Thursday, March 17, 2011

Two Beautiful Books Received here at Crab Creek Review

The chapbook-- Only as a Body by Jessica Young (Bateau Press)

and the full collection

Before I Came Home Naked by Christina Olson (Spire Press, Inc)

Both lovely inside and out.  Support your indie presses!  And support your poets!

Congratulations Foreword Book Finalists!

Co-Editor Kelli Russell Agodon's Letters From the Emily Dickinson Room (White Pine Press Poetry Prize), Editorial Board & Guest Editor Susan Rich's The Alchemist's Kitchen and contributor Rebecca Foust's All That Gorgeous Pitiless Song and God, Seed are all finalists in the Foreword Book of the Year Prize for Poetry.

They will find out in June 2011, who the winner will be.  Good luck to all three of them!

Sunday, March 13, 2011

Crab Creek Review's Annual Poetry Contest--Judge: Dorianne Laux

Submit now to Crab Creek Review's 2011 Poetry Contest (March 15th-June 30th):
Guest Judge: Dorianne Laux
•Submit up to 5 previously unpublished poems
•Entry fee: $10, check payable to Crab Creek Review
The winning poet will receive $200 and publication in Crab Creek Review
•All entries will be considered for publication

Please read our complete guidelines here: http://www.crabcreekreview.org/contest.htm

Dorianne Laux’s fourth book of poems, Facts about the Moon, is the recipient of the Oregon Book Award and was short-listed for the Lenore Marshall Poetry Prize. Laux is also author of Awake, What We Carry, finalist for the National Book Critic’s Circle Award, and Smoke, as well as two fine small press editions, Superman: The Chapbook and Dark Charms, both from Red Dragonfly Press. Co-author of The Poet's Companion: A Guide to the Pleasures of Writing Poetry, she’s the recipient of two Best American Poetry Prizes, a Pushcart Prize, two fellowships from The National Endowment for the Arts and a Guggenheim Fellowship. Widely anthologized, her work has appeared in the Best of APR, The Norton Anthology of Contemporary Poetry and The Best of the Net. She and her husband, poet Joseph Millar, moved to Raleigh in 2008 where she teaches poetry in the MFA program at North Carolina State University.

Friday, March 11, 2011

Peter Pereira's Poem on Verse Daily (From Crab Creek Review, 2010 Vol.2)

Peter Pereira's poem, "Magnolia Blossom," from Crab Creek Review 2010 Vol.2 is featured on Verse Daily today: http://www.versedaily.org/2011/magnoliablossom.shtml "Magnolia Blossom" is part of 2010 Vol.2's special Ekphrastic Section, guest edited by Susan Rich, who put out a call for poems inspired by other art forms. Peter's poem is inspired by Imogen Cunningham's 1925 photograph, Magnolia Blossom.

About his poem, Peter writes, “Magnolia Blossom” was written for the Seattle Art Museum’s monthly reading series SAM-Word, for which I was asked to respond to an exhibit of Imogen Cunningham’s photography. She was part of a group of photographers called Group f/64. The term f/64 refers to the smallest aperture setting on a large format camera. It allows for maximum depth of field, rendering a photograph evenly sharp from foreground to background. These photographs possess an amazing purity of image, and clarity of detail. In an interview Imogen Cunningham gave before her death, referring to her work she said, “In order to make a good photograph you have to be enthusiastic, that is you have to think about it, like a poet would . . .” I hope Imogen would like what this poet thought about, responding to her images.

Peter Pereira’s most recent books are What’s Written on the Body (Copper Canyon 2007) and Saying the World (Copper Canyon 2003).  Recent poems have appeared in New England Review, Prairie Schooner, and the anthology Looking Together: Writers on Art. Peter is also on the Advisory Board of Crab Creek Review.

Wednesday, March 9, 2011

Crab Creek Review Announces Fiction Contest Winner: Hal Ackerman

Western Washington University professor and author, Kathryn Trueblood, has chosen "The Dancer Horse" by Hal Ackerman as the winner of Crab Creek Review's Annual Fiction Contest.

Hal Ackerman has been on the faculty of the UCLA School of Theater, Film and Television since 1985 and is currently co-area head of the screenwriting program.  His book, Write Screenplays That Sell…The Ackerman Way, is in its third printing, and is the text of choice in a growing number of screenwriting programs around the country. He has had numerous short stories published in literary journals over the past two years, including North Dakota Review, New Millennium Writings, Southeast Review, The Pinch, Storyglossia, Passages and The Yalobusha Review. His short Story, “Roof Garden” won the Warren Adler 2008 award for fiction and is published by Kindle. “Alfalfa,” was included in the anthology, I Wanna Be Sedated…30 Writers on Parenting Teenagers. Among the twenty-nine “other writers” were Louise Erdrich, Dave Barry, Anna Quindlen, Roz Chast, and Barbara Kingsolver. “Walk Through” is among Southeast Review’s World’s Best Short Shorts of 2010. Ackerman's non-fiction baseball memoir, “Talk To The Stars” appears in the 15th anniversary issue of Sports Literate. His play, TESTOSTERONE: How Prostate Cancer Made A Man of Me, won the William Saroyan Centennial Prize for drama and enjoyed a successful run in Los Angeles and has been performed nationwide for Prostate support groups. Ackerman's first novel, STEIN, STONED (www.tyrusbooks.com) was published in July 2010. STEIN, STUNG is forthcoming in late spring of 2011.

About his winning short story, "The Dancer Horse," Ackerman writes, "The race track is a great place to watch fate unfold. Everyone believes the story and judgment of their lives is playing out in the results of the next race. The best part is watching people watch the TV replay and hoping the result might be different." Fiction Contest Judge, Kathryn Trueblood, writes, "The story ("The Dancer Horse") introduces a richly idiosyncratic voice and the prose is percussive. The rhythm of the race track pervades but there are many kinds of urgency at work here. The story surprises the reader the way our own emotions often do, surfacing suddenly."

Special thanks to our judge, Kathryn Trueblood, Associate Professor of English at Western Washington University and award winning author. And, thank you to Jen Betterley and Nancy Canyon, Crab Creek Review's fiction editors.

Look for "The Dancer Horse" in Crab Creek Review 2011, Vol.1, which will be available at the end of May.

Congratulations, Hal!