previous winners include Seth Abramson, Malinda Markham, Patty Seyburn, Joan Houlihan, Christine Hume, and Martha Rhodes.

Guidelines:

• Eligibility: Poets writing in English who have already published one or more full-length collections of poetry. We will consider individual collections and volumes of new and selected poems. Besides the winner, New Issues may publish as many as three additional manuscripts from this competition.
• Please include a $20 reading fee. Checks should be made payable to New Issues Press.
• Postmark Deadline: September 30, 2010. The winning manuscript will be named in January 2011 and published in the spring of 2012.

Additional guidelines available on our website: www.wmich.edu/newissues/sub-guide

Send manuscripts and queries to:

The Green Rose Prize
New Issues Poetry & Prose
Western Michigan University
1903 West Michigan Ave.
Kalamazoo, MI 49008-5463

News from New Issues' Authors

Lewis Horton, a contributor to The Art of The One-Act: An Anthology ("Diorama") is happy to report that his travel/memoir Travels in the Land of the One-Eyed King was published on July 1, 2010. It's the sort of book Flannery O'Connor might've written if, as a child, she'd been dragged across America in the back seat of a car driven by A.J. Foyt and his cantankerous wife, Sister Wendy.

Patricia Jabbeh Wesley, author of Before The Palm Could Bloom: Poems of Africa (New Issues, 1998), has published her forth collection Where the Road Turns published by Autumn House Press, July 20, 2010.

"She is without doubt among the most powerful of the younger generation of African poets." – Frank M. Chipasula, editor, Bending the Bow: An Anthology of African Poetry 

Jon Pineda, author of The Translator's Diary (New Issues, 2008), has a memoir coming out from University of Nebraska Press in September of 2010. Sleep in Me is a heartrending memoir of the coming-of-age of a boy haunted by a family tragedy. Sleep in Me is a 2010 Holiday Barnes & Noble Discover Great New Writers program selection.

New Issues Fundraiser: Save the Date

Save the afternoon of Sunday, August 29th, for the annual New Issues End of Summer Celebration and Gala Fundraiser, hosted by Bell's Brewery Eccentric Cafe. Music, Poetry, and much more.

New Issues Launches Redesigned Website

New Issues spent the last year redesigning and updating their large and heavily-visited website. Alex Aivars, Coordinator of the Web for the College of Arts and Sciences provided the design and structure. Laura Zawistowski and Shana Wolstein, Spring 2010 interns, and Marianne Swierenga, Managing Editor, transfered and updated all the information to the new site.

Visit the site for recent contest results or to investigate the new titles for fall. www.wmich.edu/newissues

New Issues listed as one of "15 Feisty Small Presses"

Anis Shivani, writer for The Huffington Post, featured New Issues Press in his recent article, "Independence Day: 15 Feisty Small Presses And The Books You're Going To Want From Them" Visit the site and vote to put New Issues in the top 5.

Editor William Olsen:

"The mainstream publishing houses can't begin to represent all of the best emerging poetry and literary fiction. Our press looks to find voices uncategorized by pressures of prestige or expectation. There is no other way except through small presses for these voices to be heard and to endure in their initial splendor."

Khaled Mattawa June 9th Reading in Ann Arbor

Meet poet Khaled Mattawa tonight at Nicola's Books in Ann Arbor, Michigan.

June 9, 2010 - 7:00pm

KHALED MATTAWA is the author of four books of poetry, Tocqueville (New Issues Press, 2010) Amorisco (Ausable Press, 2008),Zodiac of Echoes (Ausable Press, 2003) and Ismailia Eclipse (Sheep Meadow Press, 1996).

Nicola's Books - Westgate Shopping Center
2513 Jackson Avenue, Ann Arbor, MI 48103
734.662.0600
www.nicolasbooks.indiebound.com

This reading series is sponsored by the Michigan Council for Arts and Cultural Affairs (MCACA).

Winner of the 2010 New Issues Poetry Prize

Jeff Hoffman has won the 2010 New Issues Poetry Prize for his manuscript Journal of American Foreign Policy. Linda Gregerson, author of Magnetic North, judged.

Jeff wins a $2,000 award and publication of his manuscript in the spring of 2011.

Jeff Hoffman grew up in western Pennsylvania and was educated at the University of New Hampshire, the University of Texas (where he was a Michener Fellow at the Michener Center for Writers), and at Stanford University (where he was a Stegner Fellow in poetry). He has also been a Chesterfield Screenwriting Fellow with Paramount Pictures. His poems have appeared in The New Republic, Ploughshares, Shenandoah, Spinning Jenny, and elsewhere. His short plays have been performed throughout the United States and can be found in anthologies that are available from Vintage and Samuel French. He currently lives in Pasadena, CA.

"The way memory and grief and love compose the stories that enable us to go on living. The toxic mix of innocence and inadvertence, wishfulness and making-do that comes to look like purpose. Which on the scale of nations we call 'policy.' These brilliant poems have leverage on it all: micro- and macro- and the sorry, human mess we too often make of both. They also have so masterful a way with idiom and timing that even the sternest insight is leavened with a measure of joy. Tonic intelligence, exhilarating craftsmanship: Jeff Hoffman’s fine first book is a gift to us all." 

—Linda Gregerson, from the Judge’s Citation

Lizzie Hutton’s manuscript She’d Waited Millennia was named runner-up by the judge and will be published in the fall of 2011.

Lizzie Hutton received her AB from Princeton University and her MFA from the University of Michigan. Her poetry has appeared in the Harvard Review, Yale Review, Antioch Review and Interim, among other journals, and her essays in the New England Review; in 2009 she was awarded the Sycamore Review's Wabash Prize for a single poem. She currently lives in Ann Arbor and teaches at the University of Michigan's Sweetland Writing Center.

The New Issues Poetry Prize is selected by a guest judge. Manuscripts are read blind. Thank you to Linda Gregerson for judging our 2010 prize. The 2011 prize will be judged by David Wojahn, author of Interrogation Palace. Guidelines for the 2011 prize are available on our website.

May/June Poetry Events for Kalamazoo

Reading by Diane Seuss

Thursday, May 20, 7 p.m.
Stetson Chapel, Kalamazoo College

Diane Seuss will read from her new book, WOLF LAKE, WHITE GOWN BLOWN OPEN, recipient of the 2009 Juniper Prize for Poetry from the University of Massachusetts Press. Books will be available for purchase and for signing. A reception will follow the reading.

Reading Celebrating the publication of Herbert Scott's Selected Poems

Thursday, June 10, 5:30 p.m.
Edwin and Mary Meader Rare Book Room, WMU's Waldo Library

Herbert Scott will be celebrated at a reading from a new selected collection of his work: The Other Life: Selected Poems of Herbert Scott 1974-2005, edited by David Dodd Lee Carnegie Mellon University Press. A reception follows the reading, which is free and open to the public.

“Poets in Print” at the KBAC
Joyelle McSweeney and Johannes Göransson

Saturday, June 12, 7 p.m.
The Kalamazoo Book Arts Center

Joyelle McSweeney and Johannes Göransson present readings from their work on Saturday, June 12, 2010. A unique broadside will be created for the event. This event is free and refreshments are served. Doors open at 6:30.

Zero at the Bone by Cassarino Wins Audre Lorde Award

Zero at the Bone (New Issues, 2009), the debut poetry collection by Stacie Cassarino has won the Audre Lorde Award for Lesbian Poetry from the Publishing Triangle. The other finalists were Kristin Naca's Bird Eating Bird (Harper Perennial) and Lee Ann Roripaugh's On the Cusp of a Dangerous Year (Southern Illinois University Press).

The winners were announced at the 22nd annual Triangle Awards, April 29, 2010, at the New School in NYC.

In 2009, Elaine Sexton's Causeway (New Issues, 2008) was a finalist for the same award.

Buy Zero at the Bone:
Amazon.com | spdbooks.org

June 10th Event Celebrating the Publication of Herb Scott's Poetry Collection

The life work of Poet Herbert S. Scott, a 30-year professor in Western Michigan University’s Department of English who died in 2006, will be celebrated at a reading from a new selected collection of his work at 5:30 p.m. Thursday, June 10, in the Edwin and Mary Meader Rare Book Room, Waldo Library.

The Other Life: Selected Poems of Herbert Scott 1974-2005, edited by David Dodd Lee
Carnegie Mellon University Press

A reception follows the reading, which is free and open to the public.

For more information, contact Margaret von Steinen at (269) 387-3993, or via e-mail at: margaret.vonsteinen@wmich.edu.

NewPages.com Reviews Toads' Museum of Freaks and Wonders

Visit NewPages.com for a review of Toads' Museum of Freaks and Wonders, the new novel by Goldie Goldbloom, winner of the 2008 AWP Award for the Novel. Reviewed by Alex Myers.

"Delightful strangeness abounds in this novel, whether it is Mr. Toad’s collection of Victorian corsetry, the foul-mouthed cockatoo that lives on the veranda, or the bright magenta uniforms the Italian POWs are supposed to wear. The characters, too, are not just strange on the surface, but are richly odd, profoundly other."

When the “I” is implied: a review of Sky=Empty, by Judy Halebsky

When the “I” is implied: a review of Sky=Empty, by Judy Halebsky

Posted using ShareThis

April is National Poetry Month

New Issues is happy to sponsor National Poetry Month. Check out their website and the New Issues sponsor page.

New Issues Awarded MCACA Grant

New Issues Press of Western Michigan University has been awarded a grant for $7,500 from the Michigan Council for Arts and Cultural Affairs (MCACA). The grant will support the promotion of Michigan poets published by New Issues.

The Michigan Council for Arts and Cultural Affairs serves to encourage, develop and facilitate an enriched environment of artistic, creative, cultural activity in Michigan. 


03/31/2010 - The Michigan Council for Arts and Cultural Affairs Announces Statewide Grants

• Read the Announcement  
• Review the Funding by County Report 

New Issues at AWP 2010 in Denver

New Issues will have books for sale at the AWP Conference Bookfair in Denver, from April 8 - 10. On Saturday, April 10, the Bookfair will be open to the public.

Book signings at the New Issues table (D18):

Thursday, April 8
David Keplinger/Prayers of Others 12:20 - 1:30
Claudia Keelan/Missing Her 3:30 - 4:30

Friday, April 9
Patty Seyburn/Hilarity 10:00 - 11:00
Khaled Mattawa/Tocqueville 1:30 - 2:30

Saturday, April 10
Justin Marks/A Million in Prizes 9-10:30
Judy Halebsky/Sky=Empty 10:30-12:00
Mary Ann Samyn/Beauty Breaks In 1:30-2:30

Events:
AWP Award Series Reading, featuring Goldie Goldbloom, author of the award-winning novel Toads' Museum of Freaks and Wonders. Reading 1:30 - 2:45. Followed by a book signing at the AWP table.

AGNI reviews Beauty Breaks In

Check out the new review of Mary Ann Saymn's work on AGNI Online: "Shard. Shard. Shard.: Mary Ann Samyn and the Fractured Meditative Lyric," by Anton Vander Zee

"Samyn’s work over her last three books—all published with New Issues in their distinct duo-tone, palimpsestic, muted-matte design that makes their books such a pleasure to look at and hold—might seem, after a cursory reading, consistent to a fault. Certain standard moves and themes persist: reflexivity, strained devotion, materiality of both language and body, colloquialisms and asides, formal attention to white space, a certain reticence, occasional nods to Nancy Drew. But this apparent consistency—to my eye and ear rewarding enough in itself—grounds a subtler range of shifting intensities that emerge in each collection"

Talking Diamonds Finalist for ForeWord's BOTYA

Talking Diamonds by Linda Nemec Foster is a finalist for ForeWord Magazine's Book of the Year Award in the poetry category. "The finalists, representing 360 publishers, were selected from 1,400 entries in 60 categories. These books are examples of independent publishing at its best." The winners will be announced at a special program at BookExpo America in New York City on May 25.

New Issues Reading at Western Michigan University: March 25

The Gwen Frostic Reading Series of Western Michigan University proudly presents the New Issues Press Reading, featuring poets Donald Platt and Malinda Markham.

Thursday, March 25th, 8 p.m.

WMU's Bernhard Center, Rooms 105-107

Malinda Markham is the author of Having Cut the Sparrow's Heart, winner of the 2009 Green Rose Prize. She received an MFA from the University of Iowa Writers’ Workshop and a Ph.D. from the University of Denver. After teaching full-time in the Linguistics Department at Daito Bunka University in Tokyo for several years, she won a Blakemore Fellowship to attend Stanford University’s Inter-University Center for Japanese Language Studies in Yokohama, Japan. Her first book of poems, Ninety-five Nights of Listening, won the Bread Loaf Bakeless Prize and was published by Houghton-Mifflin. Her poetry has appeared in journals such as Conjunctions, Colorado Review, American Letters & Commentary, Paris Review, Volt, Fence, and Antioch Review and has been included in The Iowa Anthology of New American Poetries and Deep Travel. She has also published translations of post-war and contemporary Japanese women’s poetry. She lives in New York and works as a Japanese-to-English financial translator.

"In a masterful work of startling possibilities, Markham layers gleaming phrases into a testimony to the world’s particularities, which she reveals as also, paradoxically, eternal. Nothing here is limited by history, but instead attains the kind of simultaneity that drives myth. And like myth, her world is populated by creatures that mean, irreducibly, only themselves. Her ready attention to animals and birds is indicative of a compassion that demands of the world an inventive intelligence, and offers it one in return." —Cole Swensen

Donald Platt is a professor of English at Purdue University. He is the author of Dirt Angles (New Issues, 2009). His first two collections, Fresh Peaches, Fireworks, and Guns and Cloud Atlas, were published by Purdue University Press as winners of the Verna Emery Poetry Prize. His third book, My Father Says Grace, was published by the University of Arkansas Press. He is a recipient of the “Discovery”/The Nation Prize, a fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Center for Book Arts’ Poetry Chapbook Prize, and two Pushcart Prizes. His poems have appeared in many magazines and journals, including The New Republic, Nation, Paris Review, Poetry, Kenyon Review, Georgia Review, Virginia Quarterly Review, Field, Iowa Review, Southwest Review, and Southern Review, and have been anthologized in The Best American Poetry 2000 and 2006. He lives with his wife, the poet Dana Roeser, and their two daughters in West Lafayette, Indiana.

"Donald Platt’s aptly titled and arresting fourth collection of poems, Dirt Angels, examines how we exist in states of physical disrepair, decay, and disability: the world’s transience exhibited in the slow degradation of our very consciousness and flesh."—Paisley Rekdal

"Poets in Print" Reading Series at the Kalamazoo Book Arts Center Featuring David Dodd Lee and Mary Ann Samyn

New Issues Poets David Dodd Lee and Mary Ann Samyn will present readings from their work on Saturday, March 13,2010 at 7 p.m. Broadsides featuring the poet's work will be created by KBAC artists. The broadsides and other works by the poets will be available during the event for sale and signing. Broadsides from other "Poets in Print" events and other book arts creations are also available for sale.This event is free and refreshments are served. Doors open at 6:30.


David Dodd Lee is the author of The Nervous Filaments (2010, Four Way Books), a book of Ashbery erasure poems, which is forthcoming from Blazevox, and Orphan, Indiana, which is forthcoming from U. of Akron Press. His four other books of poetry include: Downsides of Fish Culture (1997, New Issues), Arrow Pointing North (2002), and Abrupt Rural (2004, New Issues).

Mary Ann Samyn is the author of several collections of poetry, including Beauty Breaks In (New Issues, 2009) and The Boom of a Small Cannon (Dancing Girl Press, 2010). She teaches in the MFA program at West Virginia University where she is also the Bolton Professor for Teaching and Mentoring.

The Poets in Print Reading Series

Kalamazoo Book Arts Center

Suite 103A, Park Trades Center
326 W. Kalamazoo Avenue
Kalamazoo, MI 49007

Detroit's ML Liebler Honored with Award

ML Liebler, author of The Moon a Box (New Issues, 2004) is the recipient of the 2010 Writers for Writers Award from Poets & Writers Magazine. Other writers honored include Junot Diaz and Maxine Hong Kingston.

Poets & Writers Announces Recipients of 2010 Writers for Writers Award and Editor's Award

Detroit poet M.L. Liebler wins national award for helping other writers | detnews.com | The Detroit News

Detroit poet M.L. Liebler wins national award for helping other writers | detnews.com | The Detroit News

Goldie Goldbloom Talks POWs, Hasidic Jews, and Hot Italians: The Toads’ Museum Interview

Goldie Goldbloom Talks POWs, Hasidic Jews, and Hot Italians: The Toads’ Museum Interview Matthue Roth interviews Goldie Goldbloom, author of Toads’ Museum of Freaks and Wonders for myjewishlearning.com

Goldbloom Novel to Debut at Chicago's Women & Children First

Toads' Museum of Freaks and Wonders, a novel by Goldie Goldbloom, will debut at Chicago's independent bookstore Women & Children First, Sunday, March 14th, at 4:30 p.m.

Goldbloom's novel was chosen by novelist Joanna Scott to win the 2008 AWP Award Series in the Novel, an award given by the Association of Writers and Writing Programs.

In her judge's citation, Joanna Scott called Toads’ Museum of Freaks and Wonders "a strange, mesmerizing tale about characters uncomfortably defined by superficial eccentricities. It is also a wrenching love story."

Visit the New Issues website for more information about Goldbloom's novel. The book will be available February 26.

Happy Birthday Herbert Scott

Herb Scott, the founding editor of New Issues Press, was known for being an inspiring creative writing professor and a tough editor. In the newly released collection of his work, edited with an introduction by David Dodd Lee, we can once again be reminded that Herb was above all a poet, and one of huge talent.

His friends and family, former colleagues and students, have a tradition of raising a glass to his memory every February 8th, his birthday. This year I intend to not only raise my glass to him, but also read aloud and share his poetry. I encourage others to do the same.

The Other Life: Selected Poems of Herbert Scott 1974-2005
Carnegie Mellon University Press
ISBN: 978-0-88748-521-3
$19.95, 240 pages, paper
Buy it on Amazon.com

"The Other Life is testament to a quiet force in American poetry, to a generous soul who bore witness to the world with goodwill and good humor. While Herbert Scott was a modest man, this collection is not a modest accomplishment. Reading these wonderful, rich poems spanning his entire career gathered together in one book feels like a warm home we enter from the cold. We can take our boots off, sit down and calmly ease into the sustaining light of these poems."

Blackwood Grub Street Finalist

We Agreed to Meet Just Here by Scott Blackwood, winner of the 2007 AWP Award for the Novel, was named Finalist for the 2010 Grub Street National Book Prize in Fiction. The winner, Vestal McIntyre won the prize for his novel, Lake Overturn, published in 2009 by Harper.

Theories of Falling Reviewed

Theories of Falling by Sandra Beasley has been reviewed by Andrew Kozma for Zoland Poetry. A taste: "[The first section] embodies a world of deception, where things don’t shift form, they shift interpretation. The poems here show a mastery of metaphorical narrative, all the poems fitting together tightly towards a single goal even though the poems themselves tackle widely varying subjects." Read the whole review here.

Theories of Falling, winner of the 2007 New Issues Poetry Prize, was released in the spring of 2008. It just sold out of its first edition and will be reprinted.

Missing Her: Reviewed

Christina Mengert has reviewed Claudia Keelan's new book, Missing Her, for the Constant Critic website. A taste...

"In a world that is increasingly isolated (communicating more and more at a virtual remove), yet increasingly interconnected via the same technology that removes us, I deeply admire work that insists on the importance—perhaps to our survival as a species—of actively remembering the Whole of which we are a part, allowing that to guide us toward meaningful action (as action without reflection is likely to perpetuate violence—and reflection without action has no capacity to intervene). Whatever the myriad roles a book of poems might assume, to encourage critical reflection on the ideas that help us move away from a selfish destruction of a planet, as well as the oppression and degradation of its people, is a worthy endeavor."

Read the whole review here: www.constantcritic.com/christina_mengert/missing-her

Winner of the 2010 Green Rose Prize

The Editors of New Issues Poetry & Prose are pleased to announce the winner of the 2010 Green Rose Prize: Seth Abramson for his manuscript Northerners. Seth wins a $2,000 award and publication of his manuscript in the spring of 2011.

Seth Abramson is the author of The Suburban Ecstasies (Ghost Road Press, 2009) and winner of the 2008 J. Howard and Barbara M.J. Wood Prize from Poetry. His poems have recently appeared in Best New Poets 2008, Poetry, The American Poetry Review, New American Writing, Colorado Review, Gulf Coast, Crazyhorse, and elsewhere. A graduate of Harvard Law School and a former public defender, he received an MFA from the University of Iowa Writers' Workshop in 2009 and is currently a doctoral candidate in English at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Also accepted for publication: Undone by Maxine Scates, to appear in the fall of 2011, and The Memory of Water by Jack Myers, to appear in the spring of 2011.

The Green Rose Prize is awarded to an author who has previously published at least one full-length book of poems. Winners are chosen by the editors of New Issues Press. Guidelines are available on our website.

Stacie Cassarino on Poetry Daily

"Spoon to the Sky" from Stacie Cassarino's book Zero at the Bone is featured today, January 8, on the Poetry Daily website. Follow this link to read the poem.

360 Main Street Reviews Recent Inland Seas Titles

360 Main Street has reviewed two New Issues book recently published in our Inland Seas Poetry Series, a series by poets living in Michigan or from Michigan."

Talking Diamonds by Linda Nemec Foster
Review by Jeanne Lesinski

"The numinous appears unexpectedly for the protagonist of "Vision," sunbathing on a Hawaiian beach. It takes the form of a man bearing a tattoo of the Virgin and Child, like a holy card, on his front and back. Suddenly, the incongruousness of this vision overwhelms the protagonist:

And you tell yourself this isn't a miracle,
only a tattoo; this isn't anything
extraordinary, only your life,
the crowded beach, the husband and son
waving impatiently for you to just
come on, come on, dive in.

And yet. And yet, the emotional truth rings out in this as in other poems in the collection. Where else should the miraculous happen but in everyday lives, in moments when humans are graced with the extraordinary through enhanced perception."

Beauty Breaks In by Mary Ann Samyn
Review by Gina Myers

"Beauty Breaks In is Samyn's fifth book of poetry, and like those that proceed it, the poems in this collection are brief lyrics. It's a poetry marked by concise language where each word seems carefully chosen and surgically precise. Nonetheless, there is a bubbling energy beneath the surface, a sense of disquiet."

Happy New Year from New Issues

2009 was a fantastic year for New Issues and our authors. We started off 2009 by announcing that Malinda Markham won the 2009 Green Rose Prize and that Marvin Bell picked Judy Halebsky's Sky=Empty as the winner of our first book prize. These books are at the printer and will be released this spring, just in time for the 2010 AWP Bookfair in Denver.


We published seven books of poetry and one novel:

• Zero at the Bone by Stacie Cassarino
• A Million in Prizes by Justin Marks, Winner of the 2008 New Issues Poetry Prize
• Dirt Angels by Donald Platt
• Hilarity by Patty Seyburn, Winner of the 2008 Green Rose Prize
• Talking Diamonds by Linda Nemec Foster
• Missing Her by Claudia Keelan
• Beauty Breaks In by Mary Ann Samyn
• We Agreed to Meet Just Here by Scott Blackwood, Winner of the 2007 AWP Award for the Novel

Here are some of the highlights of 2009:

Myronn Hardy’s The Headless Saints won the 2009 Hurston/Wright Legacy Award from the The Zora Neale Hurston/Richard Wright Foundation.

Jericho Brown's book Please continues to heap up honors. Most recently, he was named a winner of the 30th Annual American Book Awards, a rare if not exceptional accomplishment for a writer of a first book, placing him this year alongside such national treasures as Jack Spicer and Linda Gregg. Jericho Brown also received the 2009 Whiting Writers’ Award. Please, released in October of 2008, has become a New Issues best seller, needing to be reprinted twice already.

Katie Peterson (This One Tree, 2007) and Jericho Brown (Please, 2008) each were awarded a Bunting Fellowship from the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard University and are spending the 2009/2010 academic year at Harvard working on their poetry.

Justin Mark’s A Million in Prizes (Winner of the 2008 New Issues Poetry Prize) was featured in Poets & Writers’ fifth annual Debut Poets Roundup.

Sandra Beasley, whose debut poetry collection Theories of Falling won our 2007 New Issues Poetry Prize, had her second book of poetry (I Was the Jukebox, Norton, April 2010) chosen by Joy Harjo as the winner of the 2009 Barnard Women Poets Prize and her memoir (Don't Kill the Birthday Girl) purchased by Crown Publishing Group, a division of Random House, for a 2010 publication.

Our first annual Fundraiser Gala exceed our expectations. The Eccentric Café of Kalamazoo’s own Bell’s Brewery hosted the event, which brought many of our authors, friends, and supporters together for an afternoon of music, poetry, and art auctions.

On Deck for 2010:

In a few weeks we expect to announce the winner of the 2010 Green Rose Prize. In April, judge Linda Gregerson will pick a first book to win our 2010 New Issues Poetry Prize.

February: Toads’ Museum of Freaks and Wonders by Goldie Goldbloom will be released. This novel, winner of the 2008 AWP Award for the Novel, selected by Joanna Scott, is set in the Australian outback during WWII and introduces us to the character of Gin Toad, a truly original voice.

We'll see everyone in April at the 2010 AWP Conference and Bookfair. Come by our table for book signings and to see three newly released poetry books:

• Sky=Empty by Judy Halebsky
• Having Cut the Sparrow’s Heart by Malinda Markham
• Tocqueville by Khaled Mattawa

In the fall of 2010, New Issues will publish the following poetry collections:

• Vivisect by Lisa Lewis
• Reliquary Fever: Selected & New Poems by Beckian Fritz Goldberg
• Pima Road Notebook by Keith Ekiss

And check our website soon to see a complete redesign. It's almost done, I swear!

Peter Covino 2010 Readings

Peter Covino, author of Cut Off the Ears of Winter
Winter/ Spring 2010 Reading Schedule

January 25, 2010, Monday, 7:00 PM, Barnes & Noble 82nd & Broadway - It's Not You, It's Me: The Poetry of Breakup with Jerry Williams, Patricia Smith and Peter Covino, Broadway, New York, NY 10024

February 25, 2010, Thursday, 7:00 PM, Cornelia Street Café - It's Not You, It's Me: The Poetry of Breakup with Jerry Williams, David Lehman, Martha Rhodes and Peter Covino, 29 Cornelia Street, New York, NY 10014

March 6 & 7, 2010, Saturday & Sunday - Mi Alma, Italian Cultural Arts Festival, Sunset Junction, Los Angeles, CA—details to follow

March 27, 28, 2010, Saturday & Sunday - Colrain Poetry Manuscript Conference, Colrain, MA, with Martha Rhodes, Ellen Dore Watson, and Joan Houlihan.

April 10, 2010, 1:30 – 2:45 - S170. Writing Intimacy, Writing Sex. Mary Cappello, Alexander Chee, Barrie Jean Borich, Peter Covino, James Morrison; part of AWP Conference, Colorado Convention Center, Denver CO—other events to follow.

April 14, 2010, 7pm, Reading, Department of English, St Joseph’s College, W. Hartford, CT—details to follow