Launch of Issue 7: Poetry

Superstition Review Issue 7 has launched and to celebrate we will be featuring blog posts about our artists and authors. Today we will be highlighting a few of the talented poets who are featured in Issue 7.

Angela S. Gentry is the two-time recipient of the Devine Summer Fellowship in Poetry from Bowling Green State University. Her first chapbook, Stirrings of Movement, was released in 2010 from Finishing Line Press. She received her BA in Christian Education from Cedarville University and her MFA in Poetry from BGSU. In her spare time, she would like to build a tree house, in addition to writing, but finds herself inordinately occupied with evaluating student papers. She currently resides in Michigan. Read her poem “My Barber” featured in issue 7. Angela Gentry’s Website

Marge Piercy is the author of 18 collections of poetry, most recently The Crooked Inheritance and this spring, her second volume of new and selected poems 1980-2010 The Hunger Moon, out from Knopf. She has published 17 novels, most recently Sex Wars. Two of her early novels, Dance The Eagle To Sleep and Vida, are being republished with new introductions by PM Press this fall. Her work has been translated into 19 languages. Her memoir Sleeping With Cats is available from Harper Perennial. Read her four poems featured in issue 7. Marge Piercy’s Website

Matthew Gavin Frank is the author of Barolo (The University of Nebraska Press), Pot Farm (forthcoming from the University of Nebraska Press), Warranty in Zulu (Barrow Street Press), The Morrow Plots (forthcoming from Black Lawrence Press/Dzanc Books), Sagittarius Agitprop (Black Lawrence Press/Dzanc Books), and the chapbooks Four Hours to Mpumalanga (Pudding House Publications), and Aardvark (West Town Press). Recent work appears in The New Republic, The Huffington Post, Field, Epoch, AGNI, Crazyhorse, Indiana Review, North American Review, Pleiades, Crab Orchard Review, The Best Food Writing, The Best Travel Writing, Creative Nonfiction, Prairie Schooner, Hotel Amerika, Gastronomica, and others. He was born and raised in Illinois and teaches at Northern Michigan University. Read his poem “The Sticking-Place, Stripped Screws” in issue 7. Matthew Gavin Frank’s Website

Patricia Clark is Poet-in-Residence and Professor in the Department of Writing at Grand Valley State University. Author of three volumes of poetry, Patricia’s newest book is She Walks into the Sea; she has also published a chapbook, Given the Trees. Patricia’s work has been featured on Poetry Daily and Verse Daily; she has won Mississippi Review’s Poetry Prize; and been honored as the 2nd prize winner in the 2005 Pablo Neruda/Nimrod International Journal Poetry competition. Her poems have appeared in The Atlantic MonthlyPoetrySlateStandThe Gettysburg Review, and many other literary magazines. Read her poem “Until it Speaks” in issue 7. Patricia Clark’s Website

Tanaya Winder is from the Southern Ute and Duckwater Shoshone Nations. She graduated from Stanford University in 2008 with a BA in English. Tanaya was a finalist in the 2009 Joy Harjo Poetry Competition and a winner of the A Room Of Her Own Foundation’s Spring 2010 Orlando prize in poetry. Her work appears in Cutthroat magazineYellow Medicine ReviewAdobe WallsBarrier Islands Review, and Lingerpost. She is the co-editor of a forthcoming collection Soul Talk, Song Language: Conversations with Joy Harjo. She is currently pursuing a MFA in Poetry at the University of New Mexico. Read her two poems published in issue 7.

 

The full magazine with featured art and artists from issue 7 can be found here.

Launch of Issue 7: Nonfiction

Superstition Review Issue 7 has launched and to celebrate we will be featuring blog posts about our artists and authors. Today we will be highlighting a few of the talented nonfiction authors who are featured in Issue 7.

Cynthia Hogue has published seven collections of poetry, most recently, The Incognito Body (2006), and Or Consequence and When the Water Came: Evacuees of Hurricane Katrina (co-authored with photographer Rebecca Ross), both in 2010. Among other awards, she has received Fulbright, NEA, and MacDowell Colony fellowships, and in 2009, a Witter Bynner Translation Residency from the Santa Fe Art Institute. In 2003, she joined the Creative Writing Program in the Department of English at Arizona State University as the Maxine and Jonathan Marshall Chair in Modern and Contemporary Poetry. Read her nonfiction piece “The Genius of the Western World” featured in issue 7. Cynthia Hogue’s Website

Erin Grauel just passed her thesis defense and will be receiving an MFA in creative nonfiction from the University of New Orleans in May 2011. She grew up on the beaches of South Carolina and has an English Degree from Coastal Carolina University. Erin is currently working on a collection of essays tentatively entitled, “Essays in which a Militant Nerd has Fun.” Read her nonfiction piece “Designing a Golden Rant” in issue 7.

George Estreich received his M.F.A. in poetry from Cornell University. His book of poems, Textbook Illustrations of the Human Body, won the Rhea and Seymour Gorsline Prize from Cloudbank Books. His memoir about raising a daughter with Down Syndrome, The Shape of the Eye, was published recently by Southern Methodist University Press. He lives in Oregon with his family. Read his nonfiction piece “The Shadow Family” in issue 7. George Estreich’s Website

T.A. Noonan is the author of Petticoat Government (Gold Wake Press, 2011) and The Bone Folders (Sundress Publications, forthcoming). Her work has appeared in Ninth Letter, Verse DailyspecsPhoebeRHINOHarpur Palate, and many others. She lives on Florida’s Treasure Coast with her husband and is currently at work on a novel. Read her nonfiction piece “Countertopping” featured in issue 7.

 

The full magazine with featured art and artists from issue 7 can be found here. Check back tomorrow to read about the poets featured in issue 7.

Launch of Issue 7: Interviews

Superstition Review Issue 7 has launched and to celebrate we will be featuring blog posts about our artists and authors. Today we will be highlighting a few of the interviews featured in Issue 7.

A native of Detroit, John Grogan spent more than 20 years as an investigative reporter and columnist, most recently at the Philadelphia Inquirer. He also is the former editor of Rodale’s Organic Gardening magazine. His first book, Marley & Me, was a #1 New York Times bestseller with six million copies in print in more than 30 languages. It was made into a movie starring Owen Wilson and Jennifer Aniston. Grogan’s second book, The Longest Trip Home, also a national bestseller, explores the author’s loving but complicated relationship with his devout Irish Catholic parents. John lives with his wife and three children in eastern Pennsylvania. Read the interview featured in issue 7. John Grogan’s Website

Sloane Crosley is the author of The New York Times bestsellers I Was Told There’d Be Cake, which was a finalist for The Thurber Prize, and How Did You Get This Number. She is also a weekly columnist for The Independent in the UK and editor of The Best American Travel Essays 2011. She lives in Manhattan, where she is a regular contributor to GQThe New York Times, National Public Radio and the inexplicably vast and varied collection of granolas in her kitchen cabinet. Read the interview from issue 7. Sloane Crosley’s Website

Jenifer Rae Vernon’s first book of poetry Rock Candy was published by West End Press in 2009. Rock Candy received the “Tillie Olsen Award” as the best book of creative writing that insightfully represents working class life and culture from the Working Class Studies Association, SUNY, Stony Brook, in June of 2010. In August of 2009, Garrison Keillor selected a poem from the collection, “Blackberry Pie” to perform on Writer’s Almanac. And in October of 2010, Keillor selected a second poem from the book, “Ketchican Wrestling” for Writer’s Almanac. Currently, Vernon lives in Juneau, Alaska with her husband and teaches Communication at the University of Alaska Southeast. Read the interview featured in issue 7 here.

Diana Joseph is the author of the short story collection Happy or Otherwise (Carnegie Mellon UP 2003) and I’m Sorry You Feel That Way: The Astonishing But True Story of a Daughter, Sister, Slut, Wife, Mother and Friend to Man and Dog (Putnam 2009.) Her work has appeared in Threepenny ReviewWillow Springs, Marie ClaireCountry Living and Best Sex Writing 2009. She teaches in the MFA program at Minnesota State University in Mankato, Minnesota. Read the interview in issue 7. Diana Joseph’s Website

Beverly Lowry was born in Memphis, grew up in Greenville, Mississippi and now lives in Austin where she is working on a book about another case of multiple murder, the unsolved killings of four young girls in an I Can’t Believe It’s Yogurt shop, in Austin in 1991. The recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship, an NEA fellowship and the Richard Wright Award for Literary Excellence, she is the author of six novels and three books of nonfiction, she teaches at George Mason University and is currently Writer-in-Residence at Goucher College in Baltimore. Read the interview in issue 7. Beverly Lowry’s Website

 

The full magazine with featured art and artists from issue 7 can be found here. Check back tomorrow to read about the nonfiction authors featured in issue 7.

Launch of Issue 7: Fiction

Superstition Review Issue 7 has launched and to celebrate we will be featuring blog posts about our artists and authors. Today we will be highlighting a few of the talented fiction authors who are featured in Issue 7.

Aaron Michael Morales is an Associate Professor of English & Gender Studies at Indiana State University. His first novel, Drowning Tucson (2010)—cited by Esquireas “the bleakly human debut of the new Bukowski”—was named a “Top Five Fiction Debut” by Poets & Writers. Other books include a chapbook of short fiction, titled From Here You Can Almost See the End of the Desert (2008), and a textbook, The American Mashup (2011). He edits fiction for Grasslands Review and reviews books for Latino Poetry Review and Multicultural Review. He is completing his second novel, Eat Your Children. Read his fiction piece “A Shoebox. A Thimble. A Onesie” featured in issue 7. Aaron Morales’s Website

Samuel Kolawole’s fiction has appeared in Black Biro, Storytime, Authorme, Storymoja, Eastown fiction, forthcoming in jungle jim and elsewhere. His story collection The book of M is due to be out soon. A recipient of the Reading Bridges fellowship, Samuel lives in Ibadan, southwest Nigeria where he has begun work on his novel Olivia of Hustle House.
Read his fiction piece “Mud, if it Were Gold” featured in issue 7.

Rich Ives has received grants and awards from the National Endowment for the Arts, Artist Trust, Seattle Arts Commission and the Coordinating Council of Literary Magazines for his work in poetry, fiction, editing, publishing, translation and photography. His writing has appeared in Verse, North American Review, Massachusetts Review, Northwest Review, Quarterly West, Iowa Review, Poetry Northwest, Virginia Quarterly Review, Fiction Daily and many more. He is the 2009 winner of the Francis Locke Memorial Poetry Award from Bitter Oleander. His story collection, The Balloon Containing the Water Containing the Narrative Begins Leaking, was one of five finalists for the 2009 Starcherone Innovative Fiction Prize. In 2010 he has been a finalist in fiction at Black Warrior Review and Mississippi Review and in poetry at Cloudbank and Mississippi Review. Read his fiction piece “Who the Hell Does He Think He Is?” in issue 7.

Terese Svoboda‘s sixth novel, Bohemian Girl, will be published next fall. Her fifth, Pirate Talk or Mermalade (2010), is “a strange and nastily beautiful book,”—The Millions. Read her fiction piece “Madonna in the Terminal” in issue 7. Terese Svoboda’s Website

 

 

 

The full magazine with featured art and artists can be found here. Check back tomorrow to read about the interviews featured in Issue 7.

Launch of Issue 7

Superstition Review Issue 7 has launched and to celebrate we will be featuring blog posts about our artists and authors. For the next five days we will have one feature each for the Art, Fiction, Interviews, Nonfiction and Poetry sections of the publication. To view all the work go to http://superstitionreview.asu.edu/issue7

Out of Silence: Readings from the Afghan Women’s Writing Project

A week from today at 7 p.m., Arizona State University’s Project Humanities will be hosting a reading from the Afghan Women’s Writing Program (AWWP). Readings will be a selection of poems, essays, and stories written by Afghan women who, for security reasons, use only their first names or remain anonymous. These selections will be read by Masters of Fine Arts in Creative Writing students.

The Afghan Women’s Writing Program is a volunteer based organization that works to allow Afghan women to write and let their stories be heard by the world. The AWWP was founded in 2009 by international journalist and novelist Masha Hamilton. These women are mentored by American women writers, and the Afghan women’s writings are posted regularly on AWWP’s website, which can be found here http://www.awwproject.org. Check out the site to read more about the AWWP and to read writings from these women. Also, take the time to leave a comment and let these women know their voices are being heard.

The reading will be held on Arizona State University’s Tempe campus, Tuesday May 3, in Neeb Hall (NEEB) room 105. Admission is free and open to the public and there will be a reception following the reading. Project Humanities and the Afghan Women’s Writing Project will be accepting donations for the AWWP in the hopes of being able to purchase laptops, internet and additional library materials for the women’s safe writing house that has been established in Kabul. So, stop by campus next Tuesday and listen to stories and poems from women writers half a world away.

Lit-ercise: Starters

As many writers will tell you, one of the hardest parts about being a writer is writing every day. If you don’t force yourself to write every day, even for a couple of minutes, then you may find that weeks have gone by without you having written a word. But sometimes the hardest part about sitting down to write every day is coming up with something to write. Trust us, we know. So, here are some prompts to help you put pen to paper. Happy writing.

What do you do when you procrastinate?

Describe what happens when a pacifist and a passive aggressive get into an argument.

Describe the first place you lived when you moved out of your parents’ house. What was the first thing you did after moving in? What did it smell like? Was there traffic outside your window or chirping birds?

Complete: He stood in front of the mirror for a moment. He adjusted his tie. A long thread was poking out from the end of his cuff and he carefully pulled it loose. He stood in front of the mirror and smoothed the front of his jacket. He frowned into the mirror and began taking off his jacket. He was halfway in to a new pair of pants when there was a knock on the door. They were early.

Alison Hawthorne Deming Reading Wrap-Up: Myths, Rope and Dog Tags

Deming reading from her manuscript ZOOLOGIES.

Last Wednesday at ASU’s Tempe campus, Superstition Review held the latest event in its reading series with poet, author and educator, Alison Hawthorne Deming. She read a selection of poems from her latest book Rope. She also read a few short prose pieces from her manuscript ZOOLOGIES.

Students, colleagues and friends gathered in the Education Lecture Hall and after a few words from Superstition Review founding editor Patricia Murphy, and a brief introduction from Professor Joni Adamson, Deming took the podium and she read from her writings about the importance of dog tags, modern day Greek myths and finding salty, sea soaked rope on the coast. After the reading and applause she took time to sign copies of her books and speak to colleagues and friends.

Superstition Review staff and interns would like to thank everyone who attended the reading and we would like to extend a special thanks to Alison Hawthorne Deming for coming in to town and sharing her wonderful work with us.

Patricia Murphy discuss the upcoming launch of Issue 7.
Alison signs books.

Lit-ercise: Two Writing Exercises

Give yourself a word count.

1. Give yourself a word count, the smaller the better. Steve Moss, editor of The New York Times and flash fiction pioneer, recommends a word count of 55 words. No more and no less. Try to tell a complete story, a story with a protagonist, a conflict and a resolution. The idea is that once you start to get close to that word limit you’ll find that there are certain parts of your story that you can tell in a more efficient way, or even some parts that you don’t need.  As you write more and more of these you’ll find that you’re writing will become tighter and cleaner.

2. Pull out some stories from your favorite authors. Read their opening paragraphs and then try and imitate their style in an opening paragraph of your own. Authors tend to spend a lot of time on their opening paragraphs and as a result it is usually some of their best work. The goal here is to step a bit out of your style comfort zone, and see what it’s like to write like a published author. You may find that your own writing becomes stronger and more engaging.

 

ASU Lecturer Patricia Murphy Poetry Reading @ Urban Beans

Urban Beans, a coffee shop located in Midtown Phoenix, is a great place to grab an exceptional cup of locally roasted coffee, smoothies, tea, pastries or a tasty lunch. It’s also a great place to hang out and listen to local poets. This Friday night, that’s tomorrow, Urban Beans is hosting a poetry reading and ASU Lecturer and alum Particia Murphy will be reading.

Patricia Murphy earned her MFA in Poetry from Arizona State University where she has been teaching writing for 18 years. Her work has received awards from the Associated Writing Programs and the Academy of American Poets, Glimmer Train PressThe GSU Review, and The Southern California Review. She teaches several writing classes including Poetry, Blogging, Travel Writing and Publishing in Literary Magazines.

Her reading will be this Friday, April 15 at 7 p.m. Stop by, get a delicious coffee with a little heart in it, and stay for the reading. Map here.

The Mercury Building
3508 N. 7th Street
Suite 100
Phoenix, AZ 85014
602.595.2244