Rebecca Siegel

November 1, 2020

Calls for Submission, Deadlines, Events, Newsletter, Workshops, The Dipper

The Dipper - November 2020

Rebecca Siegel

November 1, 2020

Calls for Submission, Deadlines, Events, Newsletter, Workshops, The Dipper

"The Dipper" is our monthly newsletter, where we highlight readings, events, calls for submission, and other literary-related news for the coming month. If you have news or events to share, let us know!

November News

Thank you to everyone who attended Sierra Crane Murdoch’s talk in October. What a wonderful night! A huge thanks to Allie Levy of Still North Books for hosting via Crowdcast and to Angela Evancie of Brave Little State for interviewing Sierra. If you missed the event, you can still catch the replay. Don’t forget to pick up your copy of Sierra’s fantastic book, Yellow Bird.

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In case you missed them, in October we added three new interviews to our blog with writers whose recently released books we really love.

First, we welcomed a guest interviewer: poet, teacher and bookstore owner, Rena Mosteirin, who interviewed poet Alexandria Hall about her evocative debut poetry collection, Field Music (Ecco, October 6), which won the 2019 National Poetry Series award selected by Rosanna Warren. In their discussion, Alexandria and Rena talk about the musical quality of the poems in Field Music, the influence of writing in Vermont, and the best writing advice Alexandria’s ever gotten in a workshop.

We also interviewed writer Meredith Hall about her first novel, Beneficence (Godine, October 20), a quiet, unputdownable novel that focuses on the Senters, a farming family in rural Maine over the course of many years. Reminiscent of Wendell Berry and Marilynne Robinson, Hall’s writing is truly beautiful. Read our interview with Meredith to learn how the Senter family came into being, the role of light in her book, and what books she’s really loved recently.

And we interviewed Elizabeth Powell about her latest collection of poetry, Atomizer (LSU Press, September 9), an expansive, honest, and often very funny exploration of life and love in the digital age. Whether she’s writing about the perils and humor of online dating, the insidious workings of capitalism in our cultural and political lives, or her childhood memories of perfume and fashion, these poems are intelligent, accessible, and riveting. Read our interview with Liz to learn how her posh Parisian stepmother provided her early education in perfume, and the connection between her grandfather and Robert Frost.

p.s. Did you know that you can see a list of everything we’ve ever published on our blog on our handy Blog Post Directory? You can easily find back issues of The Dipper, all of our interview posts, reading lists, Friday Reads suggestions, and more!

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After a very busy several months of virtual events and other projects, we’re looking forward to having a quiet end to the year. Among other things, fewer projects means we’ll have more time to spend reading our final Slow Club Book Club selection, Dionne Brand’s The Blue Clerk.

But never fear! We are busy making plans for next year. In fact, we’re getting ready to announce a new Constellation community writing project in early 2021. Newsletter subscribers will be the first to find out the details.

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As this newsletter goes to press, our thoughts, of course, are turning to the events of early November (please tell us you all have voted or have a voting plan), the imminent winter, and the coming holiday season, which, like the rest of 2020 will be oh-so-strange.

One thing we know we can do for ourselves, our loved ones, and our local community is to give each other beautiful, meaningful (and sometimes distracting) books we purchase from independent bookstores. In the coming weeks, we’ll be highlighting some of our favorite books by local authors, our favorite books of 2020, and some favorites of our local independent booksellers. Watch our Twitter and Instagram feeds in November to see these special holiday book shopping suggestions.

November’s Shooting Stars

A cool literary find from each of us to help light up your month!

If you haven’t seen the new Sundog Poetry Center website, I encourage you to take a look. The redesign is wonderful. While there, you can check out their new virtual event series, Two Poets, Two Books, and read more about the Vermont Book Award. —Shari

Do you know Emergence Magazine? I landed there accidentally by way of a series of links that led me to this magical multimedia poem by Forrest Gander and Katie Holten. And then the “Language Keepers” podcast series about the struggle for indigenous language survival in California caught my little linguistic eye, and, yeah, I think I’ll be spending some time there. —Rebecca

November Highlights

Christa Parravani will be in conversation virtually with author Merritt Tierce to discuss Parravani’s new memoir, Loved and Wanted, via Northshire Live on November 10 at 6:00 pm.

Poets Elizabeth Powell and Anna Maria Hong will read as part of the new Sundog Poetry virtual series, “Two Poets, Two Books,” on November 11 at 7:00 pm.

On November 12 at 4:45 pm, join poets Forrest Gander and Nicole Sealey for an online reading and Q&A via Dartmouth College’s Leslie Center for the Humanities.

Terese Mailhot is giving a virtual reading and craft talk through Vermont Studio Center on November 13 and 14, respectively. The reading will begin at 7:00 pm and the craft talk starts at 10:00 am. (Slow Club Book Club members, take note!)

Poets Chen Chen and Jennifer Militello read as part of the virtual Loom Poetry Series via Toadstool Bookshop on November 15 at 4:30 pm.

On November 19 at 7:00 pm, François S. Clemmons, who played Officer Clemmons on Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood, reads from his memoir as part of Virtual Bookstock 2020.

Shawn Wong and Miciah Bay Gault will participate in the Vermont College of Fine Arts Fall Reading Series on November 20 at 5:30 pm. The event includes a round-table discussion on publishing with several agents from Folio Literary Management.

Visit our calendar for detailed information about these events and more!

Worth a Listen

What a treat to hear Ocean Vuong read a new poem (“Beautiful Short Loser”) and talk about his writing practice on In the Studio.
Rumaan Alam talks to Christopher and Drew of So Many Damn Books about his latest novel, Leave the World Behind.
Ali Smith talks with Linn Ullmann about her seasonal quartet of novels on the How to Proceed podcast.

We're Looking Forward to These November Releases

Theorem, by Elizabeth Bradfield and Antonia Contro (Poetry Northwest Editions, November 1)
Aphasia, by Mauro Javier Cardenas (FSG, November 3)
To Be a Man, by Nicole Krauss (Harper, November 3)
The Office of Historical Corrections, by Danielle Evans (Riverhead, November 10)
Loved and Wanted, by Christa Parravani (Henry Holt & Co, November 10)
Self-Portrait, by Celia Paul (NYRB, November 10)
The Sun Collective, by Charles Baxter (Pantheon, November 17)

Calls For Submission and Upcoming Deadlines

Bennington Unbound
November 15 to December 15
This four-week intensive online courses in fiction and nonfiction is geared toward current college and college-ready students considering an academic gap year or looking to supplement their current coursework. The courses are taught by Bennington’s award-winning graduate and undergraduate writing and literature faculty. Weekly live video class meetings foster an intimate seminar experience. Web-based discussion forums and unique multimedia resources extend the classroom community. All students will write both creatively and critically. Students earn one college credit per course.
Deadline: November 8 | Cost: $600/course | Details

New England Review
New England Review is open for nonfiction submissions and for their digital “Confluences” series. For nonfiction, NER accepts a broad range, including dramatic works, essays in translation, interpretive and personal essays, critical reassessments, cultural criticism, travel writing, and environmental writing. The word limit is 20,000. For “Confluences,” they are seeking brief essays (500 to 100 words) in response to a book, play, poem, film, painting, sculpture, building, or other work of art.
Deadline: November 15 | Details

Sunken Garden Chapbook Poetry Prize
Open to anyone writing in the English language, the Sunken Garden prize includes includes a cash award of $1,000 in addition to publication by Tupelo Press, 25 copies of the winning title, a book launch, and national distribution with energetic publicity and promotion. Manuscripts are judged anonymously and all finalists will be considered for publication. This year’s final judge is Mark Bibbins.
Deadline: November 30 | Details

Bloodroot Literary Magazine
Bloodroot is now accepting new, unpublished poetry, fiction, and essays for its spring 2021 issue. Send a Word document including 3 to 5 pages of poetry or 10 to 12 pages of fiction and nonfiction. For anything outside that scope, like an experimental form or digital project, please send a one-page proposal and they will be in touch if we want to see more.
Deadline: December 15 | Details

The Dorset Prize for Poetry
Tupelo Press is seeking submissions of previously unpublished, full-length poetry manuscripts. The prize is open to anyone writing in the English language. This year’s judge is Tyehimba Jess. The winner receives a $3000 cash prize and a week-long residency at MASS MoCA, in addition to publication by Tupelo Press, 20 copies of the winning title, a book launch, and national distribution with energetic publicity and promotion.
Deadline: December 31 | Details

Vermont Writers’ Prize
The Vermont Writers’ Prize is accepting essays, short stories, plays, or poems on the subject of Vermont: its people, its places, its history, or its values—the choice is yours! Entries must be unpublished and 1,500 words or less. The Writers' Prize is open to all Vermont residents and students except for employees of Green Mountain Power and Vermont Magazine. Please submit only one entry.
Deadline: January 1 | Details

The Frost Place Chapbook Competition
The competition is open to any poet writing in English. The selected winner’s chapbook will be published by Bull City Press in the summer following the competition. The winner receives 10 complimentary copies (from a print run of 300), a $250 prize, full scholarship to attend the Poetry Seminar at The Frost Place, including room and board, and gives a featured reading from the chapbook at the Seminar. $28 entry fee.
Deadline: January 5 | Details

Zig Zag Lit Mag Issue.10
Submissions are open for Issue.10 for those who live, labor, or loiter in Addison County, Vermont. Zig Zag accepts submissions in any genre and topic, including fiction, nonfiction, dramatic forms, and poetry. They also accept art. You can submit up to three pieces of writing and/or art.
Deadline: January 5 | Details

Crossroads Magazine
The independent, student-run magazine based out of Burlington, Vermont, accepts very short fiction and poetry, 300 words or fewer. Submissions should be in Word or typed directly into an email. No PDFs, please.
Deadline: rolling submissions | Details

Dartmouth Poet in Residence
The Frost Place’s Dartmouth Poet in Residence program is a six-to-eight-week residency in poet Robert Frost’s former farmhouse. The residency begins July 1 and ends August 15, and includes an award of $1,000 from The Frost Place and an award of $1,000 from Dartmouth College. The recipient of the Dartmouth Poet in Residence will have an opportunity to give a series of public readings across the region, including at Dartmouth College and The Frost Place.
Deadline: none given | Details

Green Mountains Review
GMR is accepting fiction and experimental and hybrid poems. The editors are open to a wide range of styles and subject matter. Please submit a cover letter and include up to 25 pages of prose or up to five poems. $3 submission fee.
Deadline: none given | Details

The Hopper
The environmental literary magazine from Green Writers Press, is accepting submissions of fiction, nonfiction, and poetry. They are interested in work that offers new and different articulations of the human experience in nature, specifically nature writing that is psychologically honest about the environmental crisis and the impacts of mechanical modernity.
Deadline: none given | Details

Isele Magazine
Isele Magazine is seeking submissions of essays, fiction, poetry, art, and photography. You may submit up to 8,000 words of prose, six pages of poetry, or one long poem.
Deadline: rolling submissions | Details

Mount Island digital magazine
To focus on their mission of supporting rural LGBTQ+ and POC voices, most of the submission categories are open only to folks who identify as LGBTQ+ and/or POC and who currently live in or hail from a rural area. They do welcome “allies” who do not identify as LGBTQ+/POC/rural to submit in certain categories, such as interviews, reviews, and blog articles. When such categories are open for “ally submissions,” they are labeled clearly as such.
Deadline: open year-round | Details

Nightingale Review
Nightingale accepts and celebrate all types of literary creative expression from queer authors, including poetry, plays, general fiction, nonfiction essays, and book/movie/music reviews. Both established and unpublished authors welcome.
Deadline: none given | Details

Six-Word Quarantine Stories
Do you have a six-word story about your quarantine to share? Tell yours on social media with the hashtag #quarantinesix, and tag @vtartscouncil so they can share your story, too.
Deadline: none given | Details

Three By Five
Share a small moment—anonymously—that has altered the path of your life. Record it on a 3" x 5" card and mail it to PO Box 308, Etna, NH, 03750. Or, take a photo of your card and email it to .
Deadline: none | Details

Listening in Place Sound Archive
The Vermont Folklife Center invites you to send in recorded interviews and sounds of daily life in an effort to open hundreds of small windows into the experiences of Vermonters during the COVID-19 pandemic. The Vermont Folklife Center will make these recordings available on their website and social media to foster connection and sharing, and will also archive the recordings for posterity.
Deadline: none | Details

Writing the Land
Writing the Land is a collaboration between local land trusts and poets to help raise awareness for the preservation of land, ecosystems, and biodiversity. Poets and land trusts are being enrolled on a rolling basis. They are especially seeking under-represented poetic and environmental voices, but welcome all poets at any stage of their career and would like everyone to contribute to this project. If you are an interested poet, please fill out the information in the contact form on their website or email Lis McLaughlin at . You will need to submit a 50- to 75-word third-person bio, three pieces of work, and list which locations or regions you are willing to travel to.
Deadline: rolling submissions | Details

Upcoming Workshops and Classes

Pioneer Valley Writers’ Workshop
Various dates and times
Pioneer Valley Writers’ Workshop offers a number of online creative writing workshops, including multi-week classes and one-day sessions. Among other workshops, they offer a free online gathering for writers of all levels and genres every first and third Friday of the month. These sessions are a great way to get back into the flow of your work in the supportive presence of other writers. Other workshops beginning in November are on topics that include fiction writing, creating characters, generative translation, memoir, narrative structure, hybrid forms, and much more.
Location: online | Cost: $30 to $275 | Details

Art Meets Expressive Writing Workshop with Vivian Ladd and Joni B. Cole
November 5, 5:30 to 7:00 pm
This workshop fuses explorations of works of art with fun and meaningful expressive writing exercises. No writing experience required, just a willing pen and curious mind.
Location: online | Cost: free | Details

Writing for Healing Workshop with Vicky Fish
Wednesdays, November 11 and 18, December 2, 9, and 16; 6:30 to 8:00 pm
This five-week workshop will create a safe and supportive environment for you to explore your healing through the written word. Through writing we discover and can recover parts of ourselves. Writing taps into our wise unconscious, where healing and hidden resources often reside. Through writing we have a chance to understand our stories and rewrite our stories. During each session, prompts will be offered as the springboard for in-session writing. Sharing will be encouraged but not required. Prompts will also be offered for your own writing between sessions. Preregister by contacting the instructor at .
Location: online | Cost: $165 |

The Fluidity of Memory: Finding Strength in Your Story
November 14, 9:30 am to 12:00 pm
Vermont College of Fine Arts MFA Candidate Ruth Amara Okolo is offering a workshop that gives insights into the importance of creative nonfiction. Through an exploration of the elements of the genre, she presents an approach and technique to creating, writing memories that shows life in all its color, description, and realism.
Location: online | Cost: $25 to 65 | Details

Listening in Place - Thanksgiving Family Interviews
November 14: 10:00 am to 12:00 pm
Part of the Vermont Folklife Center’s Listening in Place initiative developed in response to COVID-19, this workshop covers the basics of recording interviews (online, over the phone or in person within your household if it’s safe to do so). It also introduces the VFC’s Sound Archive, where your interviews and documentary recordings may be submitted to be included in this open access, crowdsourced audio collection of Vermonters’ experiences of pandemic and 2020.
Location: online | Cost: by donation | Details

Everyday Poetry: Accessing the Poetry Within
November 15, 9:30 am to 12:00 pm
Enjoy the art of poetry with Vermont College of Fine Arts MFA Candidate Sara Stancliffe as she unearths why poetry is a life force and examines poetry as an essence. Prepare to demystify poetry in this workshop by beginning with a low-key discussion on what we think poetry is, where it shows up in our everyday lives, and how we might access poetry to elevate our everyday existence. In this workshop, we’ll share music and collectively enjoy sounds of rhythm. This will be a “come as you are” workshop where no prior poetic experience or vocabulary or even passion is needed.
Location: online | Cost: $25 to 65 | Details

Listening in Place - Building Conversations for Civic Action
December 5, 2:00 to 4:30 pm
This workshop focuses on the crises of 2020 as an opportunity to reflect and learn from the social unrest, vulnerabilities and sacrifices experienced across the state and nation. This workshop will introduce and demonstrate the tools of Listening in Place, an initiative of the Vermont Folklife Center, that was launched at the early stages of the pandemic as a way to share our common experience and to create a record of how Vermonters are responding to this unprecedented time. Now calls to support Black Lives Matter and pledge greater commitments to eradicate racism in all its forms have propelled many of us out of lockdown and to re-evaluate how we stand for justice for our communities. This workshop is an open call for anyone who desires to prioritize these concerns.
Location: online | Cost: by donation | Details

Inner & Outer Weather: Character in Fiction
December 12, 9:30 am to 12:00 pm
Join Vermont College of Fine Arts MFA Candidate Jonathan Calloway as he discusses how our stories’ characters, like ourselves, each carry a lifetime’s worth of experience, much of which the outer world is oblivious. Through generative writing exercises and close readings of excerpts from a wide range of fiction authors, you will investigate how perception can be used as a tool to shape evocative environments, sharpen focus, and redefine the boundary between the individual and the whole. You will have the opportunity to share and receive direct feedback from instructors and fellow participants, as well as acquire a set of tools to further your own unique explorations of the caverns of character development.
Location: online | Cost: $25 to 65 | Details

Rebecca Siegel

October 1, 2020

Calls for Submission, Deadlines, Events, Newsletter, Workshops, The Dipper

The Dipper - October 2020

Rebecca Siegel

October 1, 2020

Calls for Submission, Deadlines, Events, Newsletter, Workshops, The Dipper

October News

We are so pleased to bring you another great virtual author event in partnership with Hanover’s Still North Books. On October 14 at 7:30 pm, Sierra Crane Murdoch will be in conversation with Angela Evancie of VPR’s Brave Little State to discuss Sierra’s compelling nonfiction book, Yellow Bird.

Yellow Bird tells the story of Lissa Yellow Bird as she obsessively hunts for clues to the disappearance of Kristopher “KC” Clark, a young white oil worker who worked on the Fort Berthold Indian Reservation in North Dakota. Drawing on eight years of immersive investigation, Sierra Crane Murdoch has produced a profound examination of the legacy of systematic violence inflicted on a tribal nation and a tale of extraordinary healing. Sierra and Angela’s conversation is bound to be riveting. Register today to attend!

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Alexandria Hall’s debut book of poetry, Field Music, will be published by Ecco on October 6. Alexandria is a poet and a musician from Vermont (and currently a PhD candidate in California). Publishers Weekly calls Field Music, “a striking debut…This atmospheric collection will transport readers to Hall’s layered landscapes.”

We are so fortunate that Alexandria agreed do to an interview with us, and we are equally fortunate that Rena J. Mosteirin enthusiastically agreed to pose the interview questions. The interview will be published on our site on Field Music’s publication day, October 6, so check our blog then.

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In Slow Club Book Club news, we recently announced the last book in our year of reading books by Canadian authors: Dionne Brand's 2018 hybrid poetry collection, The Blue Clerk. In this intriguing book—an Ars Poetica in 59 versos—Dionne Brand stages a conversation and an argument between the poet and the Blue Clerk, who is the keeper of the poet's pages.

A sampling of The Blue Clerk reveals its mesmerizing power. Listen to Dionne Brand read two of the prose poem versos on the Griffin Poetry Prize website (the book was shortlisted for the 2019 prize) and fall under its liquid language spell. We hope you decide to join us in reading The Blue Clerk beginning on October 15. If you do, please let us know; it's nice to know you're out there.

October’s Shooting Stars

A cool literary find from each of us to help light up your month!

First Wednesdays from Vermont Humanities are back, beginning October 7. This time around we are lucky to be able to listen to these lectures from our homes. I’m particularly excited to hear Jarvis Green’s lecture, “Atlantic Is a Sea of Bones” on November 7 We’ve posted the literary lectures from this series in our calendar of events. For the rest (including some really amazing topics from dance and Muhammad Ali to bird migration to food justice), please visit the Vermont Humanities website. —Shari
These days I often feel closed, tight, compressed into myself. I need reminders of expansiveness: drop the shoulders from my ears, breathe deeply. The other day I saw a link to a recording of Seamus Heaney reading “Postscript,” one of my favorites of his poems. Rereading it always blows me open, as the last line intends. Hearing Seamus’ own voice makes it even better.—Rebecca

October Highlights

Layli Long Soldier will read as part of the virtual Poetry at Bennington series on October 7 at 7:00 pm.

Samantha Kolber celebrates the release of her new chapbook, Birth of a Daughter, with a virtual event at Bear Pond Books on October 9 at 7:00 pm.

Sierra Crane Murdoch discusses her book Yellow Bird with Brave Little State’s Angela Evancie via Still North Books & Bar on October 14 at 7:30 pm.

The Brattleboro Literary Festival takes place virtually this year from October 16 to 18, featuring writers of fiction, nonfiction, and poetry.

Jason Lutes appears as a part of Virtual Bookstock 2020 on October 15 at 7:00 pm.

Phil Klay will read and discuss his latest novel, Missionaries, on October 16 at 7:00 pm. This online event is presented by both The Norwich Bookstore and Still North Books & Bar.

603: The Writers’ Conferences is online this year on October 17 from 8:00 am to 5:30 pm, with featured speaker Brunonia Barry.

Charles Simic gives a virtual reading sponsored by the Poetry Society of New Hampshire and Gibson’s Bookstore on October 20 at 7:00 pm.

Visit our calendar for detailed information about these events and more!

Worth a Listen

Artwork by Sludge Thunder — *Artwork by* *Sludge Thunder*

Daniel Hornsby speaks about his debut, Via Negativa, on Marginalia. His new novel was recently recommended by Lauren Groff on Twitter.
On the Slow Stories podcast, Sanaë Lemoine discusses her writing process for her debut, The Margot Affair.
Middlebury grad Bianca Giaever has a wonderful new podcast for The Believer called Constellation Prize. Five episodes about strangers, religion, poetry, and art are available now.
Dustin Schell and Alexander Chee (curators of the Still Queer reading series) were featured on Christine Lee’s podcast, Front Yard Politics, talking about gardening during the pandemic.

We're Looking Forward to These October Releases

Mantel Pieces, by Hilary Mantel (Fourth Estate, October 1)
Leave the World Behind, by Rumaan Alam (Ecco, October 6)
The Hole, by Hiroko Oyamada, translated by David Boyd (New Directions, October 6)
The Superationals, by Stephanie La Cava (Semiotext(e)/Native Agents, October 13)
Kant’s Little Prussian Head and Other Reasons Why I write, by Claire Messud (W.W. Norton & Company, October 13)
The Century, by Éireann Lorung (Milkweed Editions, October 13)
The Silence, by Don DeLillo (Scribner, October 20)
Divorcing, by Susan Taubes (NYRB Classics, October 27)
Memorial, by Bryan Washington (Riverhead, October 27)

Calls For Submission and Upcoming Deadlines

Hunger Mountain Issue 25: Art Saves
Send your manifestos and rhetoric, your stories and poems, your essays and forays into justifying art as an answer to—and escape from?—these trying times: pandemics, forest fires, catastrophe, white-supremacy, murder, burning buildings as the only way to be heard, and fascism. Please submit prose of no more than 8,000 words, or up to three flash pieces all in one document; for poetry, 1 to 5 poems all in one file.
Deadline: October 15 | Details

Sundog Poetry Center’s First or Second Book Award Prize for a Vermont Poet
Sundog Poetry Center is pleased to announce the inaugural book award for a first or second poetry manuscript, in partnership with Green Writers Press, who will design, print and distribute the book nationwide. The final judge is Vermont Poet Laureate Mary Ruefle. A cash prize of $500 will be awarded along with 50 copies. Manuscripts should be between 48 and 64 pages. All submissions must be authored by a poet who resides in Vermont; proof of residency will be requested along with a $20 application fee.
Deadline: October 31 | Details

Sunken Garden Chapbook Prize for Poetry
Tupelo Press’ Sunken Garden Prize seeks submissions of previously unpublished, chapbook-length poetry manuscripts. The prize is open to anyone writing in the English language. This year’s judge is Mark Bibbins. The winner receives a $1000 cash prize, in addition to publication by Tupelo Press, 25 copies of the winning title, a book launch, and national distribution with energetic publicity and promotion.
Deadline: October 31 | Details

Bennington Unbound
October 15 to December 15
These four-week intensive online courses in fiction and nonfiction (October 15 to November 15, and November 15 to December 15) are geared toward current college and college-ready students considering an academic gap year or looking to supplement their current coursework. The courses are taught by Bennington’s award-winning graduate and undergraduate writing and literature faculty. Weekly live video class meetings foster an intimate seminar experience. Web-based discussion forums and unique multimedia resources extend the classroom community. All students will write both creatively and critically. Students earn one college credit per course.
Deadline: one week prior to the beginning of each course | Cost: $600/course | Details

The Dorset Prize for Poetry
Tupelo Press’ Dorset Prize is seeking submissions of previously unpublished, full-length poetry manuscripts. The prize is open to anyone writing in the English language. This year’s judge is Tyehimba Jess. The winner receives at $3000 cash prize and a week-long residency at MASS MoCA, in addition to publication by Tupelo Press, 20 copies of the winning title, a book launch, and national distribution with energetic publicity and promotion.
Deadline: December 31 | Details

Junction Magazine Editorial Board
If you're passionate about the vibrant community of the Upper Valley, and showcasing the myriad cultures that exist here, consider joining the Junction Magazine Editorial Board. Their areas of coverage are Arts and Culture, Food and Farm, People, and the Wild. Editors meet bi-weekly, and share pitching, writing, editing, and layout duties, as well as the (small) financial cost of the website and hosting.
Deadline: none given |

Upcoming Workshops and Classes

Horace Greeley Writers’ Symposium
October 17, 10:00 am to 3:00 pm
Aspiring writers, published authors welcome. Writing workshops, networking, Q&A, and more. Location: United Baptist Church, East Poultney | Cost: $65 adults; $20 students | Details

Expressive Writing with Vivian Ladd and Joni B. Cole
November 5, 5:30 to 7:00 pm
This workshop fuses explorations of works of art with fun and meaningful expressive writing exercises. No writing experience required, just a willing pen and curious mind.
Location: online | Cost: free | Details

Rebecca Siegel

July 1, 2020

Calls for Submission, Deadlines, Events, Newsletter, Workshops, The Dipper

The Dipper - July 2020

Rebecca Siegel

July 1, 2020

Calls for Submission, Deadlines, Events, Newsletter, Workshops, The Dipper

July News

We’re so happy to announce that our rescheduled Poetry & Prose Community Open Mic with Still North Books & Bar is happening on Sunday, July 12 at 4:00 pm. We’ll begin the event with readings by Megan Buchanan, Dede Cummings, Emily Arnason Casey, and Taylor Mardis Katz and then open up the screen to you. Writers of all stripes—poetry or prose—are welcome to sign up to read one original, brief selection (no longer than three minutes). Find all of the details and rsvp today!

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We are truly bowled over by the enthusiasm you showed for Constellation: Ekphrasis, our first community writing project. We received so many thoughtful submissions inspired by works of art of all kinds. Submissions are closed now, but we invite you to continue exploring this Constellation and we look forward to creating a new Constellation in the future. We give heartfelt thanks to everyone who has trusted us with their writing!

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While the pandemic has forced many cancellations and postponements, we’re delighted to announce that our next Little Dipper publication—Mary Kane’s gorgeous collection of short fiction titled On Tuesday, Elizabeth—is on track for release on July 18 (which would have been the date of this year’s Poetry & Pie event).

Although we’re unable to get into the print studio right now to print covers for our hand-stitched books, we’ve worked with Mary to come up with a virtual launch, where the free digital download versions of the book will be available. Our subscribers will get a full announcement via email on July 18. If you’re not already subscribed to our newsletter, you might want to take care of that today!

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Scudder Parker’s new book of poetry, Safe as Lightning, was recently released by Rootstock Publishing and has been praised by Sydney Lea and Chard deNiord. We invited Scudder to create a Summer Reading List for our readers. Be sure to head over to our blog to see which books Scudder recommends.

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Have you downloaded your Summer Reading & Writing Bingo card yet? If not, you still have plenty of time to start reading and winning prizes. If you are in need of some recommendations for your summer reading, we’ve got you covered. We’ve been asking members of the local literary community to make suggestions, and we’ll be posting these to our blog all summer long. So far, we have recommendations from Dustin Schell of the Still Queer reading series, with many more to follow in the days to come.

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We’ve been quiet lately about the Slow Club Book Club because we’ve been busy with, oh, you know, a lot of other things, but we’re so happy to let you know that we’ve announced the second pick of the year to our SCBC subscribers: Reproduction, the debut novel by Ian Williams.

Reproduction won the 2019 Scotiabank Giller Prize and was CBC’s Best Novel of the Year in 2019. Ian Williams is a poet and novelist, whose poetry has been shortlisted for the Griffin Poetry Prize. We hope you’ll join us in slowly reading this novel this summer. If you’re not already a SCBC member, find out more and sign up today!

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Those who attended our Summer Reading & Writing Kick Off in May were treated to Makenna Goodman’s preview of her gorgeous, funny, and thought-provoking debut novel, The Shame. We’re thrilled to announce that we’re partnering with Still North Books & Bar for a virtual launch celebration of The Shame on Thursday, August 11. Makenna will be in conversation with author Lauren Groff, which is super exciting! We’ll send our subscribers a brief email on August 1 with the full details.

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Finally, as in past years, we’re taking August off from publishing The Dipper so that we can rest up and generate fresh ideas for the fall. Keep an eye on our blog, though, as we’ll be featuring more Bingo picks and August new releases that we’re eager to read. We hope you all have a good, peaceful month, and we can’t wait to talk to you again on September 1.

—Shari and Rebecca

July’s Shooting Stars

A cool literary find from each of us to help light up your month!

During the pandemic, Cave Canem has been offering Literary Balms on their Instagram feed. Literary Balms are prompts written by many of the Cave Canem fellows—up to 18 prompts so far. If you are a writer, I think you’ll find these prompts inspiring. Visit the Cave Canem Instagram page and give these writing exercises a try.
—Shari
On February 18, 1965, the Cambridge Union hosted James Baldwin and William F. Buckley, Jr. to debate the question, “Is the American Dream at the expense of the American Negro?” Baldwin is riveting. The ovation he receives is overwhelming. If you’ve been paying any attention at all, nothing he says will be new to you, but it bears repeating until everyone really listens.—Rebecca

July Highlights

Northshire Bookstore in Manchester Center, Vermont, has been holding Northshire Live events for the past few months and these virtual events continue this month. You can catch novelist Mamta Chaudry in conversation with writer, Jim Shepard, on July 7; Alice Miller will be in conversation with Christopher Castellani on July 9; and Lisa Alther will be in conversation with Madeleine Kunin on July 14. And for all you mystery fans, tune in on July 23 to hear Sarah Stewart Taylor and Paul Doiron in conversation. All events begin at 5:00 pm.

On Sunday, July 12, join Literary North and Still North Books & Bar for a Poetry & Prose Community Open Mic, from 4:00 to 5:30 pm on Zoom. The event features headliners Megan Buchanan, Dede Cummings, Emily Arnason Casey, and Taylor Mardis Katz. Sign up now to read or listen. We’d love to hear your original work!

Joni B. Cole leads an Expressive Writing workshop with Vivian Ladd of the Hood Museum of Art in Hanover, New Hampshire, via Zoom on Thursday, July 23 at 5:30 pm. Registration is required.

Beginning on Thursday, July 23, Green Mountain Academy for Lifelong Learning hosts the “Armchair Journeys Real and Imagined” reading and writing workshop. Led by Elayne Clift. The workshop run for five consecutive Thursdays afternoons.

For more information about these events and to find out about other online events, please visit our calendar.

In support of Vermont’s Black organizations

This month we’re highlighting some organizations in Vermont that are doing vital work. If you are able to donate to these organizations, please do so. If not, please visit their websites and familiarize yourself with the wonderful work they’re doing, volunteer to help them, or spread the word about what they offer our community. These organizations inspire us. We are so lucky to have them in Vermont!

Clemmons Family Farm is a 148-acre African-American working farm in Charlotte, Vermont, and is one of 22 official landmarks on the State of Vermont’s African-American Heritage Trail. Clemmons Family Farm hosts a range of arts and culture programs with the aims of building quality relationships and fostering an appreciation of the heritage and cultures of all people. Past events have included storytelling sessions, readings, art exhibits, and programs that focus on African-American and African culinary heritage.
JAG Productions is a Black theater company in White River Junction, Vermont, led by Jarvis Green. JAG Productions needs no introduction from us as we’ve sung their praises from the very beginning. We love the work that Jarvis Green and JAG Productions bring to our area. We need Black voices, Black art, and Black perspectives!
Mount Island is a Black-run small press and literary magazine dedicated to rural LGBTQ+ and POC voices. Based in Brattleboro, Vermont, Mount Island publishes a quarterly digital magazine, an annual print anthology, and special letterpress projects. Mount Island is also the home of the Lucy Terry Prince Prize, a new award that recognizes exceptional work by rural poets of color. The prize honors the life of Lucy Terry Prince, a free, landowning Black woman who is the first known African-American poet in English literature. We are so lucky to have Mount Island in Vermont. Please check them out and support them if you can.
SUSU Healing Collective is a Brattleboro-based group with the mission of providing an affirming place to practice community reciprocity. SUSU offers classes, workshops, community gatherings, and other services to support Black, Indigenous, and People of Color by creating safer spaces for people to release trauma patterns of white supremacy, oppression, colonization, and westernized disconnection. They currently have a Go Fund Me campaign running with a goal of $400,000 to buy land for Black and brown farmers in Vermont.

More help for authors affected by COVID-19

Independent Publishers of New England (IPNE) has recently announced a new grant to support independent publishers and authors who have been affected by the COVID-19 pandemic. Grant applicants are eligible for up to $500 in cash from IPNE or in editorial, marketing, or other services of equivalent value. Applicants must have published at least one book and live in New England. For full details about grant eligibility and how to apply, please visit the IPNE Pandemic Grant page.

Worth a Listen

The YourShelf podcast episode with New Hampshire author Rebecca Dinerstein Knight
The Conversations podcast episode with author Sheila Heti on Tove Jansson’s letters

We're Looking Forward to These July Releases

Desert Notebooks, by Ben Ehrenreich (Counterpoint, July 7)
After the Body, by Cleopatra Mathis (Sarabande, July 7)
The Sirens of Mars, by Sarah Stewart Johnson (Crown, July 7)
Riding with the Ghost, by Justin Taylor (Random House, July 7)
The Son of Good Fortune, by Lysley Tenorio (Ecco, July 7)
Pew, by Catherine Lacey (FSG, July 21)
Hamnet, by Maggie O’Farrell (Knopf, July 21)
It is Wood, It is Stone, by Gabriella Burnham (One World, July 28)
Fathoms, by Rebecca Giggs (Simon & Schuster, July 28)
Intimations, by Zadie Smith (Penguin Press, July 28)
Memorial Drive, by Natasha Trethewey (Ecco, July 28)
I Hold a Wolf by the Ears, by Laura van den Berg (FSG, July 28)

Calls For Submission and Upcoming Deadlines

Zig Zag Lit Mag
Zig Zag Lit Mag has extended its submission window for issue 9 through July 5. They accept fiction, nonfiction, dramatic forms, poetry, and art. Submissions are open to those who live, labor, or loiter in Addison County, Vermont.
Deadline: July 5 | Details

2020 Hopper Poetry Prize
This contest is open to poets with an identified interest in the natural world and whose work explores issues tied to our ever-changing environment. The winning poetry manuscript will be selected by Lisa Kwong and will be published by Green Writers Press as a collection in 2021. The winning poet will also receive $500 in prize money.
Deadline: July 31 | Details

Pandemic in 25
The Howe Library in Hanover, New Hampshire, wants to hear your pandemic stories. Write about your pandemic experience in 25 words or fewer and you could win a 32GB iPad. Entries will be judged by Literary North and Three by Five. Selected stories will be shared on social media and/or during a virtual event.
Deadline: July 31 | Details

The MudZoom: Change
The AVA Gallery is calling for storytellers to submit their story ideas for their next online MudZoom event (September 10) on the theme of “Change.” To submit, send a summary of your true, personal story in fewer than 300 words and a brief biography of fewer than 100 words. Selected storytellers will be expected to attend a rehearsal held on the afternoon of Sunday, August 30, via Zoom.
Deadline: August 21 | Details

Bookstock 2021 Coordinator
Woodstock's Bookstock Committee is planning its 2021 annual literary festival and is seeking an overall coordinator to oversee and coordinate a range of activities from logistics and publicity to fundraising. In addition to hosting some 40 authors and poets as speakers, this free weekend event includes a substantial book sale as well as vendors and exhibit tables under tents on the Woodstock Village Green.
Deadline: until position is filled |

Center for Cartoon Studies, MFA Degree and Certificate Programs
CCS is accepting applications for the MFA, and one- and two-year certificate programs. Learn all you need to know about making comics and self-publishing in a prolific and dynamic environment and community. $50 application fee.
Deadline: rolling admissions until programs are filled | Details

Tupelo Press Manuscript Conferences
These advanced Tupelo conferences (August 14 to 17, and September 11 to 14) are for poets who have published widely and have in hand a full-length or chapbook-length manuscript. Using Zoom, you will meet as a group for Q&A sessions, poetry readings, and “happy hours” to socialize, in addition to daily break-out sessions for manuscript reviews. Over the four days of the conference, Tupelo faculty will make individually tailored suggestions about where to send your manuscript, as well as the placement of individual poems in magazines and journals. Tuition is $950.
Deadline: rolling until programs are filled | Details

Upcoming Workshops and Classes

Fiction Writing Workshop with Daly Walker
July 6 to August 3, 9:00 to 11:30 am
This workshop will help participants fictionalize an autobiographical piece about a meaningful event in their lives. During the course of the workshop, the elements of fiction, character, dialogue, point of view, voice, and plot will be discussed. Stories by well-known writers that illustrate the various elements of fiction will be required reading. The main focus of each session will be to workshop the stories submitted by the students. Other literary topics that will be woven into the course include getting published, finding an agent, where to find the best literary fiction, creative writing workshops, MFA programs, and self-publishing.
Location: online | Cost: $60 (OSHER membership required) | Details

Online Workshop Pods with Joni B. Cole
July 8 to 29, 6:30 to 8:00 pm; July 13 to August 3, 10:00 to 11:30 am or 6:30 to 8:00 pm
This small-group writing workshop is open to writers of creative nonfiction and fiction of all levels. It offers participants motivation, personalized instruction on craft, and a small supportive community. Come to the first meeting (and every meeting) with three to four pages of something brand new or revised to read aloud for verbal feedback. Our goal is to meet every draft where it is at, and help you write forward productively and with confidence. You’ll also receive weekly prompts you can use to inspire new ideas, scenes, or just keep the flow flowing! Preregistration is required.
Location: online | Cost: $135 | Details

Armchair Journeys Real and Imagined Reading and Writing Workshop with Elayne Clift
July 23, 30, August 6, 13, and 20, 1:00 to 3:30 pm
This workshop offers suggestions and techniques for writing fiction, poetry, and creative nonfiction that derives from travel and journeys, real and imagined. Prompts will bring out the writer in you and will be shared voluntarily. We will also read and discuss selected readings that combine travel with memoir. Come prepared to wish, wonder, remember, and write!
Location: online | Cost: $90 | Details

Pioneer Valley Writers’ Workshop
Various dates and times
Pioneer Valley Writers’ Workshop is offering a number of online workshops, including $5 online writing sessions, through the summer. The workshops are on a range of topics, including advanced fiction, lyric poetry, memoir, flash fiction, and more.
Location: online | Cost: $5+ | Details

WriterSpace “Kindest Space” with Sparrow Alden
Mondays and Wednesdays at 6:00 pm, Fridays at 9:00 am
Sparrow Alden of WriterSpace at River Valley is hosting an ongoing series of virtual drop-in writing sessions. “Kindest Space” is full of supportive words and gentle writing prompts. Drop in for a few minutes or a couple of hours. For more information, email .
Location: online | Cost: free |

Shari Altman

June 30, 2020

Reading Lists

Reading List - Scudder H. Parker

Shari Altman

June 30, 2020

Reading Lists

Scudder H. Parker is a poet living in Middlesex, Vermont, but you might recognize his name from his previous jobs as a Vermont State Senator, a Protestant minister, or an energy policy expert. His new poetry collection, Safe as Lightning, is out now from Rootstock Publishing of Montpelier. Chard deNiord says of his collection, “In poem after poem, Parker divines by receiving, with the result of apprehending the cosmos in the smallest things.”

We’re happy to share Scudder’s Reading List. Thanks so much, Scudder. Congratulations on your new book and its stunning cover!

9 Books for Your Summer Reading List

The Book of Delights, by Ross Gay

Anything by Ross Gay, but specifically, The Book of Delights. These “daily” essays are almost prose poems. Ross shares a way of being in the world that makes us think, “Oh, this is what it will look like to get where we really should be as humans—so why do I keep giving up on the hope we can make it?” He doesn’t avoid the hard things, but never scolds. He doesn’t insist “everything is better than it seems,” but keeps pointing out the wondrous, hopeful details we don’t see, or maybe don’t let ourselves acknowledge. He makes us want to wake up to life.

The Collected Poems of Lucille Clifton 1965-2010, Edited by Kevin Young and Michael S. Glaser

Lucille Clifton was the first African-American woman to receive the Ruth Lily Poetry Prize honoring a U.S. poet whose “lifetime accomplishments warrant extraordinary recognition.” Get the collected works and just keep reading around in it. It will be a bit like living with her. She is a force. She won’t let you get by with anything because she never lets herself get by with less than the truth. In “speaking of loss” she ends, “I am left with plain hands/and nothing to give you but poems.” But they are a gift that is astonishing and almost beyond bearing.

The Complete Poems, 1927-1979, by Elizabeth Bishop

This modest-sized volume holds all of Elizabeth Bishop’s poems. And what amazing poems they are! She writes with intense attention to detail and formal structures that are so alive they seem almost conversational. “The Fish,” “The Sandpiper,” and “The Moose” are enough to overwhelm us…but there are more! She saw, felt, and expressed the world with a directness and intensity that makes the things she describes seem at once familiar and universal.

Otherwise: New and Selected Poems, by Jane Kenyon

Again, a “collected works” that is amazingly slender, and astonishingly powerful. There is a sadness, a struggle with depression in these poems that is intimate, direct, and honest, suffusing them with both pain and light. The poem “American Triptych” is an astonishing portrait of a brilliant person honoring civil society. Poems about the lake, the fields, the struggle with winter somehow epitomize and elevate rural New England life to the universal.

The Selected Poems of Donald Hall, by Donald Hall

This is a wonderfully wise and apt selection of Donald Hall’s poems (shorter than the full Collected Poems.) Hall is a poet of great skill and perception, and his partnership and writing companionship with Jane Kenyon is a remarkable story. He conveys the detail and the power of rural life, and brings a humor and passion and pathos to it. He was also an avid Red Sox fan!

The Weight of Ink, by Rachel Kadish

This remarkable novel is about a powerful young Jewish woman (Ester Velasquez) and the crushing anti-Semitism (and the seemingly inexorable sexism) of seventeenth century Europe. It is also about a modern academic (Helen Watt) who finds the papers telling Ester’s story. The novel is set in London during a ferocious outbreak of the bubonic plague, but at its heart it is about a woman fighting to use her brilliance and hard-won academic expertise to forge and express her own relationship to her faith—challenging even her beloved Rabbi’s expression of his tradition.

Here, by Sydney Lea

This most recent volume of Sydney Lea’s poetry has the feel of a series of conversations within a living community. It is about his wife, his family, neighbors; and it is about being present even as he feels age creeping into his body and his consciousness. The poems are subtle, reflective and full of tenderness, some sadness, and—without being loud about it—gratitude.

Minnow, by Judith Chalmer

This is Judith’s second volume of poetry. She lived for years in Central Vermont, and now lives in Burlington. The poems are exquisite in observation that is precise, detailed, and then suddenly incandescent. Judith’s poems feel like the honesty of patient prayer—observant, waiting, never insistent or hurried—and thus they find and express community, companionship, and love.

The City We Became, by N.K. Jemisin

Here’s a different note and pace! This new novel by the author of the amazing (and highly recommended!) “The Broken Earth” trilogy feels like a roller-coaster ride through New York City that starts with a jolt on the first page, and leaves you breathless. Yet somehow, a narrative does evolve, and characters emerge, and the wild premise of the book takes over, converting you to a believer by the end.

Scudder H. Parker grew up on a family farm in North Danville, Vermont. He’s been a Protestant minister, state senator, utility regulator, candidate for Governor, consultant on energy efficiency and renewable energy, and is settling into his ongoing work as a poet. He’s a passionate gardener and proud grandfather of four. He and his wife, Susan, live in Middlesex, Vermont. He has published in Sun Magazine, Vermont Life, Northern Woodlands, Wordrunner, Passager, Eclectica, Twyckenham, Crosswinds, Ponder Review, La Presa, Aquifer, and Sky Island Journal.

Rebecca Siegel

May 27, 2020

Reading Lists

Reading List - Ian Pisarcik

Rebecca Siegel

May 27, 2020

Reading Lists

New England-born writer Ian Pisarcik has a debut novel out now entitled Before Familiar Woods, which has received starred reviews from Publisher’s Weekly and Booklist and was listed as one of Apple Books’ Top 10 Debuts of 2020. Before Familiar Woods is a dark, haunting mystery set in northern Vermont that tackles addiction, toxic masculinity, and otherness. It’s a page-turner like all good mysteries, but it’s also filled with really beautiful writing about the natural world. This is a character-driven novel and these characters will burn brightly in your mind.

Unfortunately, Ian missed out on his book tour due to the pandemic, so we asked him if he’d like to create a reading list for us. He sent back a stunner. As you’ll soon find out, he has great taste in books. And of course, we think Ian’s novel, Before Familiar Woods, would make a great summer read (and would help you check off a Bingo square in the process)!

Enjoy!

Remote Reads: Ten Rural Books to Read During a Pandemic

I spent most of my youth in New Hartford, Connecticut (population 6,000) and Maidstone, Vermont (population 100). It wasn’t until I moved to the city to attend college that I realized how much those places shaped me. Since then, I’ve been fascinated by people and rural communities and how the two influence each other. This fascination steered me toward books that spoke honestly about small towns—the beauty and brutality within them.

Here are ten of my favorites:

Where You Once Belonged, by Kent Haruf

Kent Haruf is like a fragile quilt—well worn and comforting. He understands small-town gossip, jealousy, and legend, but, more than that, he understands the small acts of kindness so common in these communities. His spare prose fits the desolate setting of his books. Though Plainsong is his most popular book, the devastating Where You Once Belonged is criminally underrated.

Where Rivers Change Direction, by Mark Spragg

The protagonist here is Wyoming—and, with that, the wind, dust, and isolation. Mark Spragg was Kent Haruf’s closest friend and it’s easy to see why. In Where Rivers Change Direction, Spragg writes beautifully and simply about land, family, love, and loneliness.

Hell’s Bottom, Colorado, by Laura Pritchett

In this collection of visceral short stories, Laura Pritchett writes about ranch life and the way it shapes those connected to it. I’m a huge fan of Annie Proulx’s Wyoming series and this book fits squarely beside those collections.

Winter in the Blood, by James Welch

The first novel by native American writer James Welch tells the story of a nameless man living on the Fort Belknap Indian Reservation in Central Montana and his sometimes comic but always poetic struggle to find his place in the world.

The Meadow, by James Galvin

There’s a quote from The Meadow that I return to often:

“The Meadow . . . Only one of them succeeded in making a life here, for almost fifty years. He weathered. Before a backdrop of natural beauty, he lived a life from which everything was taken but a place. He lived so close to the real world it almost let him in.”

Told in brief vignettes, James Galvin depicts the hundred-year history of a small ranch on the Colorado-Wyoming border and the people who have called it home.

Gilead, by Marilynne Robinson

Marilynne Robinson is one of those writers whose writing is ambitious without every seeming ambitious, which is just about the highest compliment I can think to give a writer. She’s also one of those writers who is so wise that I wonder how she manages to walk around the world with the rest of us dolts.

An important note: As an atheist, I put off reading Marilynne Robinson for a long time because I worried her books would be too preachy. These concerns were unwarranted and I point this out for those who might have similar concerns.

Heart Spring Mountain, by Robin MacArthur

You can pretty much taste the silt when reading this poetic and haunting novel about three generations of women shaped by a single mountain in the aftermath of Tropical Storm Irene.

Independent People, by Halldór Laxness

This is one of those novels that just might change your life. The book’s curmudgeon protagonist is a sheep farmer who spent years in servitude and is now determined to achieve complete independence. Of course, we’re all dependent on the land, as the protagonist soon learns.

For a Little While, by Rick Bass

I keep trying to find reasons why Rick Bass isn’t the greatest short story writer to put pen to paper. That honor must belong to Alice Munro or Ernest Hemingway or Flannery O’Connor, right? Well, I don’t know if he’s the greatest, but he’s probably my favorite. For a Little While is a collection of mostly previously published short stories; however, there are a few new stories here, including “The Blue Tree,” which alone are worth the price of the book.

Postcards, by Annie Proulx

Annie Proulx inspires me as much as she makes me want to quit writing altogether. How can anyone expect to call their sentences “sentences,” when placed next to hers? Her first novel tells the story of Loyal Blood (now that’s a name), a Vermont farmer who kills his wife and flees west.

And a few bonus reads:

Birds of a Lesser Paradise, by Megan Mayhew Bergman
Black River, by S.M. Hulse
The Collected Poems of Wendell Berry, 1957-1982, by Wendell Berry
The Dark Corner by Mark Powell
The Mountains and the Fathers, by Joe Wilkins
Wintering, by Peter Geye

Ian Pisarcik was born and raised in rural New England. His stories and poems have appeared in the Roanoke Review, Lullwater Review, Maine Review, and the Flyway Journal of Writing and Environment. He currently lives in Washington State with his wife, newborn daughter, and Labrador retriever. Before Familiar Woods is his first novel.