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Help Appalachia

the sun rises over the mountains and clouds

Returning from Appalachia ahead of Hurricane Helene

As I begin to recover from the COVID I brought home with me from my three week trip to Appalachia, I’m finding it hard to discuss all the fun we just had there. I left Asheville last Sunday, September 22, 2024. The weather was fine. I had a near perfect three-day drive home. I got back home Tuesday evening. The storm hit Thursday/Friday. And just like that, those beautiful places I just got to know were devastated. I’m still reeling as I see people’s homes floating down rivers that weren’t there the day before.

I took a lot of sunrise, sunset, and high elevation photos, because for a few days, I stayed in downtown hotels in both Knoxville, Tennessee, and Asheville, North Carolina, which allowed me a birds eye view. I found myself leaping up at all hours to rip the curtains back, ready for some fabulous view. It was my first trip to the Great Smokey Mountains, and I loved every minute of it. I’m glad Linda Parsons made me get out, because I was planning to spend the whole time writing and editing. My one big regret is that I didn’t spend the money to visit the Biltmore Estate.

The situation is so severe around Asheville, in particular, with roads washed out, even whole towns washed away, that it is still hard to communicate with some people. Information from aid organizations is slow percolating, but I’ve been able to find this link to one group who is collecting donations.

Follow this link to a list of needed items with instructions about collection points:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1PTFZz8hOvtCE2k2pUlZhA9wcs7SFtSZLYeNZTCPdZg4/edit?usp=sharing

Here’s the United Way of North Carolina, where you can donate directly to the Hurricane Helene recovery fund. https://www.unitedwaync.org/

For up to date news, and lots more photos post Helene, try this link: https://www.citizen-times.com/picture-gallery/news/local/2024/09/29/asheville-nc-floods-relief-efforts-continue-after-helene-devastation/75441983007

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Midwest Book Review likes The Monosexual

The Monosexual, a novel by Dean Monti. The cover is on a beige, worn looking background with red lettering for the title and author name and blue lettering for a novel. A pattern of red, pink, and blue blobs in the center is meant to represent sushi.

We have a new review of The Monosexual by Midwest Book Review. (Have we mentioned Midwest Book Review lately? We are grateful to them for always supporting small publishers.)

The Monosexual from Madville Publishing is especially and unreservedly recommended for community and college/university Contemporary Literary Fiction collections.

–Clint Travis for Midwest Book Review

The Monosexual by Dean Monti

Madville Publishing
9781956440898, $20.95, PB, 222pp

https://www.amazon.com/Monosexual-Dean-Monti/dp/1956440895

Synopsis:

The Monosexual by novelist Dean Monti is the story of Vincent Cappellini, an obsessed ultra-monogamist who struggles when his relationship with the love of his life abruptly ends. Twice-burned (once in love and once by the sun) Vincent faces a host of challenges to his self-appointed sense of identity. Sunburn, bad sushi, a Sinatra karaoke contest, and the road rage fury of a woman scorned are but a few of the trials Vincent will endure while facing the ultimate test to his monosexuality — a new woman in his life.

Critique:

Through his remarkably distinctive and narrative driven storytelling style, author Dean Monti raises his original and deftly crafted novel to an impressive level of literary excellence with a riveting and fun read for those with an interest in absurdist fiction laced with dark humor. While available for personal reading lists in a digital book format (Kindle, $9.99), The Monosexual from Madville Publishing is especially and unreservedly recommended for community and college/university Contemporary Literary Fiction collections.

Editorial Note:

Dean Monti started writing at age two, but nothing legible until age five. Since then, his fiction has appeared in several literary journals in print and online. His critically-acclaimed novel, The Sweep of the Second Hand, was published by Academy Chicago Publishers and reprinted in paperback by Penguin. In addition to other novels, he is the author of several full-length and one-act plays and has had works staged in Chicago and Norfolk, Virginia. His short story “Why Dogs Don’t Talk” was adapted as a stage play and short film. Additionally, Monti has also taught creative writing at Columbia College in Chicago and at College of DuPage.

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     Arthur Smith Poetry Prize (2024)

appalachian mountains in north carolina

The Arthur Smith Poetry Prize will open again for submissions on June 1, 2024. We find it hard to believe this will already be our fourth such competition. Read more about the Arthur Smith Poetry Prize.


Accepting Submissions June 1 through September 30, 2024.

Winners will be announced in January 2025

Winning poet receives: a $1,000 advance; a standard royalty contract +10 gratis copies of the book when it is completed.

Finalists will also be considered for future publication.

submit

2024  Final Judge:

Allison Joseph is a chocolate skinned woman and in this picture she wears a bright pink sleeveless top. she has a gentle close-lipped smile, and wire-rimmed glasses. Her dark hair is pulled back.She sits in a natural setting with an old stone wall behind her.

Allison Joseph directs the MFA Program in Creative Writing at Southern Illinois University. She serves as poetry editor of Crab Orchard Review, the publisher of No Chair Press, and the director of Writers In Common, a writing conference for writers of all ages and experience levels.

Her poetry collection, Confessions of a Barefaced Woman (Red Hen 2018), was the Gold/First Place Winner in the 2019 Feathered Quill Book Awards poetry category.Her books and chapbooks also include What Keeps Us Here (Ampersand), Soul Train (Carnegie Mellon UP), In Every Seam (University of Pittsburgh Press), Worldly Pleasures (Word Tech Communications), Imitation of Life (Carnegie Mellon UP), Voice: Poems (Mayapple Press), My Father’s Kites (Steel Toe Books), Trace Particles (Backbone Press), Little Epiphanies (NightBallet Press), Mercurial (Mayapple Press), Mortal Rewards (White Violet Press), Multitudes (Word Poetry), The Purpose of Hands (Glass Lyre Press), Double Identity (Singing Bone Press) Corporal Muse (Sibling Rivalry Press) and What Once You Loved (Barefoot Muse Press).

Preliminary Readers:

Shlagha Borah is a woman with Asian features and long dark hair. She wears a spaghetti-string top and a serious expression in this black-and-white photo.

Shlagha Borah (she/her) is from Assam, India. Her work appears or is forthcoming in Cincinnati Review, ANMLY, Salamander, Nashville Review, Florida Review, and elsewhere. She received an MFA in Poetry from the University of Tennessee, Knoxville and is an Editorial Assistant at The Offing. She has received support for her work from Brooklyn Poets, SAFTA, The Hambidge Center, The Peter Bullough Foundation, and the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts. She co-founded Pink Freud, a student-led collective working towards making mental health accessible in India. Find her on Instagram @shlaghab and X @shlaghaborah.

(photo by Rajdeep Kataki)

Edison Jennings lives in Southern Appalachia, working as a Head Start aide and GED tutor. He holds a Virginia Commission for the Arts Fellowship. His poems have appeared in Kenyon Review, Poetry Daily, Rattle, Slate, Southern Review, TriQuarterly, and elsewhere. His book, Intentional Fallacies, is available at Broadstone Books.

(photo from https://www.towncreekpoetry.com/FALL11/EJ_INTERVIEW.htm)

Competition Guidelines

  • Eligibility: We will be happy to receive work by any poet writing in English. Poems published in print or online periodicals, anthologies, or chapbooks may be included, but the manuscript itself must be unpublished. Original work only; translations are ineligible.
  • Format: Minimum of 48 pages. There is no maximum length, but we expect manuscripts not to be much more than 90 pages. Pages should be numbered with no more than one poem per page. Please include a title page with title only, a table of contents, and an acknowledgments page.
  • Simultaneous Submissions: Simultaneous submissions are acceptable. Please notify Madville Publishing immediately if your manuscript is accepted elsewhere.
  • Multiple Submissions: Submission of more than one manuscript is acceptable, but each manuscript must be submitted separately and include a separate entry fee.
  • International Submissions: We accept international submissions.
  •  Revisions: The winner will have the opportunity to revise the manuscript before publication. No revisions will be considered during the reading period.
  • SUBMISSIONS SHOULD BE BLIND. PLEASE DO NOT INCLUDE AUTHOR NAME ANYWHERE ON THE MANUSCRIPT.
  • Entry Fee: $25
  • Deadline: September 30, 2024
  • Winner will be announced January 2025.

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Wild Wind – we know who’s in

Cover for Wild Wind:Poems and Stories Inspired by the Songs of Robert Earl Keen edited by Sandra and Ron cooper with a preface by Willy Braun of Reckless Kelly. The cover shows an abstract, multi-colored painting of a guitar with white lettering superimposed over it.

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.