TW News • Updates • Cool Clicks
TW’s Summer 2011 Issue
“Candy for the Mind: Indulge!”
Launch Date: June 6, 2011
Summertime, and the writing is…easy?
Maybe not, but at least the next issue of Talking Writing will take it a little easy, publishing from June through August. Still, TW won’t be on vacation—so don’t go too far away. Every week, we’ll update the site with entertaining new features. A few highlights:
- Guilty Pleasures: Odes to junk food, sexy books, celebrity mags, croquet
- Interview: Pulitzer Prize-winner Jennifer Egan talks about pitfalls for women writers
- Author Note: Lisa Solod on her exchange of letters with the late Robert B. Parker
- Reviews: Tiger moms, tough guys, house hunters, baseball heroes
- Theme essays: What makes the best food writing so tasty? Do we really care about celebrity chefs? Has food writing become too politically correct?
- Bookmarks: Capsule reviews of favorite cookbooks and food writers.
From "Ultra Immortality," 2002 © Sang-ah Choi; Talking Writing May 2011
Featured Comments for May 2011
Does Self-Published Mean Self-Conscious?
I appreciate your candor about how you got to the decision of self-publishing. I am in the middle of it right now, and my book will be out in August. Frankly, it has been a wonderful experience, and I’ve learned a lot. Getting a late start in life as a writer I just decided I didn’t want to jump through years of hoops and then still suffer years of rejection. If that is vanity, well, okay, but a book comes out of it.” — Amy McVay Abbott
Your insight about ‘figuring out your own way’ seems to be relevant not just to writers but to anyone who strives to do something worthwhile (there’s also something about that attitude which strikes me as a quintessentially American character trait). I’m thinking of Charles Lindbergh—just one example—who knew in the 1920s that it would take a certain type of airplane to fly nonstop from New York to Paris. When it didn’t exist, the 25-year-old found a company that agreed to build it to his specifications. He did all the test flying himself.”
— Ken Hertz
I had no acquaintance with Ms. Woolf’s experience in publishing, nor knowledge of the opening quote to this article. On completion of reading this, I think we would have been great friends—equality is still being sought and women are still being subjugated. Our work on this seems never done.” — Sheila Luecht
I have been re-reading Woolf for a graduate class and find new appreciation for her honesty and fearlessness and sheer intelligence each time I revisit her work.” — Lynn Reed
I preach the concept of ‘shitty first drafts’ to my students. It helps, I think, when they’re struggling to write their nonfiction essays for my course, and they suddenly realize that they can’t find the words for the difficult-to-express.”
— Lorraine Berry
Thanks for putting into such beautiful words why writing is so hard and how we can free ourselves to go ahead and do it anyway.” — Carol Folsom
Submissions Update: Fiction and Theme Essays
Please note that TW will begin publishing bi-monthly in September. Therefore, we’ve revised the submissions calls below [updated July 2011].
We’re looking for great short stories, flash fiction, and creative nonfiction.
Talking Writing also has openings for theme essays and bookmarks in upcoming issues. Theme essays are designed to spark lively conversations about that month’s topic. Bookmarks are short (400 to 800 words) and publish throughout the course of an issue.
George Orwell
September/October 2011: “Why I Write”
For our one-year anniversary issue, we’ll run “Why I Write” essays as bookmarks. Please query us if you’re interested in submitting your own version of “Why I Write” (and consider reading the George Orwell and Joan Didion essays on the topic). Deadline: July 15, 2011.
November/December 2011: Food Writing
For our holiday issue, we’ll enjoy “Eating Words”: gourmet tales, cookbooks, and other food writing. Deadline: September 23, 2011. We’re accepting submissions in these areas:
Click here for TW submissions guidelines and contact information.
TW Author and Artist Announcements
"Big Equilibrium"
© Kathleen Volp
A solo exhibition by TW Art Editor Kathleen Volp opens June 29 at the Bromfield Gallery at 450 Harrison Avenue, Boston. There’s an opening reception on July 8, 5:30-8:00 p.m., and a gallery talk on July 24. For more information, see the Bromfield Gallery website. In addition, Kathleen’s 2007 piece “Flight” has recently been purchased by the New Britain Museum of American Art in Connecticut.
A short story by TW fiction writer David Meischen, “In the Garden,” has been published in Superstition Review, Issue 7, Spring 2011. Another of his stories, “Center Wheel, Balance Wheel, Escape Wheel,” is forthcoming this summer in Prime Number, and David has been chosen as a finalist in the Mainstream Fiction category of the Writers’ League of Texas 2011 Manuscript Contest.
"The Living Past"
© Brian Dettmer
TW artist Brian Dettmer was recently featured on the CBS Evening News: “Artist Makes High-Priced Sculptures from Old Books.” His show, “Altered Books,” at Kinz + Tillou Fine Art Gallery in New York City runs through June 11, 2011.
TW writer Kelcey Parker’s collection of stories For Sale by Owner (Kore Press) won the 2011 Next Generation Indie Book Award in Short Fiction.
In May, TW writer Lynya Floyd’s slideshow story, “17 Health Questions that Could Save Your Life,” published on iVillage. “It’s about the questions you should ask family members to create a comprehensive health history,” Lynya says.
Two articles by TW Contributing Editor Lorraine Berry recently appeared on Salon: “How Getting Divorced Revived My Sex Life” and “No, Female Professors Are Not Ruining College.” Lorraine’s work has also been published in Fictionique and Ithaca College View.
TW writer Ilie Ruby will give a reading on June 9 at 7:30 p.m. at the Concord Public Library in Concord, Massachusetts. She will discuss her 2010 novel The Language of Trees. For more information, see the Concord Public Library website.
TW interviewee Jenn Pozner will present a breakout session—“Media Literacy: Today’s Most Necessary Skill”—on August 5 at the BlogHer summer 2011 conference in San Diego. For more information about the conference, go to BlogHer’11.
TW writer Theresa Williams’s haibun “Memorial Day” appears in Contemporary Haibun 12, an anthology edited by Jim Kacian, Bruce Ross, and Ken Jones. In addition, Parts 1-8 of her prose poem “Letters to a Far Planet” were published in May by The Prose Poem Project.
TW Poetry Editor Carol Dorf’s poems appear in Sin Fronteras and The Mom Egg.
Two one-act plays by TW interviewee Con Chapman have been published by JAC Publishing under the title West of Boston. The plays, “The 5:05″ and “Welcome to Endive,” are about “life in the suburbs,” Con says, adding that the cover art “was drawn by Sage Stossel, editor of the online edition of the Atlantic and a frequent contributor to the Boston Globe op-ed page.”
TW interviewee Laurence Klavan’s short story “Hole in the Ground” will be included in Morpheus Tales’ Urban Horror Special Issue in June. His short story “The Conservative” will also appear in June online in Stickman Review.
Katia Wish
TW writer Nikki Stern has redone her author website. Her 2010 book Because I Say So is now available for the Kindle and Nook.
TW artist Katia Wish reports that she’ll have work in the “Picture This!” exhibit at the Danforth Museum of Art in Framingham, Massachusetts from June 11 to August 7, 2011. Her work also appears in the “Town Hall Walls Exhibit” in Brookline, Massachusetts, through July 2011 (opening reception: June 10). And in May, Katia was interviewed by the Brookline Tab in “Brookline Artist Katia Wish Illustrates Her Point.”
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Talking Writing also accepts exchange ads from literary publications and services. If your venture is a good match for TW, we’ll swap ads for free: You run one of ours in print or online, and we’ll run one of yours.
See TW’s Subscribe/Advertise page for details. You can also contact Gayle Young at gayle@talkingwriting.com
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