Contributor Update: Teague Bohlen & Britten Leigh

FlatlandToday we are pleased to announce that past contributor Teague Bohlen and Britten Leigh have an upcoming book from Bronze Man Books titled Flatland. The book includes flash fiction by Teague and black and white photographs by Britten. Stay tuned for Flatland’s release in 2018!

Read three flash fictions by Teague accompanied by Britten’s photography in Issue 10 of Superstition Review here.

Congratulations, Teague and Britten!

Contributor Update: Christopher Jagmin

Your Secret is Safe With MeToday we are excited to share that past contributor Christopher Jagmin’s participatory art installation called Your Secret is Safe With Me will be presented this Thursday, October 19 at Tilt Gallery in Scottsdale from 7 to 9 pm. The installation invites community members to share a secret with a complete stranger in hopes of making it easier for them to process and share their own memories in a safe place.

Click here to see six paintings by Christopher in Issue 10 of Superstition Review.

Contributor Update: Kamilah Aisha Moon

We are pleased to announce that past contributor Kamilah Aisha Moon has recently released a collection of poems titled Starshine & Clay. Listen to the sample poem “Mercy Beach” from Starshine & Clay here, and purchase your copy now at Four Way Books.

Kamilah’s nonfiction piece “Rikers Island Writing Workshop” in issue 10 of Superstition Review can be read here.

Congratulations, Kamilah!Starshine & Clay

Contributor Update: Meghan McClure and Michael Schmeltzer

Greetings, dear readers! We here at Superstition Review are pleased to provide a double dose of good news: two of our past contributors, Meghan McClure and Michael Schmeltzer, have collaborated on a new book coming this June from Black Lawrence Press, titled A Single Throat Opens. Schmeltzer’s work was featured in the Poetry sections of both our 6th and 10th issues, while McClure’s work was featured in the Poetry section of our 6th issue and the Nonfiction section of our 18th issue. Preorder the book here, and check out both of these fine writers’ work out in our Archives (links here, here, here, and here)! Let us know what you think in the comments section below.

Pre-order this book!
The cover art for “A Single Throat Opens,” by past contributors Meghan McClure and Michael Schmeltzer.

Contributor Update: Come Together With Mary Sojourner

Good afternoon, everybody! Today, we are excited to announce that past contributor Mary Sojourner, featured in the Fiction section of both our 3rd and 10th issue, will be teaching a women’s writing circle at Changing Hands Bookstore in Tempe this Sunday, April 2, from 1:30 pm to 3:00 pm. Details can be found here. This wonderful opportunity coincides with a reading/book signing of Mary’s new book “The Talker,” out now from Torrey House Press. The price of admission is just purchasing a copy of “The Talker,” so if you’re at the reading and want your copy signed, joining the writing circle is a breeze! Come through, hear selections from “The Talker,” and come together as part of our wonderful writing community!

Go to this reading, buy this book!
The cover of Mary Sojourner’s new book “The Talker.”

Contributor Update: A Whole New World Awaits You With Sarah Kriehn

Hey all, this week brings us a lil’ closer to home with the news that there will be an artist reception at our very own Herberger Theater Art Gallery, right here in Arizona. The show will be featuring the work of Sarah Kriehn, a past contributor to Superstition Review whose paintings were featured in the Art section of our 10th issue. Her work will be appearing alongside work by Kathy Taylor, and the reception is to be held Friday, April 7th, on the 2nd floor of the Herberger Art Theater Gallery, at 222 E Monroe, Phoenix, AZ, 85004, from 5:30 pm to 7:30 pm. Come through and marvel at the work these two wonderful artists have done, and when you’re done, drop us a line in the comments section below!

Go to this show!
The digital flier for Sarah Kriehn’s artist reception, held Friday, April 7th at Herberger Theater Art Gallery.

 

SR Pod/Vod Series, Authors Talk: Poet and novelist Deborah Bogen

Deborah BogenToday we are pleased to feature poet, novelist, and SR contributor Deborah Bogen as our thirty second Authors Talk series contributor. Deborah addresses two points in her Authors Talk. The first point she explores is “some of the problems people are going to have when they enter a field that is, quite frankly, flooded.” The second point is “How do you connect with other writers?”

When MFA programs started, it seemed possible to have a teaching job in academia and also a be a writer. But so many people are graduating from MFA programs every year that it is no longer realistic to assume one can get a good academic job. Trying to help you “stay sane and stable during your writing career,” Deborah has three alternatives to having an academic job: take a day job, teach at a (private) high school, and find a job that needs good writers.

She says though “it’s hard to give up the desire – I can’t be the only one who has this – it’s hard to give up the desire for big time recognition,” it just isn’t going to happen for everyone. (Although she has some tips to help you find that coveted big time recognition.) Since every writer cannot be famous, she suggests investing in your local reading/writing community. Being part of a local writing community gives you the chance to meet other talented writers and get inspiration and new ideas.

You can listen to the podcast on our iTunes channel, podcast #223.

Deborah has contributed to Superstition Review Issue 12, 10, and 4.

Guest Post, Michael G. Smith: Ten Locutions in Praise of Growing Things

Growing Things

 i.

what is the middle of green?

ii.

an earthworm has no beginning or end

iii.

where does the rain hide after the clouds melt?

iv.

walking east expresses arriving from the west

v.

is every cherry blossom unrivaled like every snowflake?

vi.

the Earth glides through the sweetspot of the Sun’s rays

vii.

who is more humble, a bee or a glacier?

viii.

glazing the stop sign, verve and moss

ix.

hotter, habanero flesh or fumarole steam?

x.

time infinite, multiverse varied, please add your own

SR Pod/Vod Series: Writer B.J. Hollars

Each Tuesday we feature audio or video of an SR Contributor reading their work. Today we’re proud to feature a podcast by B.J. Hollars.

BJ HollarsB.J. Hollars is the author of two books of nonfiction–Thirteen Loops: Race, Violence and the Last Lynching in America (the 2012 recipient of the Society of Midland Author’s Award) and Opening the Doors: The Desegregation of the University of Alabama and the Fight for Civil Rights in Tuscaloosa—as well as a collection of stories, Sightings. He has also edited three books: You Must Be This Tall To Ride: Contemporary Writers Take You Inside The Story (2009), Monsters: A Collection of Literary Sightings (2011) and Blurring the Boundaries: Explorations to the Fringes of Nonfiction (2013). An assistant professor of creative writing at the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire, he lives a simple existence with his wife, son, dog, and their books..

You can listen to the podcast on our iTunes Channel.

You can read along with the work in Superstition Review.

s[r] Goodreads #FridayReads

Abner Porzio, s[r] staff, recently wrote this review of David Dodd Lee’s The Nervous Filaments.

The Nervous FilamentsLee’s explorative style caters unpredictability into a world of normative realities, while at the same time the expected, the mundane is brought out of this world by examining closer constructs of the firing obsessions transgressing inside the mind.

“You/ and the weather inside you” is one line that conducts this electrifying notion. Lee has created the collection its own spot in the realm of today’s poetry, for it’s nothing like anything else ever experienced literarily. “COLUMBIA RIVER,” my favorite poem in his collection has the line, “the world is what you can see while breathing,” the temporality constraint expressed in this line speaks inner volumes for what it means to be trapped in a body of subjectivity.

Lee’s poems captures everything and presents it in a minimal way. This collection is has uniqueness qualities, which opens this new conversation of maximal and minimal realism. Lee cohesively stacks imagery and language, offering new ways to look at structure. At times, there were moments when readings felt like looking at scenery pass through a rear view mirror.

“You stack your social/ skills on top/ multiplication tables in your daydreams.” Words dismantle, are strewn, arranged for their electrifying effects. The power of words and their weaknesses, disconnections, expose a resurgence of the poet’s abilities to control. Yet, these lines are anything but manipulative, they expose the essence of one’s power to create and deconstruct, at moments leaving nothing left but the white space, the drawing board to clutch:  “I believe in words. One by one/ they dismantle everything I have faith in.”

More lines that I enjoyed:

“my stitches keep exploding into bad ideas”

“And childhood/ the barking frog who used to live under my bed”

“my little friends/ philosophy and remoras”

“tell me what you think I was thinking/ and I’ll tell you rage is the outcome of/ most reveries in Nature…”

“The absolute opposite of zero/ isn’t poetry—”

You can check out poetry from David Dodd Lee in s[r]’s Issue 10.