NER News and Notes

News and Notes

The Boston Globe recognizes New England as a hotbed for literary magazine publishing, including New England Review among the top 10.

Artnet.com has begun publishing Peter Plagens's novel, The Art Critic, online. The 24 chapters will appear weekly. Plagens's nonfiction appeared most recently in NER Vol. 29, #1.

“Contemplating Quiet,” a poem by Robin Ekiss that appeared in NER Vol. 29, #2, was featured on Poetry Daily on August 24.

Ricard Pau-Llosa, whose poetry most recently appeared in NER Vol. 29, #1, appeared on the Jim Lehrer NewsHour program on PBS as part of the Poetry Series. The segment can be viewed on “streaming video.”

E. V. Slate's story "Purple Bamboo Park" (Vol. 28, #2) has been selected for the PEN/O.Henry Prize Stories 2009 to be published in May 2009 by Anchor Books.

A podcast of the New York Public Library's "Periodically Speaking" event featuring NER editor Stephen Donadio introducing poet Patrick Phillips (most recently appearing in NER Vol. 27, #3) is now available by podcast on the NYPL website.

Suzanne Rivecca's story "Uncle," which appeared in NER Vol. 28, #1, was selected for the Pushcart Prize. The anthology, Pushcart Prize XXXIII: Best of the Small Presses, will be published in November 2008.

Philip Gura's book American Transcendentalism (Hill & Wang, 2007) was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award. An excerpt from this book appeared in NER Vol. 28, #3.

Bob Hicok, whose work has appeared frequently in NER, most recently in Vol. 27 #1, was awarded the Rebekah Johnson Bobbitt National Prize for Poetry for his book This Clumsy Living (University of Pittsburgh Press, 2007). The $10,000 prize recognizes a book of poetry written by an American and published during the preceding two years and/or the lifetime achievement of an American poet. The prize is donated by the family of the late Rebekah Johnson Bobbitt of Austin, Texas, in her memory, and awarded at the Library of Congress.

C. D. Wright has selected G. C. Waldrep (Vol. 28, #3) as winner of the 2007 Dorset Prize for his poetry manuscript Archicembalo. He will receive $10,000, and his book will be published in 2009 by Tupelo Press.

Molly McNett's collection One Dog Happy Dog, is the winner of the 2008 John Simmons Short Fiction Award from the University of Iowa Press. It has been published in August 2008 by University of Iowa Press. Her story "Catalogue Sales " first appeared in NER (Vol. 25, #4).

Emily Mitchell's novel, The Last Summer of the World, was chosen as a finalist for the New York Public Library's 2008 Young Lions Fiction Award. Her work appeared in NER vol. 28, #2.

Cate Marvin, whose work has appeared frequently in NER, most recently in Vol. 24, #4, was one of ten recipients of the 2007 Whiting Writers’ Awards from the Mrs. Giles Whiting Foundation. The awards, which are now $50,000 each, have been given annually since 1985 to emerging writers of exceptional talent and promise.

Christine Sneed's story "Quality of Life" (Vol. 28, #2) was chosen by Salman Rushdie, this year's guest editor, and series editor Heidi Pitlor to appear in The Best American Short Stories 2008.

Suzanne Rivecca's story, "Look Ma, I'm Breathing," was chosen for the Harcourt anthology Best New American Voices 2009, guest-edited by Mary Gaitskill and forthcoming in October 2008. She was published in NER, 28, #1.

Karen Rigby's chapbook, Savage Machinery, will be published later this year by Finishing Line Press. It will include "Design for a Flying Machine" which appeared in NER, 24, #2.

Anthony Varallo's second short story collection, Out Loud, has won the 2008 Drue Heinz Literature Prize, judged by Scott Turow, and will include "Parade Rest," from NER, 28, #2. University of Pittsburgh Press will publish the collection in the fall.

Glen Pourciau's short story collection, Invite, won the 2008 Iowa Short Fiction Award. It will be published in the fall of 2008 by University of Iowa Press. Several of the stories from this collection first appeared in NER: "How Tommy Lee Turned Out Abnormal"(Vol. 17, #3),
"Among the Missing" (Vol.18, #2), "Deep Wilderness" (Vol. 21, #1), and "Snub" (Vol. 27, #3).

Charles Wright selected Chris Forhan's poem, "Rock Polisher" (NER Vol. 28, #1) and New England Review poetry editor C. Dale Young's poem "Sepsis" (published in VQR) for Best American Poetry 2008.

An interview with NER editor Stephen Donadio appeared in Burlington newspaper Seven Days on December 19, 2007.

Poet Henri Cole (NER Vol. 23, #3) and novelist John Haines (Vol. 9, #2) were among the recipients of $50,000 United States Artists fellowship grants for artistic excellence.

Pushcart Prize XXXII is just out, and "Bear Story" by Sage Marsters (NER Vol. 27, #4) is included among the winners. Special mention also goes to the following NER selections: "Happy for You," a story by Gregory Spatz, "The Origin of the Specious," a poem by Richard Kenney, "Singe," a poem by Bob Hicok, and "The Lord God Returns," a poem by Susan Wood.

NER editor Stephen Donadio introduced poet Patrick Phillips at "Periodically Speaking," a reading series at the New York Public Library, consponsored by the Council of Literary Magazines and Presses in October 2007.

The National Endowment for the Humanities announced the 2008 recipients of the Literature Program's Fellowships for Translation Projects. Two recent NER contributors are among them. Nicholas Benson will use the fellowship to continue work on his translation of Italian poet Aldo Palazzeschi’s book The Arsonist, part of which appeared in NER Vol. 27, #2. Dick Davis will use the fellowship to continue his translation from the poetry of 14th-century Persian princess Jahan Khatun. His translation of “The Legend of Seyavash” by Abolqasem Ferdowsi appeared in NER Vol. 26, #4. These fellows will each receive a $20,000 award.

Robin Ekiss (NER Vol. 24, #4) and Jennifer Grotz (NER Vol. 27, #2) are among the emerging women writers who were singled out for excellence by the 2007 Rona Jaffe Foundation and will receive awards of $25,000 each.

"The Necessity of Certain Behaviors" by Shannon Cain has been chosen to be included in The O. Henry Prize Stories 2008. The story appeared in NER in Vol. 27, #2.

"Bear Story" by Sage Marsters (NER Vol. 27, #4) was selected for a Pushcart Prize and will appear in Pushcart Prize XXXII: Best of the Small Presses, 2008.

Aaron Baker's book of poems, Mission Work, was selected by Stanley Plumly as the winner of the 2007 Bakeless Prize and will be published by Houghton Mifflin in the spring of 2008. He had poems in NER Volume 25, #1-2.

Natasha Trethewey, a frequent contributor of poems to our pages, most recently in Vol. 27, #2, is the recipient of the 2007 Pulitzer Prize in Poetry for her collection, Native Guard (Houghton Mifflin, 2006).

Barnard College announced that writer Joyce Carol Oates has chosen Lisa Williams and her collection Woman Reading to the Sea as the winner of the 2007 Barnard Women Poets Prize, an annual contest to publish an emerging poet’s second collection. The Prize, awarded jointly by Women Poets at Barnard and tW.W. Norton & Company, includes publication of the work and a free public reading at Barnard. Williams appeared in NER Vol. 21, #3.

Peter Pereira's "Nursemaid's Elbow" (NER Vol. 27, #1) was chosen by Heather McHugh for the 2007 edition of The Best American Poetry. His latest book of poems, What's Written on the Body, was recently released by Copper Canyon Press.

Beverly Jensen’s “Wake” ( Vol. 27, #2) has been selected for the 2007 edition of The Best American Short Stories. NER will publish another story by Jensen in Vol. 28, #2.

Keith Ekiss, whose work appeared in NER Vol. 25, #1-2, and will appear in Vol. 28, #2, has recently been named a Jones Lecturer in Poetry at Stanford University.

David Roderick has been named the 2007-2008 Amy Lowell Poetry Travelling Scholar. Roderick will spend a year abroad living and writing and will receive a stipend from the Trust set up by the poet, Amy Lowell. David Roderick's poems last appeared in NER Vol. 24, #2, and since then, has worked as one of our poetry readers.

Elmo Lum's "What I Never Said" (Vol. 27, #3) was selected for New Stories from the Southwest, to be published in January 2008 by University of Ohio Press.

Martha Carlson-Bradley's first full-length collection of poems, Season We Can't Resist, will be published in June 2007 by Word Tech Editions. Two poems in this book were first published in NER: "At the Falls" in Vol. 20, #2 and "Winter Botany" in Vol. 18, #1.

Frederick Brown’s Flaubert: A Biography (Little Brown), chapters of which first appeared in NER Vol. 25, #4 and Vol. 26, #4, was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle award in biography.

Major Jackson, a longtime poetry reader for NER, was a finalist for a NAACP Image Award, in the category of Outstanding Literary Work, for his recent book, Hoops (Norton).

Milan Kundera's New Yorker essay about world literature and how we read each other (Jan. 8, 2007) offers an oblique but intriguing follow-up to Allison Stanger's open letter to the Czech author, which appeared in NER's Vol. 18, #1. We invite readers to have another look at Stanger's letter here.

Peter LaSalle's short story collection Tell Borges If You See Him has been named a recipient of the 2006 Flannery O'Connor Award for Short Fiction. The collection will be released in October by the University of Georgia Press and includes two stories originally published in NER: the title story "Tell Borges If You See Him" (Vol. 25, #1-2) and "Where We Last Saw Time" (Vol. 21, #2), which was nominated for a Pushcart Prize by Joyce Carol Oates.

The National Endowment for the Arts announced the 2007 recipients of the Literature Program's Creative Writing Fellowships in Poetry. Each literature fellow receives a $20,000 award. The following NER contributors were among those awarded: David C. Barber, Andrea Hollander Budy, Joseph Campana, Averill Curdy, Jonathan Fink, Christopher Forhan, Saskia Hamilton, James Hoch, Lance Larsen, Kevin Prufer, Karen Rigby, Martha Ronk, Mark Sullivan, G. C. Waldrep, and Greg W. Williamson.

Brock Clarke's story "The Apology," which appeared in NER Vol. 24, #3, has been chosen by Symphony Space for its "Selected Shorts" series. It was part of a live reading program on February 9, 2007, at the Getty Center in Los Angeles and recorded for subsequent broadcast on NPR.

Carl Phillips, whose poetry and essays have appeared frequently in NER (most recently in Vol. 27, #4), has been selected as the recipient of the 2006 Academy of American Poets Fellowship, given in memory of James Ingram Merrill. The Fellowship is awarded once a year to a poet for distinguished poetic achievement at mid-career and provides a stipend of $25,000. Fellows are elected by the Academy’s Board of Chancellors. More recently, he was elected to the Board of Chancellors himself.

"The Company of Men" by Jan Ellison has been chosen to be included in The O.Henry Prize Stories 2007, to be published in May 2007 by Anchor Books. The story appeared in NER in Vol. 26, #4.

Robert Pinsky has selected David Roderick's manuscript, Blue Colonial, as the winner of the 2006 American Poetry Review / Honickman first book prize. The prize includes publication by APR and distribution of the book by Copper Canyon Press as well as a $3,000 award. Roderick last appeared in NER in Vol. 24, #2, and since then, has worked as one of our poetry readers.

"Myth" by Natasha Trethewey (NER Vol. 25, #4) was selected for a Pushcart Prize and appears in Pushcart Prize XXXI: Best of the Small Presses, 2007. Elizabeth Rollins's "Joint Custody," Steve Almond's "Open Up and Say Ow," and Gregory Spatz's "Any Landlord's Dream" were all selected for Special Mention.

Ian Ganassi received a grant from the St. Botolph Foundation to continue work on his translation of Virgil's Aeneid, sections of which have appeared in NER, most recently in Vol. 26, #4 and forthcoming in Vol. 28, #1.

The Claremont Graduate University has announced the winners of the 2006 Tufts Poetry Awards. The winner of the $100,000 Kingsley Tufts Poetry Award is Lucia Perillo for her collection, Luck Is Luck (Random House, 2005). Perillo's work appeared in NER in Vol. 26, #3.

Recent essays by Myles Weber ("Reading Salinger's Silence," Vol. 26, #2) and A. J. Sherman ("Schools for Scandal," Vol. 26, #3) have been selected for excerption in Wilson Quarterly (autumn 2005, winter 2006, respectively).

Keith Lee Morris's "Tired Heart" (NER, Vol. 26, #2) was selected for New Stories from the South: The Year's Best, 2006.

Laura Kasiscke's "At Gettysburg," which appeared in NER, Vol. 26, #4 and David Yezzi's "The Call" (NER, Vol. 26, #3) were selected for Best American Poetry, 2006.

Jan Ellison received the Clark-Gross Award in the Novel from San Francisco State for her novel-in-progress.

Myles Weber was awarded a 2005 Individual Artist Fellowship from the Ohio Arts Council in the category of literary criticism. The amount of the award was $5000. Weber appears frequently in the pages of NER, most recently in Vol. 27, #4, with his essay on Phillip Roth.

The National Endowment for the Arts announced the 2006 recipients of the Literature Program's Creative Writing Fellowships in Prose. Each literature fellow receives a $20,000 award. The following NER contributors were among those awarded: Shannon Cain, Bret Anthony Johnston, Barbara Klein Moss, Ron V. Rash, and Nancy Zafris.

Christopher Sorrentino's novel Trance, which was excerpted in NER, Vol. 26, #2, was a National Book Award finalist for 2005.

Sebastian Barry's novel A Long Long Way was shortlisted for the 2005 Man Booker Prize. This novel was excerpted in NER, Vol. 25,#4 and published by Viking Penguin in February 2005.

Richard Wollman's "Relativity in America, 1936" was selected by Susan Howe for the 2005 Gulf Coast Prize in poetry. His poem "Paper in Autumn" appeared in NER, Vol. 25, #4.

Jennifer Chang's poem "Conversation with Owl and Clouds" (NER Vol. 25, #1&2) was selected by George Garrett for inclusion in Best New Poets 2005, published in November 2005 by UVA press. She was also named 2005 Van Lier Fellow in Poetry by the Asian American Writers' Workshop.

Carla Panciera's first collection of poetry, One of the Cimalores, received the Cider Press Book Award and was published in September 2005 by Cider Press. Her story "All of a Sudden" appeared in NER Vol. 25, #3.

Molly McNett's short story "Catalogue Sales" was chosen by Dave Eggers and his team to appear in Best American Nonrequired Reading, published in October 2005 by Houghton Mifflin. This story was included in NER Vol. 25, #4.

Debora Greger and William Logan were the recipients of the 15th annual John William Corrigan Award for Literary Excellence. Greger, who appeared most recently in NER Vol. 25, #4, and Logan, who was included in NER Vol. 26, #1, shared the $2000 prize. Named for the writer and Centenary College alumnus, the award recognizes a career of dedication to literary excellence.

Rosanna Warren, who published her work in NER Vol. 18, #2, has been elected to American Academy of Arts & Letters.

Doug Trevor's story "Central Square"(NER Vol. 23, #3) is included in his short story collection, The Thin Tear in the Fabric of Space, which was awarded the Iowa Short Fiction Award.

The Claremont Graduate University has announced the winners of the 2005 Tufts Poetry Awards. The winner of the$100,000 Kingsley Tufts Poetry Award is Michael Ryan for his collection, New and Selected Poems (Houghton Mifflin, 2004). The winner of the $10,000 Kate Tufts Award is Patrick Phillips for his collection, Chatahoochee (Arkansas, 2004). Both Mr. Ryan and Mr. Phillips have had their work appear previously in NER.

Geri Doran has been named the 2005-2006 Amy Lowell Poetry Travelling Scholar. Doran will spend a year abroad living and writing and will receive a stipend from the Trust set up by the poet, Amy Lowell. Geri Doran's work regularly appears in NER, most recently in Vol. 24, #4.

The National Endowment for the Arts announced the 2005 recipients of the Literature Program's Creative Writing Fellowships in Poetry. The following contributors to NER were among those awarded Creative Writing Fellowships: David Baker, Jane Hirshfield, Kimberly Johnson, Laura Kasischke, Eric Pankey, and Mark Wunderlich.

Jane Hirshfield is also the recipient of the 2004 Academy Fellowship from the Academy of American Poets. She appears frequently in NER.

Marilyn Hacker's "For Kateb Yacine" and Charles Simic's "Sunlight," which appeared in NER's vol. 25, #1&2 and vol. 24, #4, respectively, were selected for Best American Poetry 2005, guest edited by Paul Muldoon.

Geoffrey Brock was announced as the winner of the fifth annual New Criterion Poetry Prize. He receivee $3,000 and his book Weighing Light was published by Ivan R. Dee in the fall of 2005. Brock last appeared in NER's vol. 24, #2 (2003), and his translations of Umberto Saba appeared in vol. 25, #1&2 (2004).

Ted DuBois's translation of Christian Friedrich Daniel Schubart's "Characteristics of the Musical Keys" was excerpted in the January issue of Harper's, appearing in the "Readings" section. This translation appeared in NER's vol. 25, #1&2 (2004).

Sidney Wade's poem "Insurance," which appeared in NER's vol. 24, #4 (2003), has been selected for inclusion in The Autumn House Anthology of Contemporary American Poetry, published by Autumn House Press in 2005.

Trenton Lee Stewart's story "Moriah," which appeared in NER's vol. 24, #2 (2003), is cited among the "100 Other Distinguished Stories" in the 2004 Best American Short Stories.

"Names we sing in sleep & anger," a poem by Amaud Jamaul Johnson, was featured online on Poetry Daily on September 30, 2004. Dick Davis's essay, "On Not Translating Hafez," was Poetry Daily's prose feature on October 12. Both pieces appeared in NER's vol. 25, #1&2 (2004).

Bret Anthony Johnston's story "The Widow," which appeared in NER's vol. 24, #2 (2003), has been selected for inclusion in New Stories from the South: The Year's Best, 2004.

Virgil Suárez's poem "La Florida," which appeared in NER's vol. 24, #1 (2003) was selected for Best American Poetry 2004, guest edited by Lyn Hejinian.

Barry Sternlieb was recently awarded a 2004 Artist Grant in Poetry for $5,000 from the Massachusetts Cultural Council. His work last appeared in NER's vol. 24, #1 (2003).

Geri Doran won the 2004 Walt Whitman Award for her first book-length book of poems, Resin, published by Louisiana State University Press in spring 2005. Doran's poetry last appeared in NER's vol. 24, #4 (2004).

Brock Clarke's story "The Apology" was selected for the 2004 Pushcart Prize. "The Apology" appeared in NER's vol. 24, #3 (2003).

Victoria Chang won the Crab Orchard Review's Award Series in Poetry for her first book-length collection, Circle, published by Southern Illinois University Press in April 2005, and she won the Taylor Fellowship to attend the Kenyon Review Writer's Workshop in summer 2004. Her poetry most recently appeared in NER's vol. 26, #4 (2005).