NewPages Blog

Katy Haas

Four Writers Answer Four Questions

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At the end of every Hampden-Sydney Poetry Review issue is the “4×4” section. Here, four writers are asked the same four questions in a series of quickfire mini-interviews.

This year’s questions touch on corresponding with other writers, solitude and writing, finding a balance of beneficial and less beneficial reading, and how shock-resistant each poet’s writing process is. The writers interviewed are Noor Hindi, Hailey Leithauser, Cheswayo Mphanza, and Jon Kelly Yenser.

Work by these four poets can also be found in the 2020 issue.

A Dreamy Adventure

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Guest Post by Natalie Hess.

What an incredible novel. Laini Taylor’s writing is so beautiful and dreamy and adventurous, which makes this book so much fun. All a reader needs to know about the plot going into it is that it follows a boy named Lazlo Strange who has an obsession for this city referred to as Weep, the real name of which has been lost. Someone from Weep comes to find people who can help the city out of trouble, and Lazlo finally gets to visit this city of his dreams and discover what it truly means to be a dreamer.

Readers make discoveries alongside Lazlo; see the beauty of Weep and what it could be, as well as the horrible things that have happened there; and learn about the past of all the characters. We truly get to know these characters and care for all of them, even the “bad guys,” creating such a roller coaster of emotion and wonder and longing for all of it to be real. Every single aspect of this book was mind blowing and I absolutely cannot wait to read the sequel!

Strange the Dreamer by Laini Taylor. Little, Brown and Company, March 2017.

Reviewer bio: I’m Natalie Hess and I’m simply a high school student who LOVES reading everything from scifi to romance to nonfiction and everything in between. I also love sharing my thoughts and I hope you enjoy!

Buy this book from our affiliate Bookshop.org.

2021 BLR Prize Winners

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Bellevue Literary Review annually hosts the BLR Prizes for “writing related to themes of health, healing, illness, the mind, and the body.” The winner of each genre receives $1000, the honorable mention receives $250, and all are published in the spring issue. This year’s spring issue was recently released featuring the 2021 winners.

Winners
“Tattoos” by Galen Schram (Fiction)
“The Tapeworm” by Amy V. Blakemore (Nonfiction)
“Never the Less” by Saleem Hue Penny (Poetry)

Honorable Mentions
“Admonition” by Benjamin Kessler (Fiction)
“Viable” by Justine Feron (Nonfiction)
“Yellowthroat” by Eileen Elizabeth Waggoner (Poetry)

Submissions for this year’s prizes are currently open until July 15. Visit the journal’s website to learn more.

A Collection That Opens Windows on the Stark Realities of India

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Guest Post by Milena Marques-Zachariah.

India is a paradox. To harness the nuances that create its vast and varied canvas and give them life in print can be challenging. But not for a gifted writer like Murzban Shroff, who chose to get embedded in India’s remote villages to unearth India’s heart. It is against this background mostly that his haunting stories play out. Shroff tells his stories with a visceral understanding of human behavior, reeling you in page by page, to mirror the lived realities of people: in villages, in slums, in hill towns, in cities. For further heft, he draws on ancient Indian epics and texts to reveal the spiritual truths of India.

Shroff’s prose is skillfully layered, yielding stories that are gripping and thought-provoking, while exploring issues and social tensions rooted in caste and communal identities. Starting with the first story, the “Kitemaker’s Dilemma” and ending with “An Invisible Truth,” the collection uncoils with an agonizing sense of drama and inevitability. With insights as powerful as Shiva’s third eye, Shroff forages through the attitudes, quirks, and insecurities of his characters to create situations that are uncomfortably real. His women are strong and unafraid, empowered and empowering, as evident in stories like “A Rather Strange Marriage” and “Third Eye Rising.” My personal favorites: “Bhikoo Badshah’s Poison” for its exploration of caste and migrant identities, “Diwali Star” for its family politics, and “A Matter of Misfortune” for its gritty depiction of human greed. By inviting readers into unseen spaces of India, Third Eye Rising makes for a compelling read—from the first story to the last.

Third Eye Rising by Murzban F. Shroff. Spuyten Duyvil, January 2021.

Reviewer bio: Milena Marques-Zachariah is an accomplished advertising writer, columnist, and blogger, whose writings are hugely popular with the South Asian immigrant community in Canada. Her blog ‘Canadian Chronicles’ documents the challenges and successes of immigrants to Canada, while ‘Chasing the Perfect Curry’ is a food adventure blog, where she explores off-the-beaten-path places to enjoy authentic cuisines of the Konkan Coast. She is also the founder of Radio Mango, a Toronto-based broadcast service, and has interviewed eminent authors such as Pico Iyer and Anosh Irani.

Buy this book from our affiliate Bookshop.org.

NewPages Mag Stand: West Trade Review

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The summer issue of West Trade Review is now at the Mag Stand. This issue features fiction by Desmond Fuller and Gregory Borse; poetry by Gina Marie Bernard, Monica Mills, Gaven Wallace, Anna Zwade, Yasmina Martin, Ann Weil, John M. Davis, KG Newman, Mara Lee Grayson, Mark Seidl, Kakie Pate, Jessica Hudson, Marc Frazier and Lance Le Gyrs; creative nonfiction by Amy Bowers, and much more.

NewPages Mag Stand: Radar Poetry

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Issue 30 is here! Featuring poetry by Lisa Creech Bledsoe, Brendan Constantine, Jason B. Crawford, Ja’net Danielo, Ann DeVilbiss, Sheila Dong, David Donna, Margaret Draft, Amy Dryansky, William Fargason, Robert Krut, Romana Iorga, Amy Lerman, Carolyn Oliver, Justin Rigamonti, and more. See more contributors at the Mag Stand.

NewPages Mag Stand: Plume

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June’s featured selection is “Jen Sperry Steinorth: On Creating and Claiming Space with Her Read” by Amanda Newell. Jane Zwart reviews Worldly Things by Michael Kleber-Diggs. In nonfiction: “The Solid Objects of Stagnant Empires” by Irina Mashinski. Featured poets can be found at the Mag Stand.

NewPages Mag Stand: Bellevue Literary Review

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In this issue, find poetry by contest winners Saleem Hue Penny and Eileen Elizabeth Waggoner, as well as Stephanie Berger, Joanne Godley, Haolun Xu, Kwame Dawes, Chelsea Bunn, Kai Coggin, Pooja Mittal Biswas, and more; fiction contest winners Galen Schram and Benjamin Kessler as well as James Prier, Douglas Fenn Wilson, Jacob R. Weber, Emily Saso, Hadley Leggett, Moshe Zvi Marvit, and David Allan Cates. See more contributors at the Mag Stand.

NewPages Mag Stand: The 2River View

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The latest issue of The 2River View is now at the Mag Stand with poems by Ted Kooser, Matthew Freeman, Will Harmon, Sheree La Puma, Caryn Mirriam-Goldberg, Matthew Murrey, Benjamin Nash, Karen June Olson, Charles Rafferty, SM Stubbs, Diane Thiel, and Sally Van Doren.

Natalie Diaz Wins Pulitzer Prize for Poetry

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On Friday, it was announced that poet Natalie Diaz won the Pulitzer for her second book of poems Postcolonial Love Poem. Diaz spoke about her book with The Arizona Republic, saying, “I knew that I wanted my body, the places I’ve come from, the people I come from, to be of consequence to the world and to kind of bring our perspectives and conversations to bear in our larger national conversations.”

Writing on the Indigenous experience, she explains her poetic viewpoint, “I, of course, have an Indigenous lens, but yet I think that Indigenous lens is extremely important to non-Indigenous peoples. We’re all fighting for our water. We’re all fighting for this Earth, for one another against injustice.”

See what else she said about the winning collection here.

Regional Writing in New Mag Issues

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Want to check out some work by writers from specific regions? Three recent literary magazine issues have you covered.

The Common‘s 21st issue includes a feature on Arabic Stories from Morocco. In this section is translated writing and art from the Hindiyeh Museum of Art by Latifa Labsir, Fatima Zohra Rghioui, Mohamed Zafzaf, and more.

Volume 42 Number 1 of New England Review‘s translation feature is “From Granma to Boston and Havana and Back: Cuban Literature Today.” Here, find work by Víctor Fowler Calzada, Jorge Enrique Lage, Anna Lidia Vega Serova, and others.

And from within the United States, Rattle‘s Summer 2021 issue features twenty-two Appalachian poets. Among these are Ace Boggess, Mitzi Doton, Kari Gunter-Seymour, Raymond Hammond, Elaine Fowler Palencia, and more.