New Lits on the Block: Jellyroll Magazine & Bananafish
Jellyroll Magazine, a quarterly online journal of new American poetry, is currently accepting submissions for its first issue. They are looking for previously unpublished poetry of all flavors, interviews, essays; and thought-provoking imagery for use on the Jellyroll website or within the journal itself. Check out submission guidelines, they accept email submissions. First issue March 1, 2010.
Bananafish is an online venue for exceptional, short-form literature with a focus on wit, originality, and innovation. They feature a different writer and his or her work each week, and update their website on Sundays. See their submission guidelines for more information.
News Briefs
Abdelkader Benali Wins E. du Perron Prize
The Moroccan-born, Dutch-living Abdelkader Benali has won the prestigious E. du Perron prize for his novel, My Mother’s Voice (written in Dutch). Benali talks about identity politics in the Daily Star. More about his writing from Radio Books.
Like the Motion Picture Academy, branches of the American Library Association’s (ALA) give out a whole lot of awards (sort of like the “technical” Oscars that they run through in 90 seconds on the Academy Award telecast.) The biggies are the John Newbery Medal, presented annually since 1922 for distinguished contribution to children’s literature; and the Caldecott Medal, presented annually since 1937 for the best picture book.
A lot of attention will also be paid to the “Honor” book in each category, which is kind of like a runner-up in each category. Sometimes, the “Honor” books of a particular year become more popular, and enjoy a longer shelf life, than the actual medalists. Below is a snapshot of some of the winners:
The John Newbery Medal honors the author of the year’s most outstanding contribution to children’s literature. Presented every year since 1922, the Medal is named for 18th-century British bookseller John Newbery. Henrik Van Loon won the first Newbery Medal in 1922 for The Story of Mankind. Receiving the Newbery Medal virtually guarantees that the winning book will remain in print and on library and bookstore shelves for years to come. This year’s winner of the John Newbery Medal is When You Reach Me by Rebecca Stead. Four Newbery Honor Books were also named: Claudette Colvin: Twice Toward Justice by Phillip Hoose, The Evolution of Calpurnia Tate by Jacqueline Kelly, The Mostly True Adventures of Homer P. Figg by Rodman Philbrick, and Where The Mountain Meets The Moon by Grace Lin.
The Randolph Caldecott Medal honors the illustrator of the year’s most distinguished American picture book for children. Presented every year since 1938, the medal is named for Randolph Caldecott, a 19th-century English illustrator known for the action, vitality and humor of his picture books. Receiving the Caldecott Medal virtually guarantees that the winning book will remain in print and on library and bookstore shelves for years to come. This year’s winner of the Randolph Caldecott Medal is The Lion and the Mouse illustrated by Jerry Pinkney. Two Caledecott Honor Books were named: All The World written by Liz Garton Scanlon and illustrated by Marla Frazee; and Red Sings From Treetops: A Year in Colors written by Joyce Sidman and illustrated by Pamela Zagarenski.
The Coretta Scott King Awards honor African American authors and illustrators of outstanding books for children and young adults that demonstrate sensitivity to “the African American experience via literature and illustration.” The books — fiction or nonfiction — must have been published in the year prior to the award. This year’s winner is Vaunda Micheaux Nelson, author of Bad News For Outlaws: The Remarkable Life of Bass Reeves, Deputy U.S. Marshal, illustrated by R. Gregory Christie. One Coretta Scott King Author Honor Book was named: Mare’s War by Tanita S. Davis. Click here to read more about the winners of the Coretta Scott King Awards and the honor books.
Walter Dean Myers is the winner of the first Coretta Scott King-Virginia Hamilton Award for Lifetime Achievement. Myers has redefined the image of African American youth. His body of work is chiefly fiction and also includes biography, poetry, history and memoir. The community of Harlem and ongoing dialogues with today’s youth serve as his muse. He writes authentically in the voice of young people. He is best known for creating vivid, unflinching stories that speak candidly of the lives of teens. For four decades, his characters have wrestled with life-changing decisions (Scorpions), romance (Amiri & Odette), family relationships (Somewhere In The Darkness and Motown and Didi) and friendships (MoJo and the Russians). While his stories often incorporate humor, music, sports and adventure, they also address challenging themes such as incarceration (Monster) and war (Fallen Angels and Sunrise Over Fallujah).
How to Get Your Kids to Like Literature
by Kathy Ceceri || WIRED.COM JAN 2010
My kids are probably among the last whose family gets a daily newspaper with substantial, if somewhat dated, funny pages. (As I learned by reading his Twitter feed today, the 14-year-old gets a particular kick out of the absurdity of Mark Trail.) And of course, having access to their dad’s comic book collection, they’re familiar with a lot of superhero history as well. In fact, if there’s one area of classic literature that we’ve slacked off on, it’s … classic literature. OK, I’ve read them Kafka’s cool story about a guy who turns into a giant cockroach, but given my homeschooling policy of skipping all the stuff that most students forget as soon as they’re out of high school, we’ve managed to avoid some staples like The Scarlet Letter
Well, it looks I’ve inadvertently hit upon a solution. >>MORE
Martin Scorcese In Talks For Family Film The Invention of Hugo Cabret
by Kevin Coll || FUSEDFILM.COM JAN 2010
Who ever would have thought that the master of classic mafia violence would ever foray himself into the world of sophisticated children’s literature? Well it seems Martin Scorcese is taking a page out of Spike Jonze’s and Wes Anderson’s book by taking on Brian Selznick’s best-selling children’s book The Invention of Hugo Cabret
I doubt we will see any baseball bats hitting craniums in this picture as it is based on a popular piece of kids literature. The story centers on a 12-year-old orphan named Hugo, who lives in a train station and must finish what his late father started by solving the mystery of a broken robot.
It seems like the pieces fit for Scorcese to settle with this movie being that the producer is Graham king, who worked with him on The Departed plus the screenwriter is John Logan who wrote The Aviator, all films that Scorcese directed.
The Invention of Hugo Cabret, which won the Randolph Caldecott Medal in 2008 for the most distinguished American picture book for children, is a mammoth tome at 533 pages. More than half of the pages contain elaborate pictures that the New York Times described as looking like movie storyboard frames. Ice Age helmer Chris Wedge was previously attached to direct The Invention of Hugo Cabret, which was a long-running Times best-seller. No offense to Wedge but Scorcese directing this is a step up for the production, not just his name which will resonate with adults but his visual style will really make a great movie.
A new literary year kicks off in Lagos
by Ireyimika Oyegbami || 234NEXT.COM January 19, 2010
Poet Niran Okewole, Toyin Akinosho of the Committee for Relevant Art (CORA)and publisher Muhtar Bakare addressed the question, ‘Is the Nigerian Economy Killing Literary Development?’ at the first reading of the Lagos State chapter of the Association of Nigerian Authors (ANA) in the New Year, on January 9.
Bakare opened the discussion at the Aina Onabolu Complex, National Theatre, Lagos, by declaring that publishing is not just about books and that Africans had been writing long before the Renaissance. The Farafina publisher added that Europeans labelled ancient African writing system evil and destroyed it as a ruse to ensure total colonisation of Africans.
Literacy and literature
Bakare further noted that though Europeans initially declared it a crime for Blacks to read and write, they eventually encouraged literacy in the countries they ruled for ease of administration. He contended that the modern publishing industry in Nigeria is an offshoot of the colonial enterprise, pointing out that what the Europeans did not consider was that once literacy was achieved, the natural gift of literature in the African was sure to awaken. >>MORE
Calling all Manuscripts . . .
H.O.W. Journal is an art & literary journal that operates on a unique premise: they ask writers when submitting works to donate $5 as a submission fee that goes towards raising money and awareness for the 15 million children worldwide that have been orphaned by HIV/AIDS. They publish an eclectic mix of today’s prominent writers and artists who produce fiction, nonfiction, poetry, and visual art. Interesting website, go check it out!
Luna Park Review is inviting editors and writers to participate in our new series on issues and representations of race, class, gender, and sexuality in independent publishing. How do these issues affect you as an literary magazine editor interested in publishing underrepresented communities, or a writer who wants to challenge dominant notions of identity? What are your thoughts, concerns, ideas about how literary communities reinforce, respond to, and confront racism, classicism, sexism, and homophobia? Contact Marcelle Heath at lunaparkonline@gmail.com.
Each year Gertrude Press publishes two chapbooks; one fiction and one poetry. These attractive collections will include a unique cover in a limited press run. Winners receive a $50 cash award and 50 complimentary copies of their chapbook, which will be distributed to subscribers, libraries, and bookstores carrying Gertrude, the Press’ annual literary journal. Deadline is February 15, 2010. Check out submission guidelines.
Call for Submissions, Deadline March 9, 2010: Anthology of Memories of Hispanic Grandmothers as Remembered by their Grandchildren. A tribute to the contributions of Hispanic grandmothers from the perspective of their own grandchildren, editors Ilia Casanova-Marengo and Marina Llorente are seeking short stories, poems, songs, essays, interviews, recipes, folk stories, non-fiction writing and drawings in black and white along with a short narrative for inclusion in their anthology. They are interested in manuscripts in Spanish by both published and un-published authors on a number of topics; check out submission guidelines for more information.
shaking like a mountain, the web’s only true journal of literature about music continues to seek quality submissions in the areas of fiction, non-fiction, and poetry. Please read us and read us thoroughly, including our detailed submissions page, before sending us your work. We also seek regular contributors for our interview and book review sections. Check out submission guidelines for more information.
Merpoint Publishing is an electronic book publisher that focuses on distributing great books to the e-reader market. Merpoint is cultivating relationships with new and emerging authors to offer a diverse and rich set of titles to readers in a number of genres. We are currently accepting submissions from new and established authors in the following genres: Fiction, Nonfiction, Biographies, Memoirs, Young Adult, Mystery & Thrillers, Parenting & Family, Historical, Humor, Inspirational, Nostalgia, Travel, and Children’s Chapter Books. Check out their submission guidelines for more information.
Wanted: Sherlock Holmes
It ran roughshod over one of the greatest characters ever created in literature — and I loved every minute of it…’
by James Soriano || MANILA BULLETIN January 19, 2010
With Sherlock Holmes, it all started with the trailer.
I absolutely ate it up. The trailer was almost perfect. Robert Downey Jr. sitting naked on a hotel bed, both hands cuffed to the posts and with nothing but a pillow covering his appendages, entertained me to no end – if only that were Rachel McAdams.
In any case that scene sealed the deal, and I went into Eastwood City Walk Cinema 2 expecting more of an action hero than literature’s greatest super sleuth. This is partly because my expertise — having taken up The Hound of the Baskervilles as a high school freshman — told me that Sherlock Holmes would never have been stuck in such a compromising situation, literally.
But it was also because friends of mine who have watched it and have read Conan-Doyle have told me not to expect too much from Sherlock Holmes. >>MORE
Found in Translation: The contemporary Arabic novel
by Claudia Roth Pierpont || THE NEW YORKER January 18, 2010
What do you know about how people live in Cairo or Beirut or Riyadh? What bearing does such information have upon your life? There are, of course, newspapers to keep responsible Americans up to date when trouble looms, and public television or even the History Channel to inform us about the occasional historic battle or archeological discovery or civil war. What else do we need? The ways that people think and work and suffer and fall in love and make enemies and sometimes make revolutions is the stuff of novels, and Arabic novels, while not yet lining the shelves of the local bookstore, have been increasingly available in English translation, offering a marvellous array of answers to questions we did not know we wanted to ask. On such subjects as: the nature of the clientele of the elegantly crumbling pre-Islamist bars in downtown Cairo, straight and gay (“The Yacoubian Building,” by Alaa Al Aswany); what it felt like to live through the massacre in the Shatila refugee camp, in 1982, and how some of the people who still live there have been managing since (“Gate of the Sun,” by Elias Khoury); the optimal tactics that a good Saudi girl should use to avoid being married off, which appear to require that she study either medicine or dentistry (“Girls of Riyadh,” by the twenty-something Rajaa Alsanea, who has herself completed an advanced degree in endodontics). There is clearly insight as well as information in these books. And then, considering the reduced size and the volatility of the world we share, we might recall the essential lesson of a very old Arabic book that everyone knows, “The Thousand and One Nights”—that stories can have the power to save your life. >>MORE
