say goodbye and say hello

There are changes in the works at Bellingham Review. Editor-in-Chief since 2016, Susanne Paola Antonetta (above) has announced in a Letter from the Editor that Issue 84 will be her final issue in that role.

Stepping up to take the reins of editorship will be poet Jane Wong (below). We congratulate both Susanne and Jane and look forward to the creativity these changes will inspire.

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Susanne Paola Antonetta photo by Jin Kim
Jane Wong photo by Helene Christensen

Cirque and Cirque again

CIRQUE, A Literary Journal for the North Pacific Rim, has just announced two upcoming readings from CIRQUE #23 Volume 12, No. 1.

The first will be on Saturday, June 4, 2022, at 7:00pm, at Kennedy School McMenamins in Portland, Oregon. Readers will include Carey Taylor, Jennifer Dorner, Paul Haeder, Amelia Diaz Ettinger, Sandra Kleven, Dale Champlin, Liz Nakazawa, Connie Soper, Rosemary Lombard, Merna Dyer Skinner, David Rowan, Kelly Lenox, and Leah Stenson.

The second will be on Tuesday, June 7, 2022, at 7:00pm, at Northlake Lutheran Church in Kenmore, Washington. Readers will include Esther Altshul Helfgott, Hamish Todd, Claudia Green, Tamara Sellman, Sandra Kleven, Craig Smith, Alan Weltzien, Lyn Coffin, Cynthia Steele, David Rowan, Mark Burke, Lynda Humphrey, Joel Shavishinsky, and Kristina Marie Boratino. A reception will follow this event.

O, pen, be heard

If you’re interested in getting your work in front of a Cascadia audience, there are plenty of journals currently accepting submissions. While the past two years have disrupted many publications, it’s heartening to see how many are still in business.

This list includes only those that have current deadlines or read submissions year-round (deadlines are listed only if they appear on the journal’s website or submission manager). It does not include contests and, except as noted, is focused primarily on poetry submissions.

• Bracken open through March 17, 2022
• Breathe
• Burnside Review rolling deadline until issue is filled
• Cirque Journal open through March 21, 2022
• CutBank
• High Desert Journal open through April 15, 2022
• Image Journal
• The Inflectionist Review
• Jeopardy Magazine open through March 20, 2022
• Kingfisher Journal open through February 28, 2022
• Monkeybicycle open for submission of stories
• Northwest Review
• The Other Journal open through March 31, 2022
• Pacifica Literary Review
• Pif Magazine
• Poetry Northwest open through March 31, 2022
• PRISM international open through February 28, 2022
• Psaltery & Lyre will open March 1, 2022
• Ricepaper
• Room Magazine open through April 30, 2022
• Shark Reef open through March 31, 2022
• Subjectiv open through March 13, 2022
• Sweet Tree Review open through April 3, 2022
• Typehouse Literary Magazine

Before you submit, read the journal to see if your work is a good fit, read (and follow) the guidelines very carefully, and read your work to make sure it’s ready for prime time.

See the NW lit scene sidebar at right for a more complete list of current and archived journals, etc., in the Cascadia region.

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image

goodbye, Windfall, alas

Since 2002, Windfall: A Journal of Poetry of Place has been a vital print journal emphasizing “poetry which captures the spirit of place as part of the essence of the poem,” with particular focus on the Pacific Northwest. Based in Portland, Oregon, and edited by Bill Siverly and Michael McDowell, Windfall has just announced that the Spring 2022 issue will be its last.

The reasons for stopping are manifold. Some are structural in the nature of little literary magazines. Printing prices go up, and so do postage rates. We have never broken even on any issue in twenty years. Now
the costs have risen above our capacity to absorb them.

Our revenue has also dropped. We have done our best to keep the price of the journal low to keep it accessible. Our subscriber list remains stable but is not growing. COVID also sank a knife into Windfall by eliminating in-person readings and the sales they generated at Broadway Books, as well as most sales at Powell’s and Annie Bloom’s.

We are grateful to Broadway Books, a critical supporter of Windfall over the past fifteen years. Sally McPherson and Kim Bissell appreciated the power of the local in our in-person readings in their welcoming venue. Thanks also to Karin Anna, whose Looking Glass Bookstore featured numerous Windfall readings until its closure in 2011. Thanks to poet Curtis Manley for promoting Windfall in Seattle area bookstores. Special thanks to Sharon Bronzan for providing cover artwork for every issue over the past twenty years. And thanks to all our contributors, subscribers, and other readers.

Windfall has done what we set out to do. We hoped that Windfall could provide a venue for poets to deploy the kind of attention to place that could nudge ecological awareness along. Poetry of place now has the kind of resonance we had hoped for. The poems submitted to and published by Windfall have grown clearly more aware in this regard.

Most unfortunate is the extinction of the print literary magazine. Closing Windfall deprives many poets of a print venue, especially after Hubbub too has closed. But twenty years seems sufficient commitment for the Windfall editors. We have agreed that Windfall could not continue absent the way we have worked as an editorial team. Mandelstam said the people need poetry. They also need some Pegasus to carry it to them. Maybe you.

Submissions to the final issue of Windfall are open until February 1, 2022. Send a poem, and send a word of gratitude for this enduring literary journal.

literary journal webinar

If you’ve ever been curious about the daily functions of a literary journal and how the staff creates relationships with writers, tune in to the free webinar, Curating and Presenting Lasting Literature: WWU’s Bellingham Review.

Offered through a partnership with the College of Humanities and Social Sciences Dean’s Lecture Series and the WWU Alumni, the webinar begins at Noon on Wednesday, March 10, 2021. Moderated by Marc Geisler, Associate Dean of the College of Humanities and Social Sciences, featured speakers are Susanne Paola Antonetta, faculty editor-in chief, Jai Dulani, previous assistant managing editor and MFA graduate, and Stephen Haines, managing editor and MFA candidate.

Registration is required.

More about the Bellingham Review here.

. . . . .
Thanks to Sheila Sondik for the heads up

Willow Springs release party

You’re invited to celebrate the release of Willow Springs 87, which features poetry, fiction, nonfiction, and an interview with Jericho Brown. Founded in 1977 and produced within the The MFA at EWU, Willow Springs is published semi-annually in both print and digital format.

The online release party (free, of course) will be held this Saturday, March 6, 2021, starting at 5:00pm Pacific, on the EWU MFA Visiting Writers Series YouTube channel.

Mini Lit Fair – tomorrow!

The annual print journal Moss has rounded up literary organizations from across Cascadia to present a marathon of poetry, storytelling, and lyrical cinema, tomorrow, Saturday, February 20, 2021. Featured readers include (among many others) Jess Walter, Shelley Wong, Kayla Kumari Upadhyaya, the Cadence: Video Poetry Festival, plus a panel discussion between publication editors and curators.

It’s all free. See the complete details here and register here.

Tuesday launch

The latest edition of Cirque Journal, Volume 11, Number 1, is now published and available in hard copy for purchase and digital, free online.

Tomorrow, Tuesday, December 29, 2020, a free online launch will include seven contributors from this issue as well as readings from the authors of two new Cirque Press books: Sandra Wassilie reading from The Dream that is Childhood and Sean Ulman reading from Seward Soundboard. Join the reading on Zoom at 6:00pm Alaska / 7:00pm Pacific with the passcode 1111.

returning

In the midst of everything, the re-launch of a venerable but long-absent print literary journal may seem unlikely. But in fact, Northwest Review, which first saw publication in 1957 and went on hiatus in 2011, “is in the process of a rebrand, redesign, and relaunch: the journal will resume publication in the Fall.”

We are especially interested in writers and artists working near the artistic frontier of American literature; writers who have previously been rejected by mainstream for-profit publications such as The New Yorker, Harper’s, or The Atlantic, are especially encouraged to submit their work.

Is that you?

still ekphrastic

Poetry projects come and go, so it’s nice to see one that stays. We posted about Visual Verse back in 2017 (see that post here) and as of January 1, 2020, the project is still very much alive. The images posted each month are varied in style and subject, and the resulting online journal is robust and attractive. The guidelines are here. Try it out.