The 2014 Volume 1 issue of Crab Creek Review is here!
It's here, and it's gorgeous. We are so proud. This issue is our first as new Co-Editors. Creating an issue is truly a labor of love and learning. Huge amounts of both. And now here it is, 2014 Volume 1, filled with great poems, fiction, and non-fiction, and the results of our 2013 Poetry Contest.
We think you'll love it; we sure do.
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Today we feature the work of Faith Allington:
Early harvest
of strawberries as I bathe,
ripe as blood
on my lips.
It was buy one, get one free
at the market.
This is the pound
that I didn't pay for,
balanced on a ledge
over water.
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The 2014 Volume 1 issue is now shipping. For quick delivery, order your copy now by going to the "Purchase or Donate" tab and selecting the single issue or subscription button.
A hearty thank you to everyone who entered our Poetry Contest. We received a great response and will commence reading very soon. Our finalist picks will be sent to contest judge Sarah Vap, and the winner will be announced mid-July. So stay tuned! And best of luck to all who entered!
Crab Creek Review's advisory board member and guest poetry editor, Susan Rich, is the new poetry editor for the international journal, The Human, which publishes from Istanbul. The Human has put out a call for submissions (from the website):
The Human
is an international and interdisciplinary journal that publishes
articles written in the fields of literatures in English (British,
American, and postcolonial), classical and modern Turkish literature, sociology, drama, comparative literature, and cultural studies as well as creative works of art such as poems, short stories, and plays.
The
deadline of submissions for the June 2013 issue is May 5, 2013.
Submissions we receive after this date will be considered for the later
issues of the journal. All works will be peer-reviewed.
As
for poetry submissions, we are asking for no more than three poems
(five pages maximum) sent at one time. Please, only one submission in
one reading period.
Enter Crab Creek Review's 2013 Poetry Contest!
Judge: Natasha Sajé Entry Dates: Feb. 15 - May 15
*Submit up to 3 unpublished poems
*$10 Submission Fee
*Email Submissions Only
*Winner receives $200 and publication in Crab
Creek Review
*All entries considered for publication
Please read our complete guidelines:
http://www.crabcreekreview.org/contest.htm
Natasha Sajé’s first book of poems, Red
Under the Skin (Pittsburgh, 1994), was chosen from over 900 manuscripts to win the Agnes Lynch
Starrett prize, and was later awarded the Towson State Prize in Literature. Her second collection of poems, Bend, was published by Tupelo Press in 2004
and awarded the Utah Book Award in Poetry. Her third book of poems, Vivarium, is forthcoming from Tupelo Press. She has recently
completed a critical book about poetry, Windows
and Doors: A Poet Reads Literary Theory.
Sajé
was born in Munich, Germany, in 1955 and grew up in New York City and Northern
New Jersey. She earned a B.A. from the University of Virginia, an M.A. from
Johns Hopkins, and a Ph.D. from the University of Maryland at College Park, for
a study titled, "'Artful Artlessness': Reading the Coquette in the Novel,
1724-1913."Her honors include the
Bannister Writer-in-Residence at Sweet Briar College, the Robert Winner and the
Alice Fay di Castagnola Awards from the Poetry Society of America, the 2002
Campbell Corner Poetry Prize, a Fulbright Scholarship to Slovenia, a Camargo
Fellowship in France, and grants from the states of Maryland and Utah. Sajé was
a Maryland poet-in-the-schools 1989-1998.Her poems, reviews, and essays appear in many journals, including The
Henry James Review; Kenyon Review; New Republic;Paris Review; Parnassus; Chelsea; Gettysburg
Review; Legacy: Journal of American
Women Writers;Ploughshares; Pool; and
The Writer’s Chronicle. Sajé has been teaching in the low residency Vermont
College MFA in Writing Program since 1996, and is a professor of English at
Westminster College in Salt Lake City, where she administers the Weeks Poetry
Series.
Crab Creek Review 2012 v.2 is hot off the press! This issue features work from: Marci Ameluxen, Emily Banks, Michelle Skupski
Bissell, Bill Brown, Bruce Cain, Michael Campagnoli, Amy Katherine Cannon,
Gloria Chun, John Davis, Jenny Dolan, Linda Dove, Clara Changxin Fang,
Rebecca Ellis, Ruth Foley, Rebecca Foust, Casey Fuller, Eva Hooker, Rita
Hypnarowski, Jenna Le, Kim-An Lieberman, Stephanie Lovegrove, Al Maginnes,
Diane Kirsten Martin, Tim Mayo, Paul McMahon, Rachel Mennies, Michelle
Menting, Tara Mae Mulroy, Cynthia Neely, Greg Nicholl, Shawnte Orion,
Fernando Perez, Rose Postma, Amanda Powell, David Ray, Rebecca Givens
Rolland, Carol Smallwood, Jenny Smick, Rochelle Spencer, David Starkey,
Douglas Sutton-Ramspeck, Ann Teplick, Anastacia Tolbert, Sara Tracey, Craig
van Rooyen, Marc Vincenz, Adam Walsh, Jessica L. Walsh. Also featuring an
interview with WA State Poet Laureate, Kathleen Flenniken.
Cover Art: Two Sylvias (Sylvia Beach & Sylvia Plath) by Nancy Canyon.
Poetry Contest Judge, Susan Rich, has chosen the following poems as the winner, honorable mentions, and finalists of our annual Crab Creek Review Poetry Contest:
Winner:
Leia Penina Wilson-- "And we lost the city we woke up in"
(Leia Penina Wilson’s “and we lost the city we woke up in” is the most interesting break-up poem I’ve ever had the pleasure to read. Part fugue, part country song, part high lyric yearning --- the poem creates a world of broken images in a slow, calm, and utterly controlled measure. There are so many lines I admire here & i crawled inside you and took off all my clothes and still couldn’t exorcise your heart is a line I wish to steal as well as i built a boat with all the towels in your closet &. The ampersand becomes a character of its own moving across the poem to mark different beginnings, endings, and middles. I’ve called this a break-up poem but it could just as easily be a poem of building up a self, constructing an identity through loss and love; the way we all must do. ~Susan Rich)
Honorable Mentions:
Dave Jarecki-- "Nona Says As I’m Leaving for College"
(The juxtaposition of ordinary phrasing made extraordinary hooks me with each reading of “Nona Says As I’m Leaving for College”: Stay off the weed, the dope. Don’t think/ is a line that delights me each time I read it. ~Susan Rich)
Greg Nicholl-- "Later I Dreamt the Black Rabbit"
(“Later I Dreamt the Black Rabbit” mixes the real with the surreal creating a world where to purchase a train ticket to a strange town / because you like the sound of its name, makes perfect sense. This is a poem I want to live inside of. ~Susan Rich)
Matthew Guenette-- "A Failure of Spring Rain" (“A Failure of Spring Rain” is a poem drenched in summer love and a nostalgia told wild and fresh:bass banged so low it migrained our knees, but wasn’t it good, that gasoline smell? ~Susan Rich)
Jessica Walsh-- "The Balloon Artist Falls in Love" (In “The Balloon Artist Falls in Love” I admire the poet’s cinematic images of “giraffes” and “beach skeletons,” “burning dollars” and “the moon’s terrible failure” which come together to create a trancelike state in this reader’s mind. ~Susan Rich)
Finalists (in alphabetical order):
Judith Barrington-- "Lake Patzcuaro"
Judith Barrington-- "Not a Credo"
Dave Byrd-- "Spring Cleaning"
Katie Eberhart-- "Efficiency Is A Force of Nature As Well As Economics"
Katharine Ogle-- "Riddle For Hunger"
Anna Scotti-- "Philadelphia"
Anna Scotti-- "Save Me a Slice of Raisin Toast…"
Claire Skinner-- "What’s New"
Maya Jewell Zeller-- "The Big Quiet"
Thank you to Susan Rich for judging our contest and to our poetry editor, Ronda Broatch. We received a large number of incredible poems this year. Thank you to all of the poets who entered--we enjoyed reading your work!
Look for all of these poems in Crab Creek Review 2013 v.1.
Crab Creek Review2012 v.1 is Now
Available! Poetry: Amanda Auchter, Brent Calderwood, David Cazden, Liz
N. Clift, Laura E. Davis (Poetry Contest Winner), Monic Ductan,
Rebecca Foust, Marie Gauthier, Jennifer Givhan, Tina Kelley, Dana
Levin, Sandy Longhorn, Kevin Miller, Samuel Mock, Jill Osier,
Ricardo Pau-Llosa, Ben Purkert, Michael Schmeltzer, Megan
Snyder-Camp, Sarah Steinke, Cindy Stewart-Rinier, Benjamin Sutton,
Ann Tweedy, John Willson, Francine Witte, Jane Wong, Leslee Rene
Wright, Maya Jewell Zeller, Monika Zobel, and Claire Zoghb. Fiction: Dan Moreau and Roger Sheffer (Fiction Contest Winner). Non-Fiction: Justin Wadland. Interview: Jeannine Hall Gailey interviews Dana Levin. Cover Art: me and frida and our chicken by Michel Demetria
Tsouris.
Contest judge, Kim Barnes has chosen "The Tenant" by Roger Sheffer as the winner of Crab Creek Review's 2011 Fiction Contest. About her decision to choose "The Tenant", Kim Barnes writes, "The best fiction takes us to that strange place where we have never been but instantly recognize as familiar, and Roger Sheffer's "The Tenant" is just that kind of story: peculiar, fascinating, and, finally, heartbreaking in its portrayal of our need to control the chaos of emotion and vulnerability when what we desire most of all is the courage to belong."
Roger Sheffer has been teaching writing at Minnesota State Mankato since 1980. His most recent book publication is the story collection Music of the Inner Lakes (New Rivers). His stories have appeared in The Missouri Review, Northwest Review, Third Coast, Fugue, Harpur Palate, and many other magazines. His interests, beyond writing, include hiking, rowboats, composing music, and choir singing. About his winning fiction piece, Roger writes, "I was interested in how the power differential between two characters could change, during the course of a story. That it began with a cough and ended with an eviction seemed predestined; hopefully, not too predictable."
Thank you to contest judge, Kim Barnes and to our fiction editors, Jen Betterley and Nancy Canyon. Congratulations, Roger!
Look for "The Tenant" in Crab Creek Review 2012 v. 1, available in spring.
Enter Crab Creek Review's 2012 Poetry Contest! This year's submission period is March 1st - May 31st. Our guest judge is award winning poet, Susan Rich.
Susan Rich (guest contest judge) is the author of three collections of poetry, The Alchemist’s Kitchen (2010) which was named a finalist for the Foreword Prize and the Washington State Book Award, Cures Include Travel (2006), and The Cartographer’s Tongue / Poems of the World (2000) which won the PEN West Award for Poetry. She has received awards from The Times Literary Supplement of London, Peace Corps Writers and the Fulbright Foundation. Her featured appearances include the Cuirt Literary Festival in Galway, Ireland and the University of Sarajevo, Bosnia Herzegovina. Recent poems have been published in the Antioch Review, Harvard Review, Gettysburg Review, Poetry International, Poetry Ireland, The Southern Review, New England Review, and The Women’s Review of Books. Born and educated in Boston, Massachusetts, Susan now makes her home in Seattle, WA. This summer she will be returning to Ireland to teach at Anam Cara Writers Retreat. For more information on Susan see her at website (http://www.susanrich.net/) or at her blog, The Alchemist’s Kitchen http://thealchemistskitchen.blogspot.com/
Fire On Her Tongue: An eBook Anthology of Contemporary Women's Poetry is the first electronic collection of poems by women writing today. Poets Kelli Russell Agodon and Annette Spaulding-Convy, Co-Editors of Crab Creek Review and Co-Founders of Two Sylvias Press, have collaborated on this ground-breaking literary project. Featuring over 70 of the most extraordinary poets from a variety of backgrounds and whose ages span from thirteen to ninety-one, Fire On Her Tongue showcases superbly crafted poems exploring the contemporary woman’s experience. Fire On Her Tongue is a unique collection created specifically with eBook readers in mind. This anthology has been entirely produced with a zero-carbon footprint as a “green” way to share today’s most exciting poetry with a larger audience. Fire On Her Tongue is an amazing resource for any reader or student who wants to explore an in-depth selection of work from some of today’s strongest women poets.
Fire On Her Tongue: An eBook Anthology of Contemporary Women's Poetry includes poems by Kim Addonizio, Deborah Ager, Ivy Alvarez, Nin Andrews, Elizabeth Aoki, Elizabeth Austen, Lana Hechtman Ayers, Dorothy Barresi, Judith Barrington, Mary Biddinger, Elizabeth Bradfield, Ronda Broatch, Gloria Burgess, Jill Crammond, Barbara Crooker, Rachel Dacus, Madeline DeFrees, Susan Elbe, Patricia Fargnoli, Annie Finch, Kathleen Flenniken, Rachel Contreni Flynn, Rebecca Foust, Suzanne Frischkorn, Jeannine Hall Gailey, Maya Ganesan, Arielle Greenberg, Kate Greenstreet, Lola Haskins, Eloise Klein Healy, Jane Hirshfield, Erin Coughlin Hollowell, Anna Maria Hong, Holly Hughes, Ann Batchelor Hursey, Luisa A. Igloria, Jill McCabe Johnson, Tina Kelley, Janet Norman Knox, Keetje Kuipers, Dorianne Laux, Jenifer Browne Lawrence, Kate Lebo, Carol Levin, Rebecca Loudon, Erin Malone, Marjorie Manwaring, Frances McCue, Aimee Nezhukumatathil, January Gill O’Neil, Alicia Ostriker, Nancy Pagh, Alison Pelegrin, Susan Rich, Rachel Rose, Natasha Sajé, Peggy Shumaker, Martha Silano, Judith Skillman, Patricia Smith, Ann Spiers, A.E. Stallings, Joannie Kervran Stangeland, Marilyn L. Taylor, Molly Tenenbaum, Ann Tweedy, Nance Van Winckel, Katrina Vandenberg, Sarah Vap, Kary Wayson, Katharine Whitcomb, Wendy Wisner, Rachel Zucker.
To download on Kindle (Amazon): click here.
To download on Nook (Barnes & Noble): click here.
For a PDF copy to read on your laptop: click here and scroll down to the "Buy Now" button.
Also available on iBooks, eBooks.com, and Kobo.
Each year Crab Creek Review nominates six poets and writers for the Pushcart Prize--the Pushcart winners are part of the Pushcart Prize: Best of the Small Presses series, published annually by W.W. Norton Co., edited by Bill Henderson.
We have nominated the following poets and writers from Crab Creek Review 2011 v.1 and v.2 for the Pushcart Prize:
Hal Ackerman: "The Dancer Horse" (fiction)
Sarah Cohen: "Summer Was Made of Clicks and Hisses" (poetry)
Katrina Hays: "Peaches" (poetry)
Kelley Henry: "Because I Might Need One, Twelve Definitions of Crown" (poetry)
Sonja James: "Never Ask a Cloud to Marry You" (poetry)
Cindy Stewart-Rinier: "Pre-K Pollock" (poetry)
Congratulations to our Pushcart nominees! Thank you for submitting your outstanding work!
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The Co-Editors of Crab Creek Review (Kelli Russell Agodon and Annette Spaulding-Convy) are awarding the Crab Creek Review 2011 Editors' Prize to Portland, OR poet and MFA student, Cindy Stewart-Rinier, for her poem, "Pre-K Pollock" (2011 v.2). Our annual Editors' Prize is awarded for the best poem, short story, or creative non-fiction essay published by Crab Creek Review in a given year. Congratulations, Cindy!
We would like to thank all of our 2011 contributors for the fantastic work they submitted to us!
Crab Creek Review 2011 v. 2 features Nin Andrews, Jose Angel Araguz, Anne Barngrover, Scott Blackwell, Karina Borowicz, Erin Byrne, Sarah Cohen, Susan J. Erickson, Lauren Fink, Marie Gauthier, Emily M. Green, Katrina Hays, Sonja James, Kathleen Kirk, Adrian Gibbons Koesters, Michael Lauchlan, Joseph O. Legaspi, Amelia Martens, Lucia Neare, Fernando Perez, Mary Elizabeth Pope, Jenna Rindo, Cindy Stewart-Rinier, Mark Wagenaar, James Valvis, and Maritess Zurbano.
Cover Art: Lullaby Moon VII, April 25, 2009, Green Lake Park, Seattle, WA (performance still) by Lucia Neare. Photographer Credit: Michael Doucett Photography.
Order your copy of Crab Creek Review 2011 v. 2 here. And subscribe!
Thank you to all of the poets who entered Crab Creek Review's 2011 Poetry Contest and special thanks to our wonderful judge, Dorianne Laux and to our poetry editor, Lana Hechtman Ayers.
Winner:
"Widowing" by Laura E. Davis. Dorianne Laux writes, "This poem reminds me of a Ruth Stone poem, both in its subject, and in the simple, precise details that reveal worlds.The irony of "That happy nighttime" the contortion of sadness in "her body a backward question mark", the anti-romantic "stump of a man". I admire the way the poem leaps into a vision of the difficulties of not only writing of grief, but into what could be a definition of grief itself: "curled strings" "bitter taste of an empty hearth", "the foggy hunger of widowing". This poem finishes with a sound image, one that can almost be heard, the subtle, and exquisitely lonely sound of a whiskey glass being lifted and then set back down. Lovely poem."
Honorable Mentions:
"The Contours of the Lake Lost to Cloud" by Jill Osier"is made from careful listening, and such a wonderful unexpected ending." ~Dorianne Laux
"Boundaries" by Claire Zoghb "is a poem that allows the reader access to a large political argument through a domestic and quite personal exchange." ~Dorianne Laux
"Seeing You" by Maya Jewell Zeller "is a visual treat. I loved those 'vertebrae a mouth stacked on a mouth'." ~Dorianne Laux
Finalists:
"Gretel Remembers" by Brent Calderwood "Fairy Tale" by Rebecca Foust "Someday My Stomach Will Be a Museum" by Jill Osier "Love: Sun::" by Ben Purkert "Relative Identity" by Cindy Steward Rinier "Elegy/Elk River" by Michael Schmeltzer "Tautology" by Michael Schmeltzer "Departure" by John Willson "Divorce on Mars" by Francine Witte
Congratulations to Laura E. Davis and to all of the Honorable Mentions and Finalists! Look for all of these poems in Crab Creek Review 2012 v. I.
Crab Creek Review is a Media Sponsor for the Seattle Arts & Lectures Poetry Series (2011-2012). We encourage our Seattle area subscribers and contributors to support SAL’s mission of presenting programs that further the arts and invite cultural dialogue. To learn more about SAL and to purchase tickets to the Poetry Series and other events, please visit their website: http://www.lectures.org/. If you attend the Poetry Series, please stop by the Crab Creek Review table, browse our current issue, and chat with us. We have subscription and submission information available, as well as back issues for sale at a reduced price.
The 2011-2012 SAL Poetry Series:
Oct. 5th: Dorianne Laux
Nov. 6th: Peter Cole, Bill Porter, and Nikolai Popov
Crab Creek Review is now a Media Sponsor of the Seattle Arts & Lectures Poetry Series at Benaroya Hall. At last night's reading (with Olympia poet and Pulitzer nominee, Lucia Perillo), we sold our journal in the lobby along with fellow SAL sponsors Poetry Northwest, Copper Canyon Press, and Open Books. Look for us at the following 2011 Poetry Series events:
Feb. 15: Patricia Smith
Mar. 15: Marie Howe
Apr. 14: Brian Turner, Major Jackson, and Susan Rich (our own Crab Creek Review Advisory Board Member!)
May 22: Billy Collins
We encourage our Seattle area subscribers and contributors to support SAL’s mission of presenting programs that further the arts and invite cultural dialogue. To learn more about SAL and to purchase tickets to the Poetry Series and other events, please visit their website: http://www.lectures.org./
Crab Creek Review welcomes autumn! Here are some of the things we are currently working on:
*Look for our Summer '09 Issue to be out by the beginning of October.
*Crab Creek Review will join A River & Sound Review for an evening of music, poetry, interviews, and humor at Richard Hugo House in Seattle on Oct. 8th. Check out A River & Sound Review here.
*Crab Creek Review staff will be involved with Dinner With An Author--a fundraiser for the Kitsap Regional Library Foundation. Kingston poets and CCR editors Kelli Russell Agodon, Ronda Broatch, and Annette Spaulding-Convy (along with Bainbridge Island poets John Davis and Janet Norman Knox, Poulsbo poet, Jenifer Browne Lawrence and Seattle poet/harpist, Monica Schley) will be reading from their work on Sunday, Oct. 18th at 7:00 p.m. at Pegasus Coffee House on Bainbridge Island. Crab Creek Review's graphic designer, Jessica Star Rockers, will also be performing her songs. For information on tickets for the Dinner With An Author Series please visit: http://www.krl.org/index.php/calendar2/1/379-dinner-with-an-author
*Our annual Fiction Contest is underway (Sept.15th - Nov. 16th). Submit your short fiction (up to 3,000) words and win $100 and publication in Crab Creek Review. $10 entry fee. Our guest Fiction Judge is award winning writer Kathleen Alcala. Read complete guidelines here.
*We will be announcing the winners/finalists of our Poetry Contest soon! Many thanks to judge Aimee Nezhukumatathil, who chose four winners.
*We are excited about announcing our first annual 2009 Editors' Prize, awarded to the writer of an outstanding piece of fiction or poetry chosen from the two issues we have published this year.
*In early December, Crab Creek Review will post nominations for the Pushcart Prize. It will be a difficult choice because this year's issues are filled with exceptional writing, both poetry and fiction.
