AWP 2021 Conference

AWP-logo

Join Superstition Review in attending the Association of Writers and Writer Programs’ 2021 Conference, March 3rd-7th. “The AWP Conference & Bookfair is the annual destination for writers, teachers, students, editors, and publishers of contemporary creative writing. It includes thousands of attendees, hundreds of events & bookfair exhibitors, and five days of essential literary conversation and celebration.”

This March the conference will be held virtually with some events being prerecorded and premiered at specified dates and times and others being held live (with text-based Q&As). Additionally, AWP has now made it possible for registered attendees to create their own plan for the conference, as they will “receive access to a separate virtual conference platform” where they can “browse all events, read presenter bios, and create [their] own personal event schedule.”

We look forward to seeing you there!

To learn more as well as to register to attend the 2021 AWP Conference click here.

#ArtLitPhx: Desert Nights, Rising Stars Literary Fair

artlitphx

DateFriday, February 22, 2019 – 10:00am to Saturday, February 23, 2019 – 6:00pm
Location: Old Main, Arizona State University, 400 E Tyler Mall, Tempe, AZ 85281
Cost: Free

Click here to RSVP or learn more about the event.

Event Description:
Presented in partnership with ASU Open Door as a public extension of the Desert Nights, Rising Stars Writers Conference, the Desert Nights, Rising Stars Literary Fair features small presses and publishers, authors, literary organizations, and other members of our larger community for two days of readings, talks, and other literary festivities.

All events and activities are open to the public and free. You do not need to register for the conference in order to attend.

While encouraged, RSVPs are purely for the purposes of monitoring attendance, gauging interest, and communicating information about parking, directions, and other aspects of the event. You do not have to register or RSVP to attend this event.

To learn more about the Literary Fair, you can meet our exhibitors or RSVP for the fair.

If you are interested in participating in the Desert Nights, Rising Stars Literary Fair, you can become an exhibitor.

To learn more about the Desert Nights, Rising Stars Writers Conference, you can meet our faculty or view this year’s schedule.

Guest Post, Letitia Trent: The New Online Chapbooks

Letitia Trent

Since I first heard about chapbooks (probably my first year of graduate school, where I learned just how little I knew about publishing in general), I’ve loved the form: what better way to consume a text, be it poetry, nonfiction, or prose, than in small, carefully curated bites? Most chapbooks contain thematically or formally related work, which gives them a sense of cohesion that larger books often lack: there is, at least in my experience, a great deal of “filler” in many poetry, short story, or nonfiction collections. The chapbook makes a writer really consider what pieces work when pressed against each other, which usually results in a stronger, more potent little book.

The chapbook also provides an opportunity for taking chances with design in print publishing. Publishers such as Dancing Girl Press, Ugly Duckling Presse, and Tarpaulin Sky Press put a great deal of attention into design and the tactile quality of the book—some presses even hand-make each book, something that it is impossible to do with a more mass-produced full-length collection due to cost and time prohibitions. Buying a chapbook is one of the last ways to feel that a book has actually been lovingly assembled by a person. The downside is the limited nature of the books: once they are gone, they are often gone for good. But maybe that is part of the beauty of the form—it is limited, unlike many things in our very virtual world.

What to do, then, with online chapbooks? The form itself is perfect for the internet: it isn’t too long, which can be a problem for readers who get eye strain, and the way that we consume media online—often in not more than two or three page articles at a time—seems to fit the chapbook model. Many online chapbook publishers go with a very basic, easy-to-read and easy to access PDF model. Beard of Bees, for example, has been publishing PDF chapbooks with a clean, simple, and consistent design since 2001. Some newer publishers, though, are paying as much attention to the design of the chapbook in an online space as print publishers.

Blue Hour Press (who published my chapbook, Splice, in 2011), create beautifully designed chapbooks using Issu, which allows for a more easily navigable, two-page design. Blue Hour Press chapbooks often incorporate visual elements such as photography or drawing, which can be cumbersome in PDF form and economically difficult in print form. Floating Wolf Quarterly publishes chapbooks right from the website using an extremely easy paging format. Unlike more old-fashioned click-through poetry chapbooks, Floating Wolf Quarterly’s format makes paging through their chapbooks feel like reading a physical book.

Online chapbooks are unlikely to completely replace the traditional print chapbook (and for those who lament the death of the book, I can only roll my eyes—I buy both electronic and print books, and always will), but they do provide a kind of access to poetry that was not possible 20 years ago: a small print run of a chapbook would be unlikely to reach readers living in rural Oklahoma (where I grew up) in 1994, but a Google search of “online chapbooks” can easily get a reader in 2012 to one of these websites. Now that publishers are putting as much attention into the craft of creating a book as the author did into creating the work to go inside it, online chapbooks have become an art form of their own.

Letitia Trent’s first full-length collection, “One Perfect Bird,” is available from Sundress publications. Her work has appeared in the Denver Quarterly, The Black Warrior Review, Fence, Folio, The Journal, Mipoesias, Ootoliths, Blazevox, and many others. Her chapbooks are Splice (Blue Hour Press) and The Medical Diaries (Scantily Clad Press). She was the 2010 winner of the Alumni Flash Writing Award from the Ohio State University’s The Journal and has been awarded fellowships from The Vermont Studio Center and the MacDowell Colony.

Splash of Red

Splash of Red is an international online literary arts magazine that publishes poetry, fiction, non-fiction, art, interviews, and graphic narratives. They have published interviews with many Pulitzer Prize winners, US Poet Laureates, and acclaimed writers as well as some of the top editors and publishers in the country for their Industry Interview Series. What sets these interviews apart from others is that they focus on the readers of the literary magazine, many of whom are writers themselves. The interviews delve into writing processes of the interviewess, editing techniques, and strategies for getting around writer’s block. And the Industry Series investigates the other side of the table that writers rarely get a glimpse into in order to better their odds at getting their work published. But the meat of the publication is the fantastic submissions that come from all over the world.

The name of the publication comes from three inspirations: 1) the infamous red ink in draft after draft to get the best quality writing, 2) the blood and passion that goes into only the most skillfully crafted art, and 3) great work stands out just like a splash of red.
In 2010, Splash of Red organized numerous live events where authors came to speak with audiences for live Q and As. Some of the authors included Pulitzer Prize winning author Junot Diaz, famed writer Eleanor Herman, and Daniel Wallace – author of Big Fish, who spoke with eager audience members following a showing of the film based on his novel at a local independent theater. Additionally, the online magazine involved local communities by spearheading a special public mural on the New Jersey boardwalk in Asbury Park. Three artists chose three poems published on the website and created pieces of art inspired by and including those poems which were then painted in multiple, large murals across the backdrop of the mid-Atlantic.

Interested fans can follow Splash of Red on Twitter, Facebook, or become a member and get email updates about newly published work and events. One of the things they pride themselves on is creating an online literary arts community where readers can post comments on anything published on the website, submit art inspired by splashes of red for their Red Gallery, and involving members in creative decisions and directions for the publication including suggestions for interviewees.

If you take any one thing away from this blog post, take this: check it out. The website is www.SplashOfRed.net and feel free to peruse, read, comment, and investigate at your own leisure. Make it your own and enjoy!