Call for entries: Open Window literary magazine, issue two

Lori Howe posted this on Facebook:


Open Window is now calling for submissions for Issue 2, which is due out in late April/early May. Our call for this issue is longer than on Issue 1, thankfully. Please send:
up to three poems, unless they are epic-length;
up to 10 pages of fiction or non-fiction;
attachments of original artwork and photography;
a complete bio (if you are uncertain how to structure your bio, please see the bios page on the first Issue of Open Window) with a photograph of yourself as an additional attachment. 

We charge NO reading or submissions fees at Open Window. We do not accept:
rhyming poetry;
children's literature;
erotica;
hate-related writing of any kind;
previously published work of any kind.

Please submit your work to openwindow.howe78@gmail.com by March 12, 2012. If you have any questions, please send a query email to Lori Howe, EIC, Open Window, at the same address. 

2011 John R. Milton Writers' Conference at USD has a real Wyoming flavor

Cody’s Mark Spragg will serve as keynote speaker for the John R. Milton Writers’ Conference at the University of South Dakota October 27-29 in Vermillion, S.D.

Mark Spragg is the author of Where Rivers Change Direction, a memoir that won the 2000 Mountains & Plains Independent Booksellers award, and the novels, The Fruit of Stone, An Unfinished Life, and in 2010, Bone Fire. All four were top-ten Book Sense selections and An Unfinished Life, was chosen by the Rocky Mountain News as the Best Book of 2004. Spragg’s work has been translated into fifteen languages. He lives in Wyoming with his wife, Virginia, with whom he wrote the screenplay for the film version of his novel, An Unfinished Life, starring Robert Redford and Morgan Freeman, and released in 2005.

The three-day literary conference will include readings and book signings by award-winning featured authors, scholarly panel sessions exploring the conference theme of “Outlaw!: Law and (Dis)order in the American West,” as well as creative writing panels and pop culture sessions.  Other conference highlights include a showcase presentation of USD graduate creative writing students, a conference book fair, as well as a poetry slam sponsored by the Vermillion Literary Project at the Muenster University Center pit lounge featuring poet Kristin Naca. 

This year’s visiting featured writers will include Mark Spragg, Sherwin Bitsui, Kristin Naca, Karen Shoemaker, William Trowbridge, and USD visiting writer David Chan, who will give readings and book signings along with permanent USD creative writing faculty Ed Allen and Lee Ann Roripaugh.

The conference features an infusion of talent from Wyoming: Mark Spragg, Cody; Lee Ann Roripaugh, Laramie native; Robert Roripaugh, Wyoming Poet Laureate emeritus; Paul Bergstraesser, Laramie; Val Pexton, Laramie; Julianne Couch, Laramie (now in Ames, Iowa); Meg Lanker, Laramie; Jeran Artery, Cheyenne; and Michael Shay, Cheyenne.

The biennial John R. Milton Writers’ Conference was established in 1998 to celebrate the life and work of University of South Dakota English Professor and South Dakota Review founder John R. Milton.  The conference pays tribute to John R. Milton’s lifelong engagement with and commitment to Western writers and literature.  With respect to this year’s theme of “Outlaw!: Law and (Dis)Order in the American West,” conferees are invited to submit paper and/or panel proposals that consider (but aren’t limited to) some of the following topics: law and (dis)order in Western American literature, history, and culture; law and (dis)order in relationship to broken treaties, obligatory assimilation, as well as post-colonial and/or indigenous studies in American Indian literature, history, and culture; law and (dis)order in the American West with respect to environmental issues and ecocriticism; outlaw as myth and fantasy space in the American West; outlaw as Other; gender outlaws, and/or queering the American West; borders, border crossings, and boundary transgressions; virtual outlaws, and/or outlaws in the “new frontier” of cyber-space; and representations of outlaws and/or law and (dis)order in popular culture (including, but not limited to, HBO’s Deadwood and Joss Whedon’s Firefly, Westerns (both film and television), graphic novels, and science fiction.

This year’s event is sponsored by the College of Arts & Sciences, the Department of English, Barnes & Noble, South Dakota Review, the John R. Milton Endowment and the Wayne S. and Esther M. Knutson Endowment of the USD Foundation, and Mr. and Mrs. Philip A. Riley, Jr., as well as by grants from the South Dakota Humanities Council.

For detailed conference information, please visit http://miltonconference.wordpress.com or contact the Department of English at (605) 677-5229.

Sheridan library one of 65 chosen nationally to host Civil War program

The Sheridan County Fulmer Public Library is one of 65 libraries selected to host a new program entitled "Let's Talk About it: Making Sense of the American Civil War." Here are the details:


The American Library Association (ALA) Public Programs Office and the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) announced that 65 public, academic and community college libraries will receive Let’s Talk About It: Making Sense of the American Civil War reading and discussion program grants. A complete list of the selected libraries is available at www.ala.org/civilwarprograms.


Let’s Talk About It: Making Sense of the American Civil War follows the popular Let’s Talk About It model, which engages participants in discussion of a set of common texts selected by a nationally known scholar for their relevance to a larger, overarching theme. As a part of the grant, the 65 selected libraries will receive:

• A $3,000 grant from NEH to support program-related expenses.
• Fifty sets of three titles:  including “March” by Geraldine Brooks (Penguin, 2006), “Crossroads of Freedom: Antietam” by James McPherson (Oxford University Press, 2002) and a forthcoming Civil War anthology of historical fiction, speeches, diaries, memoirs, biography and short stories, edited by national project scholar Edward L. Ayers and co-published by NEH and ALA.
• Promotional materials, including posters, bookmarks and folders, to support local audience recruitment.
• Training for the library project director at a national workshop, where they will hear from the project scholar, expert librarians and organizers and receive a program planning guide, materials and ideas. As part of the grant,NEH will pay for two nights of lodging in Chicago for the library project director.

Funding for this program was provided by a grant from NEH to the ALA Public Programs Office. Let’s Talk About It: Making Sense of the American Civil War is supported by NEH’s We the People initiative, which aims to stimulate and enhance the teaching, study and understanding of American history and culture.

The ALA Public Programs Office promotes cultural and community programming as an essential part of library service in all types and sizes of libraries. Successful library programming initiatives have included Let’s Talk About It reading and discussion series, traveling exhibitions, film discussion programs, the Great Stories CLUB, LIVE! @ your library and more. Recently, the ALA Public Programs Office developed www.ProgrammingLibrarian.org, an online resource center bringing librarians timely and valuable information to support them in the creation of high-quality cultural programs for their communities. For more information about the ALA Public Programs Office, visit www.ala.org/publicprograms.

Created in 1965 as an independent federal agency, the National Endowment for the Humanities supports learning in history, literature, philosophy and other areas of the humanities.  NEH grants enrich classroom learning, create and preserve knowledge and bring ideas to life through public television, radio, new technologies, exhibitions and programs in libraries, museums and other community places.  Additional information about the National Endowment for the Humanities and its grant programs is available at www.neh.gov.

Call for entries: PEN American Center

The PEN American Center, the U.S. branch of the world’s oldest international literary and human rights organization, annually awards over $100,000 in literary awards, including the $5,000 PEN/Phyllis Naylor Working Writer Fellowship to an author working on a piece of children's or young-adult fiction. This fellowship honors a writer whose work is of high literary caliber, but who may not yet have attracted a broad readership, to pursue long-term or book-length projects that might not otherwise be possible. Eligible writers have two published works and must be nominated by PEN members. Click here for full guidelines and nomination procedures. Deadline Feb. 3.

88 more love poems

Saratoga poet Sophia Puccini's second book of 88 more love poems is out. Titled Il Lupa (iUniverse), part of the dedication is "Love is always wild."

From the book jacket:

The mysteries of the heart continue to intrigue, surprise, and warm the soul of Sophia Puccini--a woman who once dreamed of marrying The Gypsy Kings and running away with flamenco dancers. In her second collection of love poems, PUccinin shares her reflections on love written in both the U.S. and Italy during a three period.

Here is #50:

None of my explanations have satisfied you
I brace myself for my fate
The sun's rotation sprays plasma
Across the universe

I listen to the water laughing all around me
The sky is my dance
And twists the sea into waves
Curling in the light

One hundred million movements of water and sun
The truth I wanted to discuss
Has adapted to magnetic field lines and solitude
And everything keeps moving

Letters about Literature writing contest

First and foremost, LAL is a writing contest for young readers in grades 4 - 12. How has an author's work--novel, nonfiction, poetry--changed your view of the world or yourself? That's the LAL writing challenge. Don't write a book report, we tell our young readers. The author already wrote the book and knows what it is about. What the author does not know is how YOU responded to his or her work. Write about that--your personal reader's response!
We challenge young readers to write a personal letter to an author describing how that author's work changed the readers' view of themselves or their world. Last year, 70,000 young readers entered but of those--just under 150 were from Wyoming children! We think it isn't that the program lacks value or even interest. The numbers from other states convince us that this is a good program. But we do think we may be having trouble getting the word out to the teachers and librarians.

Please go to http://www.lettersaboutliterature.org/ for more information about this program.

There is thousands in prize money to be awarded at the state and national level.

Deadline is December 10, 2010.