Anthology Archives

Posted on November 30, 2024November 30, 2024 by Sarah

Madville’s 2025 Pushcart Prize Nominations

The 2025 Pushcart Prize

Madville has made our nominations for the 2025 Pushcart Prize. The prize will be awarded in several categories for short pieces. It was a hard decision, because we published such amazing work this year. The Pushcart Prize accepts six nominations per small press or magazine and “any combination of poetry, short stories, essays, memoirs or stand-alone excerpts from novels.”

Our editors weighed in on their favorites, and this is what we chose:

“James and Jim Ponder Enough” by Jim Minick from his poetry collection The Intimacy of Spoons (Madville 2024).

“Sorry” by Laura Last from the anthology, Fantastic Imaginary Creatures, edited by Gerry LaFemina (Madville 2024).

“Neighbors Helping Neighbors” by Julie Liddell Whitehead from her linked story collection, Hurricane Baby (Madville 2024).

“Shelley and the Slipping Away” by A. Rooney from the linked story collection, The Lesser Madonnas (Madville 2024).

“The children turn themselves into ICE” by linda ravenswood from her poetry collection, a poem is a house (Madville 2024).

“Bird Call Koan with Glossary” by Yiskah Rosenfeld from her poetry collection, Tasting Flight (Madville 2024).

Posted on March 21, 2024April 7, 2024 by kpdavis

Wild Wind – we know who’s in

Wild Wind: Poems and Stories Inspired by the Songs of Robert Earl Keen

edited by Sandra Johnson Cooper and Ron Cooper, with a preface by Willy Braun of Reckless Kelly

Coming November 19, 2024

This anthology of poems and short stories is an homage to Texas singer/song-writer Robert Earl Keen, who stands in the songwriter/storyteller tradition of Townes Van Zandt, Guy Clark, John Prine, and Keen’s contemporaries Lyle Lovett and James McMurtry. The poems and short stories here are each inspired by Keen’s songs, some expansions of themes of Keen’s songs, others move in creative directions suggested by the characters in his work. Keen’s songs are impressive for their literary sensibility (he was an English major at Texas A&M University) and have influenced many songwriters as well as authors of fiction and poetry.

Contributors:

Preface: Willy Braun
Poetry: Alan Birkelbach – Rick Campbell – Greg Clary – Andy Coat – Rupert Fike – Carl Freeman – Carol Kraus – karla k. morton – Jeff Newberry – Garrison M. Somers
Fiction: Heath Bowen – Michael Cody – Ron Cooper – Sandra Cooper – Patrick Michael Finn – Scott Gould – Donna Wojnar Dzurilla – Bobby Horecka – Patti Meredity
Memoir: Kim Davis
Screenplay: Janna Jones

South Carolina natives Sandra Johnson Cooper and Ron Cooper have lived in Florida since 1988 and have been fans of Robert Earl Keen for nearly as long. They both teach at the College of Central Florida where Sandra specializes in American literature, and Ron specializes in philosophy and world religions.

Posted on October 13, 2023October 13, 2023 by kpdavis

Sticks & Bricks: Stories from the Wrong Side of the Tracks

Cover from The Wrong Side of the Tracks: Stories, formerly known as Sticks and Bricks. Cover shows a girl peering through a chain link fence at boxcars sitting on a siding with graffiti painted on their sides.

So many people have been patiently waiting for news of the selection progress with Sticks & Bricks. At last, the editors, have given us the go-ahead to share a longlist with everyone, with heartfelt apologies because family emergencies intruded, and kept the selection process on hold for too long. We won’t be able to fit all of these into the book, but at least submitters can check this list to see if their submission is still under consideration.

Biographies for the three editors of this anthology, with small thumbnail photos for Luanne Smith, Michael Gills, and T.E. Wilderson

The Longlist (and a name change)

Submitted work for THE WRONG SIDE OF THE TRACKS: STORIES

Hallmark Town—Linda Heuring
A Day In the Life of a Five Year Old Pool Player—Francine Roderiguez
Paquete—Dan Timoskevich
Backyards—Catherine Alexander
All the Lonely People—Alex Stein (lyrics issue)
King of the Lake—Christine Rice
Dogs Always Bark—Melissa Chordas
A White Girl, A Horse, Two Cats and a Dog—Deborah Meltvedt
The Lesser Countries—August Tarrier
Witnesses—April Asbury
Human Statues—Leslie Johnson
Settle—Troy Bernardo
Diorama—Steve Tem
Street Sermon Annie—Vali Hawkins-Mitchell
Gonna Like It in the Jailhouse—Polar Levine
Whatever Happened to the American Dream—Don Robishaw
By the Grace—Gayle Bell (flash fiction)
Jets—R. Louis Fox
Gina and the Werewolf—Hadley Moore
Federico and His Boy—Victoria Ballesteros
Canary—Virginia Pina (pen name Watts)
Private Duties—Madeleine Mysko
The Angel of Lead Belly’s—John Mauk

Solicited Work for THE WRONG SIDE OF THE TRACKS: STORIES

Hunger—Pirette McKamey
Fast Hands, Fast Feet—Maurice Carlos Ruffin
Afterglow—Steph Post
Some Get-Back—Eric Miles Williamson
Leaving Early—Penn Stewart
Grit—Jesse Waters
Hard Shoes—Steve Gutierrez
The Short Story—Steve Gutierrez
Palette—Chavisa Woods
Kitty Rose—Jana Sasser (J.C. Sasser)
Flowchart—Kim Addonizio
Christmas Story of the Golden Cockroach—Ana Castillo
Old Dogs—Bonnie Jo Campbell
Amusement—Joe Haske
TBD—Elizabeth “e.” Stuelke
Tea Training—Zary Fekete (Zaqary)
The Bride Beneath my Bed—Lee Zacharias
TBD—Chavisa Woods
The Main Game—Chris Offutt
Barbie-Q—Sandra Cisneros
TBD—Manual Munoz

Posted on October 12, 2023October 13, 2023 by Kimberly Davis

Fantastic Imaginary Creatures

An Anthology of Contemporary Prose Poems edited by Gerry LaFemina

2023 Acceptances Announced

Anthology publication planned for Spring 2024.

This is the call Gerry LaFemina put out for this anthology:

The prose poem is the literary sphinx, the literary chimera, minotaur, gryphon–part one thing, part another and at their best, they’re magical, mythical. Fantastic Imaginary Creatures seeks to collect the best contemporary prose poems that demonstrate the potentiality and plasticity the form allows, previously published or brand spanking new. We’re not looking for short short stories, but rather work that explores the liminal space between story and lyric, the luminous spark of possibility in the form.

And of the many fine poets who answered Gerry’s call, these are the poets and the poems Gerry selected:

Valerie Bacharach	“Momento Mori”
Ujjvala Bagal-Rahn	“Just Enough House”
Ned Balbo	“O Christmas Tree,” and “That Which We Discard We Also Cherish”
Madeleine Barnes	“Key Rock,” and “Self Portrait in My Mother’s Closing Lines”
Michelle Boczek Evory	“Absolution,” and “Dislocation”
Rick Campbell	“Parable of the Forest Pygmy,” and “Forgetting the Nicene Creed”
Joseph Capista	“Room for Error,” “Myth,” and “Song”
Gary Ciocco	“Being and Becoming”
TS Coody	“Mimesis”
Jim Daniels	“With Apologies to the Tom Tom Club,” and “At Last”
Anthony DiMatteo	“Every Time”
gary fincke	“The Hands”
Jeff Friedman	“Giver of Gifts,” “Terrorists,” and “Lost Memory”
Molly Fuller	“Home Again, Home Again,” and “Tale of the Flopsy Bunny”
Joy Gaines-Friedler	“Daffodils,” “Act 20:14,” “Traveling with the Band,” and “The Children’s Ward”
George Guida	“Trip Wire,” and “The story of a Life”
Luke Hankins	“A Voice out of the Ruins”
Gretchen Heyer	“Pasiphae Answers Questions,” “Missionaries Breakfasted on the Word of God,” and “Jute, Two Inches in Diameter”
Tom Hunley	“My Chili Recipe (An Ars Poetica)” and “Questions for Further Study”
Anna Jacobson	“This is to That”
Peter Johnson	“Vaccination, in the Broadest Sense of the Term,” “Crickets,” and “Nice Socks”
Richard Jordan	“Jesus in the Café,” “With Feathers,” and “Mackerel Day”
Elizabeth Kerlikowske	“At 45th Parallel, Halfway Between the Equator and the North Pole,” and “Tabula Rasa”
Nina Kossman	“Kharkiv”
Gerry LaFemina	“Fantastic Imaginary Creatures,” “Happy Pigs,” and “Bad Medicine”
Joseph Lerner	“The Black Egret”
Geri Lipschultz	“Aphrodite in Manhattan”
Lorette C. Luzajic	“Feathers,” and “January River”
Gary McDowell	“Prose Poem on the Nature of Things; or, Armchair Philosophy,” and “Another Apocalypse”
Kathleen McGookey	“Night Sky with Calculus Worksheet”
Jennifer Militello	“Identifying the Pathogen,” “Dear B,” and “Antidote with Attempts at Diagnosis”
Robert Miltner	“Wolf Dancing,” and “Hopeless”
Erin Murphy	“Ekphrasis,” “Gerunding,” and “Hula Dancer”
kerry neville	“Decade”
Robert Perchan	“The Unselfish Elfins with their Trusty Hammers,” “At Home with Marlboro Jones,” and “The Orgun Box Junkies”
Christine Rhein	“Drone Pilot,” and “Sunday Night Retail”
Jane Satterfield	“Latin 121,” and “Abbreviated Inventory”
Katherine Smith	“Crossword,” and “Quilt”
Joshua Michael Stewart	“Yellow,” and “Book of Love”
Virgil Suárez	“Chinese Weather Balloon”
Matthew Thorburn	“A Hundred Birds,” and “How it Starts”
Eric Torgersen	“My Blindness”
Patricia Valdata	“Mayfly”
Doug Van Gundy	“Sideshow, Barbour County Fairgrounds, 1975,” and “To Join the Circus”
Elinor Ann Walker	“Object Impermanence,” and “Fugue State”
Greg Watson	“Why I Live in a Cold Climate”
Cathy Wittmeyer	“Max Beckmann, Still Life with Fallen Candles, oil on canvas, 1929,” and “Otto Dix, Horse Cadaver, etching & drypoint, 1924”
George Yatchisin	“Leap Year”
Michael T. Young	“Quoting Blake to Mother,” and “Sweaty Palms”

About the editor, Gerry LaFemina

Gerry LaFemina’s flash creative nonfiction essay collection, The Pursuit: A Meditation on Happiness, came out in 2022. His poetry collections include Baby Steps in Doomsday Prepping, The Story of Ash and Little Heretic. His essays on prosody, Palpable Magic, came out in 2015 and Kendall Hunt recently released his textbook, Composing Poetry: A Guide to Writing Poems and Thinking Lyrically.