April’s Good Stuff

News & new things from/with/about poets & writers in the Porkbelly family.

 

Pray, Pray, Pray by E. Kristin Anderson (cover: Nicci Mechler)

Set the Garden on Fire by Chen Chen (cover: Nicci Mechler)

Love Me, Anyway by Minadora Macheret (cover artist: Sharmon Davidson)

How Darkness Enters a Body by Sarah Nichols

Apples or Pomegranates (cover art: Anita Olivia Koester)

Dry Spell by Patrick Kindig (cover: Nicci Mechler)

Blackbird Whitetail Redhand (cover: Nicci Mechler)

The Girl by Donna Vorreyer (cover image: Alexandra Eldridge)

A Map of the Farm Three Miles from the End of Happy Hollow Road by Amorak Huey (cover image: Alexandra Eldridge)

Found Footage by Maggie Woodward (cover: Nicci Mechler)

Dreamland for Keeps by Sarah Nichols (cover artist: Nicci Mechler)

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Dreamland for Keeps (Porkbelly Press, 2018) & How Darkness Enters a Body (Porkbelly Press, 2018) by Sarah Nichols » @onibaba37

• One of Sarah’s Elizabeth Short poems appears in Drunk Monkeys: “Elizabeth Short Visits the Black Lodge.” Interested in more poems like this? Dreamland for Keeps (Porkbelly Press, 2018) has released this month—it’s a whole chapbook of erasure poems.

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Found Footage (Porkbelly Press, 2018)
by Maggie Woodward

• 5 poems are up at inferior planets!
• Anna Sandy Elrod reviews FOUND FOOTAGE over at Real Pants!

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Set the Garden on Fire (Porkbelly Press, 2015)
by Chen Chen » chenchenwrites.com

• Congratulations to Chen Chen on accepting the 2018 – 2020 Jacob Ziskind Poet-in-Residence at Brandeis University!
• Chen’s “I Invite My Parents to a Dinner Party” up at poem-a-day. You can hear him read it here!
• When I Grow Up, I Want to Be a List of Further Possibilities (BOA Editions) won the Thom Gunn Award for Gay Poetry.

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Love Me, Anyway (Porkbelly Press, 2018)
by Minadora Macheret

• Congratulations to Minadora Macheret on winning the Justin Q. Owens Convention Theme: Creative Writing award from Sigma Tau Delta’s 2018 Convention!

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Apples or Pomegranates (Porkbelly Press, 2017)
by Anita Olivia Koester » anitaoliviakoester.com

• Anita’s manuscript Cartography of Grief was a runner-up in the Dorset Prize (selected by Dana Levin via Tupelo Press).
• “Cartography of a Missing Body” & “Cartography of a Keyhole” (two father poems) in the new issue if Up North Lit.

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Blackbird Whitetail Redhand (Porkbelly Press, 2018)
by Lindsay Lusby » lindsaylusby.com

• Lindsay’s manuscript Catechesis: a postpastoral was a finalist in the Dorset Prize (selected by Dana Levin via Tupelo Press).
• Blackbird Whitetail Redhand was released this month! The chapbook is handbound (Japanese stab binding) and features letterpress covers. » order

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A Map of the Farm Three Miles from the End of Happy Hollow Road (Porkbelly Press, 2016) by Amorak Huey » amorakhuey.net

• “Captain Picard Teaches My Son to Throw a Football” is up at Beech Street Review.
• Congratulations to Amorak Huey for winning the 2018 Vern Rutsala Prize. His book Seducing the Asparagus Queen is due out in late-summer via Cloudbank Books.

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Dry Spell (Porkbelly Press, 2016)
by Patrick Kindig

• Patrick Kindig reads three poems at The Poets Weave.

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The Girl (Porkbelly Press, 2017)
by Donna Vorreyer

• a new piece, “Painting Which is in Fact Not a Sky” is up in Juxtaprose.

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Pray, Pray, Pray: Poems I wrote to Prince in the Middle of the Night (Porkbelly Press, 2015) by E. Kristin Anderson » www.ekristinanderson.com

• A new essay up at Cotton Xenomorph in their manifestos series: “Anderson’s Rules for Writing Found Poetry.”
• EKA’s essay “Everything Could Never Be This Real” is up at Memoir Mixtapes!

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Blackbird Whitetail Redhand // Lindsay Lusby

Blackbird Whitetail Redhand (cover: Nicci Mechler)

Blackbird Whitetail Redhand (by Lindsay Lusby) is a book of chaos, transformation, and all the little possibilities tangled beneath the night clover. It is a simultaneously tumultuous and quiet narrative of bodily autonomy and the sacrifices needed to achieve it. These are poems rattled with the snapping of bear traps and the sharp, tangy bite of an ax kissing the trunk of a tree. Lusby leaves you asking: is she the sweet flesh of the fruit fruit or the sharp teeth? Listen for cloven feet over the thicket. If you catch sight of her, marvel at her mottled heart. Be careful not to make a sound, “she’ll move like scattershot” if you do. (Porkbelly Press, 2018) » more info

excerpt

2018 Chapbooks!

Our complete 2018 line of chapbooks is listed below; we’ve added three chaps to previously selected works. The first two titles are selected from our January pool of submissions, and we’ll also be publishing our first photographic chapbook (Light Experiments).

Says the Forest to the Girl by Sally Rosen Kindred (poetry)

Never Leave the Foot of an Animal Unskinned by Sara Ryan (poetry & CNF)

Light Experiments by Madeleine Barnes (photography)

Dreamland for Keeps by Sarah Nichols (erasure poetry)

Love Me, Anyway by Minadora Macheret (poetry)

Two of our 2017 books were moved to 2018:

Blackbird Whitetail Redhand by Lindsay Lusby (poetry)

Found Footage by Maggie Woodward (erasure poetry)

Congratulations to our new poets & writers & artists!
We can’t wait to work with you to bring your books into the world.

Thank you to everyone who submitted. Thank you for your patience in awaiting our reply—we took a bit longer to read this year than usual. Once again, we were given the pleasure of making some very difficult decisions. We had to say no to some books we’ll be buying when they’re released from other presses. We’re quite sure they’ll be picked up soon.

You can pre-order any combination of three, five, or all of the 2018 line, and we’ll send them as they’re finished on the binding table.

(All of our titles are individually printed, collated, trimmed & bound by hand.)

2017 Chapbook Lineup

Thank you to everyone who sent manuscripts to our 2017 chapbook call, for your patience in our review process, and for your gorgeous poems, essays, and fictions.

This reading period, we’ve selected four works of poetry. We’re excited to welcome these poets to the press family, and so very honored to be part of bringing these titles into the world.

chapbooks

Found Footage by Maggie Woodward

Mexicamericana by Eloisa Amezcua

Blackbird Whitetail Redhand by Lindsay Lusby

Daughter Shaman Sings Blood Anthem by Kristi Carter

notes

M. Brett Gaffney’s Feeding the Dead, a chapbook of poems accepted last year, is scheduled for release later this month.