Dear Reader,
Welcome to Issue Eight of The Collagist! Before I send you directly to this newest issue, a handful of announcements:
First, we’re excited to launch the 2010 Collagist Non-Fiction Contest, judged by David McLendon, editor of the literary magazine Unsaid and a former Collagist contributor whose essay “Twisting the Story Into Its Original Twisted Form” appeared in our first issue. Prize money starts at $100 and then climbs upward based on the number of entries received, and the winner (and possibly some finalists) will also be published in our June issue. Please visit the contest page for full details and to enter.
Second, we are moving our submissions process from an email-based process to a submission manager provided by SubMishMash, an impressive startup headed by Michael Fitzgerald. I’m very happy with their system, which they’ve quickly evolved to meet our specific needs and desires. You can find the new submission manager at thecollagist.submishmash.com, where we’ll be waiting anxiously to read your latest and greatest. If you’ve got outstanding submissions that were sent by email, we’re nearly finished responding to those, and I promise we will be in touch soon.
For those of you attending AWP this April, I hope you'll come out and join us Friday night, when The Collagist is teaming up with Barrelhouse, Hobart, and Soft Skull Press for an off-site reading. Starting at 7:30 pm on April 9th, the reading will be held at The Corner Office Bar, directly across from the convention hotel. Hopefully we’ll see you there at the reading, but please also find the time to visit the Dzanc table at the Bookfair and say hi to Dan and I.
In our March 2010 issue, you'll find new fiction by Amanda Goldblatt, Kathryn Scanlan, Michael Stewart, and Andrew R. Touhy, as well as novel excerpts from Elise Blackwell's An Unfinished Score and Maile Chapman's Your Presence is Requested at Suvanto. This month's poetry is provided by Dilruba Ahmed, Hossannah Asuncion, Tommy Blount, and Joan McMillan, and our non-fiction contributor Danielle Vogel covers even more poetry with her essay "The Ductile Body: A Bridge to Exit to Enter," about the work of the poets and writers Melissa Buzzeo and Renee Gladman.
In book reviews, we've got coverage of Eden Springs by Laura Kasischke, Everything Here is the Best Thing Ever by Justin Taylor, and Best European Fiction, edited by Aleksander Hemon. We've also got a review of the now nearly ten-year-old novel The Way the Family Got Away by Michael Kimball, which reviewer John Madera hopes will help restart a conversation about this fine book.
As always, thanks to all of our contributors for letting us publish their fine work. Thanks also to everyone who reads the magazine, everyone who sends us submissions, and of course everyone who takes the time to post about the issue to their blogs, Facebook, or anywhere else. We really appreciate your time and talents, and can't thank you enough for sharing them with us.
Sincerely,
Matt Bell
Editor
The Collagist