Writer’s Studio Writing Fellows Opportunity

f2f writers studioWriters’ Studio is an innovative model for first-year composition at Arizona State University. We offer an online version of Writers’ Studio for ASU Online and iCourse students and f2f version on the Downtown Phoenix campus. Based on award-winning models for composition from schools across the country, F2F Writers’ Studio and Writers’ Studio Online is bringing together a diverse community of award-winning faculty, staff, writing fellows, and students to rethink how writing is taught and learned. Together this highly collaborative team develops research and writing projects that engage “real-world” civic, academic, and professional issues through project-based learning in a collaborative environment.

Writing Fellows are an integral part of the instruction and facilitation of Writers’ Studio courses at Arizona State University. As a Writing Fellow, you will extend writing support to faculty and first-year composition students in the Writers’ Studio by:
• Enrolling in ENG 484/584 for 3 credits (if you haven’t already taken it)
• Attending a full day orientation
• Attending weekly one-hour meetings with a full-time faculty member or program coordinator
• Tracking student participation in the Writers’ Studio classroom/laboratory and on Blackboard
• Facilitating small group discussions, writing activities, and workshops
• Providing feedback on early drafts of writing projects and portfolio content

Minimum Qualifications:
• ASU student in good academic standing with a minimum of 25 ASU credits
• Demonstrated academic writing skills at the college-level
• Experience with small group activities (as a participant or leader)

Desired Qualifications:
• A curiosity to expand knowledge regarding teaching and learning at the college-level
• A desire to help forge a community of undergraduate writers striving for excellence and future preparedness.
• Evidence of leadership experience (e.g. small group facilitation, large group facilitation)
• Evidence of writing center experience
• Evidence of presentation and/or public speaking experience
• Evidence of experience with technology-assisted instruction
• Evidence of editing experience
• Evidence of writing accomplishments (e.g. awards, publications, other recognitions)
• Affiliation with the Barrett Honors College, the Mary Lou Fulton Teachers College, the English Department, the Cronkite School of Journalism, or a related academic program where excellence in writing is rigorously practiced

Instructions to Apply:
Access the job advertisement here (https://students.asu.edu/employment/search), using the following job/requisition id: 9397BR.

Please merge into one (PDF) file the following materials: (1) a one-page letter in which you specify whether you are applying for an online or f2f position and outline your qualifications and reasons for your interest in the position, (2) a current résumé, (3) unofficial transcripts, and (4) the names and contact information of three academic references.

Job Title: Writing Fellow
Job ID: 9397BR
Location: Online or Downtown Phoenix Campus
Rate of Pay: $10.50 – $11:45 per hour; DOE

For more information you can contact:
Angela Clark-Oates
Course Manager, Writers’ Studio
Angela.Clark-Oates@asu.edu

Mark Haunschild
Coordinator, F2F Writers’ Studio
Instructor of English
mark.haunschild@asu.edu
602-496-1372

A House For You to Build: A Look at Used Furniture Review by David Cotrone

A House For You to Build: A Look at Used Furniture Review by David Cotrone 

 The Short:

Used Furniture Review is an online literary magazine founded in November 2010. We are interested in all genres of writing, art and music; we are also interested in running interviews with authors and musicians, as well as chapbook or book reviews. We accept submissions on a rolling basis and update our site three days each week, so check back often to read fresh material.

 The Long:

UFR is an online magazine that seeks to promote the voices of contemporary writers, established and emerging. We understand that though writing is done in solitude, writers are best served when they belong to a greater community — this community. We hope to both reach out and support you. We hope to provide a space for your words to take flight and sing. We hope to make you happy.

Besides making a home for fiction, nonfiction, book reviews, poetry and art, we have (and continue) to run interviews with Pulitzer Prize Finalists, best-selling authors, prize-winning songwriters and others. We are also proud to host a range of columnists: a musician who combines cover songs and life stories, a bookseller who shares her adventures, a mother exploring the world of children’s literature, an Alabama native who chats with like-minded creative types and more. Really, we want whatever you can give us. We wouldn’t exist without you, after all. We’re a house for you to build.

And of course, a little about our name: there’s a certain air that goes with it, we hope, that evokes something idiosyncratic and bracing. A sort of wonder. This idea that writing is an investigation of where a certain antique came from, what it witnessed, how it outlived its owner. And there’s something (hopefully) to be said for the way something sounds. There are two ways of looking at writing: You can be obsessed with a word’s meaning — the philosophy behind things — or you can walk around singing and scatting and reciting lines and lyrics, all the while falling in love with the musicality of language. If that’s true then we like to think our name has both.

Other:

This interview and this interview with our Editor may answer any lingering questions.

Our contributors.

Submissions.

The above painting is our mascot; his name is Winston. He was created by Katie Eisenberg.

The Nitty-Gritty:

For queries and correspondences, please write to usedfurnituresubs@gmail.com. Also, feel free to inquire if you would like your book to be our “Feature Title of the Week.”

Find us on Facebook: Used Furniture Review

And follow us on twitter: http://twitter.com/UFReview_

Narrative Goes Digital

Each week we feature a blog post by one of our many talented interns here at Superstition Review. This week’s contribution comes from Nonfiction Editor Jennie Ricks.

The literary magazine Narrative has started to dig deep into the changing digital world by offering a variety of options to its readers. Its ultimate vision is to connect writers and readers around the globe, which has prompted the publication to distribute their issue online for free.

Narrative was the first literary magazine on Amazon’s Kindle; it also offers an App, which is a free download for the iPhone, iPad, and the iPod. Their readers are able to access new stories each week the second they are published, as well as watch and listen to authors speak at events, and browse and select stories from award-winning authors like Sherman Alexie, T.C. Boyle, and Joyce Carol Oates.

Not only does Narrative publish fiction, nonfiction, and poetry, it also provides unique opportunities for writing and reading. One category is the “six-word story:” authors tell their story in only six words. Cartoons, graphic stories, and audio readings are also available to readers.

Narrative offers a wide selection of writing contests for writers to hone their craft. The most recent contest targeted writers between the ages of 18 and 30. Their next contest is open to both fiction and nonfiction pieces and called the Winter 2012 Story Contest (deadline is March 31). Not only are the winner’s published, but they also walk away with cash prizes.

Narrative is an intriguing literary magazine that offers many varieties of writing and reading for individuals with different preferences. It opens up options to people who want something fun and different, and have adapted to incorporate new options for a changing digital age.

Is Pushcart Pushing Out Online Publications?

Graphic courtesy of Perpetual Folly

With every new year comes a new edition of the Pushcart Prize and with it, the names of publications and pieces lucky enough to grace its pages. Known for compiling submissions from small presses all over the world, Pushcart has created a high standard of quality that authors and literary magazines alike hope to achieve. Perpetual Folly has released a ranking of Fiction, Non-Fiction, and Poetry submissions published in the Pushcart by each literary publication for 2012.

While some notable names like Tin House, Poetry, and Ploughshares grace the top spots, some new faces have also joined the ranks. The rankings are a great way to discover new publications and revisit some familiar magazines. You can also see rankings from 2010, 2009, and 2008.

The Pushcart Prize, known for its prestigious spot on the small press altar, has come under recent criticism for its narrowed scope. Pushcart editor Bill Henderson wrote in his introduction: “I have long railed against the e-book and instant Internet publication as damaging to writers. Instant anything is dangerous – great writing takes time. You should long to be as good as John Milton and Reynolds Price, not just barf into the electronic void.” There’s an excellent article about this comment in Luna Park, but we’d like to add our thoughts as well..

Publishing has come a long way since the days of stone tablets. Digital media has become a rapidly evolving field that is changing the way we consume literature. While some literary magazines have already converted to online platforms, other notable publications stand by their steadfast printers and traditional paper mediums.

The Pushcart’s bias against online publishing is apparent: only one submission from an online publication was printed in the 2012 Pushcart anthology. Pushcart had long been known for incorporating the best of the best small presses, but if it continues to disregard online publications, it will no longer be representative of small press publishing.

While not all online magazines uphold the same rigorous editing procedures of their print counterparts, many maintain traditional practices of print journals, with the only change being that they are free and immediately accessible.

We can understand Henderson’s argument to some degree. Online publishing, after all, is a double-edged sword. Often, editing is sacrificed in the name of immediate publication. An author can write a sentence and hit submit without a second thought. It can lack the craft and artistic value that many unplugged authors have spent years honing. However, online publication also opens doors to high-quality work. Connecting in a digital environment increases accessibility,  eliminates physical printing constraints, and fosters collaboration and community. We have to ask ourselves, how long will Pushcart continue to ignore the growing field of online lit mags?

Intern Favorites: Literary Journals

There has been a surge in the number of literary journals that request, review, and publish works online. Many of these have long existed in print form before moving onto the web, but some are recent organizations that take a modern approach to the representation of literature and artwork. We asked our interns for their favorite literary journals. This is the list we compiled, in no particular order.

Front Porch – “Front Porch just feels classy. I love the layout with the stationary background image with the scrolling text box.”

failbetter.com – “This magazine felt really well-suited to the online medium. Every story has a link to social networking sites like Twitter and Facebook, where you can ‘like’ what you’ve read. They have a mobile site, which I think will be increasingly important, and their forward thinking seems to be a strong point.”

Coal Hill Review – “This site has a very professional, sophisticated feel about it and features contests and contest winners in different genres.”

The Adirondack Review – “[This is] a beautiful online site, which is easy to navigate and chock full of great literature.”

The Cafe Irreal – “What I enjoy the most from this simple website is definitely the content. It has many issues and the simple design sets a good aura to the whole website.”

Exquisite Corpse – “I like that the website is not used as a prop to enhance the work – the work is simply good on its own and often in spite of its unprofessional presentation.”

Restless: An Arts Anthology – “They do incredible work formatting the ‘zine for the internet. They work art into the pages so that it’s not a large wall of text, which makes reading both easier and more interesting.”

Electric Literature – “I like that this site is using different media to get literature across to a wider audience than print alone can. The site is visually stimulating and you can read it on any medium – computer, smartphone, tablet.”

Blackbird“I enjoy that Blackbird is so academic. There are a great many reviews and academic essays published in every issue that hardly ever fail to be interesting and educational.”