New Issues Reading: Jaswinder Bolina and Mandy Keifetz: Spring 2013 Gwen Frostic Reading Series

Join us for the final reading of the Spring 2013 Gwen Frostic Reading Series, co-sponsored by New Issues Poetry & Prose. We're honored to have two New Issues authors read their work: poet Jaswinder Bolina and fiction writer Mandy Keifetz. The reading will take place this Thursday, April 11th, at the WMU Bernhard Center room 208-209, starting at 8:00 PM. We look forward to seeing you there.

New Issues Authors Kevin Fenton and Rachel Eliza Griffiths Read Their Work: Spring 2012 Gwen Frostic Reading Series

We welcome you to join us for our second reading of the Spring 2012 Gwen Frostic Reading Series. We're honored to have poet Rachel Eliza Griffiths and fiction writer Kevin Fenton read their work this Thursday, February 2nd. The reading will take place at the WMU Bernhard Center, in room 157-158, starting at 8:00 PM. We look forward to seeing you there. This reading is co-sponsored by New Issues Poetry & Prose.

New Issues Event Sunday, August 28

New Issues Poetry & Prose SUMMER 2011

In This Issue About Us 2011 New Issues Poetry Prize Book of the Year Award About Us New Issues was established in 1996 by poet Herbert S. Scott.    Winner of the 2011 New Issues Poetry Prize Andrew Allport has won the 2011 New Issues Poetry Prize for his manuscript the body | of space | in the shape of the human. David Wojahn, author of World Tree, judged. Andrew wins a $2,000 award and publication of his manuscript in the spring of 2012

Dear Friends, Can you believe it's been 15 years? By the end of this year New Issues will have published 135 books, and we couldn't have done it without you. Come celebrate this anniversary, and help us show appreciation for all of the hard work and dedication put forth by our departing Managing Editor, Marianne Swierenga. The event will take place at Bell's Brewery, 355 E. Kalamazoo Ave. on Sunday, August 28 from 2:30 pm-5:00pm. We'll feature readings by novelists Jaimy Gordon & Bonnie Jo Campbell, and poets Susanna Childress & Lizzie Hutton. A $5.00 donation will be requested; as a non-profit we greatly appreciate your generosity! Sincerely, Kimberly Kolbe New Issues Poetry & Prose Fall releases from New Issues by Susanna Childress andLizzie Hutton will be available for pre-order. Susanna Childress writes at the cutting edge of the long tradition of love poetry. Her poems often involve tense negotiations between a sharp cultural intelligence and a body that craves its fulfillment. She writes with grace about love and lust, and she unfailingly delivers rhythmic and linguistic pleasures to her lucky readers as they follow the course of these inquisitive, unpredictable poems. --Billy Collins Here's a poet whose intelligence and imagination value truth above any of its enemies: comfort, decoration, lovely music, the blurring of the line between the personal and the human. The poems feel emotionally and intellectually spontaneous, as if we were present at their coming-into-being, a genuine writer-reader intimacy that's hard to achieve at any stage, let alone in a first book. The poems about childhood and adolescence are among the most powerful I've ever read. Tough, sexy, probing, tender, devoid of sentimentality, fiercely intelligent, and always a step ahead of the reader, She'd Waited Millennia is an important debut. --Chase Twichell Translation by Jaimy Gordon It's not just a dog's life-it's a pig-cow-rat's life. In this deftly executed allegorical novel, Beig (Lost Weddings) gives an episodic, animal-centered account of the life of a young woman in rural Germany between the two world wars. Brief chapters-"Horse," "Cat," "Pig," etc.-recount the protagonist's less-than-idyllic encounters with the natural world. At birth, Hermine resembles a mutant horse; at school, she finds herself unable to write the assigned essay "Hurray, We're Slaughtering!" As a young teacher, she inadvertently causes the injury of a pupil during a spirited game based on a bear hunt, and she maims a badger with her motorbike. Disowned by her family for killing their pet goose, she is even scolded by her husband: "No one can have an animal with you around." Granted, "some days Hermine liked well enough," but most days she loses her battle with the bestiary. . . .This earthy, unsentimental novel is the perfect holiday gift for nihilists with a sense of humor. --Publisher's Weekly It would be too bad if, because of Campbell's realistic style and ferocious attention to her setting, "Once Upon a River" were discounted as merely a fine example of American regionalism. It is, rather, an excellent American parable about the consequences of our favorite ideal, freedom. --Jane Smiley, The New York Times  Our titles are available online through Amazon.com and spdbooks.org.

Save the date

Last year's event was a success thanks to your support!

Dear colleagues:

I'm happy to announce that New Issues Press will hold its third fundraiser / party at Bell's Brewery August 28, 2:30-5. We will be celebrating the 15th anniversary of the press. We'll also be showing our gratitude to Marianne Swierenga, who has stepped down as Managing Editor. Readers will include upcoming New Issues Authors Susanna Childress and Lizzie Hutton, with special guest Jaimy Gordon. The reading will last 45-50 minutes.

Please mark the date of this auspicious occasion! We look forward to seeing you and bringing in the new school year with good cheer and good writing.

All best,

Bill Olsen

New Issues Novel Wins Book of the Year Award

Goldie Goldbloom's novel Toads' Museum of Freaks and Wonders (New Issues Press, 2010) has won the gold from ForeWord Reviews.

Winners of the Book of the Year Award from ForeWord Reviews represent the best independently published books from 2010 and were selected by a panel of librarian and bookseller judges.

Book of the Year 2010 Winners in Fiction - Literary Category

* Gold: Toads' Museum of Freaks and Wonders by Goldie Goldbloom
* Silver: Lord of Misrule by Jaimy Gordon
* Bronze: John Doe No. 2 and the Dreamland Motel by Kenneth Womack
* Honorable Mention: Journey to Virginland: Epistle I by Armen Melikian

The Poets in Print Reading Series

The Poets in Print Reading Series at the Kalamazoo Book Arts Center Welcomes poets Hadara Bar-Nadav and L.S. Klatt on Saturday, March 12, 7 to 9 p.m.

Hadara Bar-Nadav's first book of poetry A Glass of Milk to Kiss Goodnight (Margie/Intuit House, 2007) won the Margie Book Prize. Her second book The Frame Called Ruin is due out from New Issues in 2012. She is an Assistant Professor of English at the University of Missouri-Kansas City.
www.hadarabarnadav.com

L. S. Klatt's poetry has appeared recently in the Cincinnati Review, Boston Review, and Drunken Boat. His new collection, Cloud of Ink, was awarded the Iowa Poetry Prize and will be published by the University of Iowa Press this coming March. His first book, Interloper, won the 2008 Juniper Prize.

MLive: Interview: Poet L.S. Klatt discusses his work, crossing the 'frontiers of consciousness'

New Issues @ AWP 2011: A Report

Editor Bill Olsen, Nancy Eimers,
and NIPP Poet Lisa Lewis

Like many of our brethren from the Midwest, we barely made it to Washington DC. Who knew that the storm of the century would dump over a foot of snow on us right before we were supposed to fly out of Kalamazoo? But we made it, if a little later than anticipated.

AWP was a crazy whirlwind as usual, but we are always excited to see so many of our authors face-to-face. We hosted book signings at the New Issues bookfair table for Lisa Lewis, Keith Ekiss, Beckian Fritz Goldberg, Judy Halebsky, and Kevin Fenton.

Kevin Fenton @ the AWP
Award Series reading

On Friday Kevin Fenton read from his novel Merit Badges as part of the AWP Award Series reading. Managing Editor Marianne Swierenga introduced him and Kevin read from his chapter titled "Climbing." Bradley Paul also read. His second book was selected by Jean Valentine in the poetry category and published by Pitt, but we still claim him as a New Issues poet since The Obvious won our first book prize. So New Issues was well represented at the Award Series reading.

NIPP poet Peter Covino
visits Table A22

The New Issues table was always busy and we received so many compliments on our books. Situated right next to the Prague Summer Program in the bookfair, we got to see Margaret von Steinen in action, speaking to hundreds of perspective students.

On Saturday there was a tribute to the beloved poet Jack Myers, led my Mark Cox, who edited a forthcoming collection by Jack that we are publishing in the spring.

With thousands of poets, writers, publishers, students and faculty attending, we were in great company. Next year, AWP is in Chicago. Road trip?

New Issues Publication Wins GLCA Award

Toads' Museum of Freaks and Wonders is part of the AWP Award Series in the Novel, published by New Issues Press at WMU. Goldbloom's novel was selected for the series by Joanna Scott.

Goldie Goldbloom's novel Toads’ Museum of Freaks and Wonders has won the 2011 GLCA New Writers Award for Fiction from the Great Lakes Colleges Association. Winning writers receive invitations to visit GLCA member colleges, where they give readings, meet and talk about writing with students and faculty members.

The GLCA judges noted:

This novel includes stunning descriptions of place; it is interestingly grounded in the historical billeting of Italian soldiers in the Australian outback during the Second World War. Its characters are both quirky and well-grounded, and their many eccentricities make the novel both distinctive and compelling.

More information:
Toads' Museum of Freaks and Wonders
Goldie Goldbloom

Fall Titles from New Issues

New Issues Poetry & Prose published three new books of poetry this fall:

Reliquary Fever: New and Selected Poems by Beckian Fritz Goldberg
Pima Road Notebook by Keith Ekiss
Vivisect by Lisa Lewis

Check out www.wmich.edu/newissues for more info

Mark your calendars: Beckian Fritz Goldberg will be reading at WMU on Thursday, November 4th.

New Issues Poet Wins Academy Fellowship

Khaled Mattawa, author of Tocqueville (New Issues, 2010), has been named the recipient of the 2010 Academy Fellowship from the Academy of American Poets.

The Fellowship is awarded once a year to a poet for distinguished poetic achievement and provides a stipend of $25,000.

Previous recipients include Li-Young Lee, Gwendolyn Brooks, W. S. Merwin, and James Wright.

Khaled Mattawa will be honored at the fourth annual Poets Forum, October 28-30, in New York City. They will read from their work at the Poets Awards Ceremony and be part of intimate panel discussions on contemporary poetry presented by the Academy of American Poets. (from the press release)

New Issues Event This Sunday

Everyone is invited to join us this Sunday, August 29th, 2 to 6 p.m. at Bell's Eccentric Cafe, 355 E. Kalamazoo Ave., for the second annual New Issues Fundraiser, a Celebration of Kalamazoo Poetry.  A $5 donation will be requested at the door. Support a small press!

Poetry reading begins at 3 p.m. Poets participating will include Rob Haight, Linda Nemec Foster, Phillip Sterling, Conrad Hilberry, Di Seuss, Adam Clay, Richard Katrovas, Arnie Johnston, Jennifer Sweeney, Chad Sweeney, Denise Miller, Nancy Eimers, Daneen Wardrop, Susan Ramsey, Elizabeth Kerlikowske, Denise Miller, John Rybicki, Gail Martin, and Lynn Pattison.

Check out the latest publications from New Issues. Eat cookies. Drink delicious, locally-brewed beer. Listen to Joe Gross play music. See the amazing talent we have here in Kalamazoo.


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New Issues Launches Redesigned Website

New Issues spent the last year redesigning and updating their large and heavily-visited website. Alex Aivars, Coordinator of the Web for the College of Arts and Sciences provided the design and structure. Laura Zawistowski and Shana Wolstein, Spring 2010 interns, and Marianne Swierenga, Managing Editor, transfered and updated all the information to the new site.

Visit the site for recent contest results or to investigate the new titles for fall. www.wmich.edu/newissues

New Issues listed as one of "15 Feisty Small Presses"

Anis Shivani, writer for The Huffington Post, featured New Issues Press in his recent article, "Independence Day: 15 Feisty Small Presses And The Books You're Going To Want From Them" Visit the site and vote to put New Issues in the top 5.

Editor William Olsen:

"The mainstream publishing houses can't begin to represent all of the best emerging poetry and literary fiction. Our press looks to find voices uncategorized by pressures of prestige or expectation. There is no other way except through small presses for these voices to be heard and to endure in their initial splendor."

New Issues Press Poetry Title Wins National Award

Zero at the Bone (New Issues, 2009), the debut poetry collection by Stacie Cassarino has won the Audre Lorde Award for Lesbian Poetry from the Publishing Triangle. The other finalists were Kristin Naca's Bird Eating Bird (Harper Perennial) and Lee Ann Roripaugh's On the Cusp of a Dangerous Year (Southern Illinois University Press).

The winners were announced at the 22nd annual Triangle Awards, April 29, 2010, at the New School in NYC.

In 2009, Elaine Sexton's Causeway (New Issues, 2008) was a finalist for the same award.

Buy Zero at the Bone:
Amazon.com | spdbooks.org

New Issues Awarded MCACA Grant

New Issues Press of Western Michigan University has been awarded a grant for $7,500 from the Michigan Council for Arts and Cultural Affairs (MCACA). The grant will support the promotion of Michigan poets published by New Issues.

The Michigan Council for Arts and Cultural Affairs serves to encourage,  develop and facilitate an enriched environment of artistic, creative,  cultural activity in Michigan. 


03/31/2010 - The Michigan Council for Arts and Cultural  Affairs Announces Statewide Grants

• Read  the Announcement  
• Review  the Funding by County Report 

New Issues Press Reading: Thursday March 25

The Gwen Frostic Reading Series of Western Michigan University proudly presents the New Issues Press Reading, featuring poets Donald Platt and Malinda Markham.

Thursday, March 25th, 8 p.m.

WMU's Bernhard Center, Rooms 105-107

Malinda Markham is the author of Having Cut the Sparrow's Heart, winner of the 2009 Green Rose Prize. She received an MFA from the University of Iowa Writers’ Workshop and a Ph.D. from the University of Denver. After teaching full-time in the Linguistics Department at Daito Bunka University in Tokyo for several years, she won a Blakemore Fellowship to attend Stanford University’s Inter-University Center for Japanese Language Studies in Yokohama, Japan. Her first book of poems, Ninety-five Nights of Listening, won the Bread Loaf Bakeless Prize and was published by Houghton-Mifflin. Her poetry has appeared in journals such as Conjunctions, Colorado Review,  Paris Review, Volt, Fence, and Antioch Review and has been included in The Iowa Anthology of New American Poetries and Deep Travel. She has also published translations of post-war and contemporary Japanese women’s poetry. She lives in New York and works as a Japanese-to-English financial translator.

"In a masterful work of startling possibilities, Markham layers gleaming phrases into a testimony to the world’s particularities, which she reveals as also, paradoxically, eternal. Nothing here is limited by history, but instead attains the kind of simultaneity that drives myth. And like myth, her world is populated by creatures that mean, irreducibly, only themselves. Her ready attention to animals and birds is indicative of a compassion that demands of the world an inventive intelligence, and offers it one in return." —Cole Swensen

Donald Platt is a professor of English at Purdue University. He is the author of Dirt Angles (New Issues, 2009). His first two collections, Fresh Peaches, Fireworks, and Guns and Cloud Atlas, were published by Purdue University Press as winners of the Verna Emery Poetry Prize. His third book, My Father Says Grace, was published by the University of Arkansas Press. He is a recipient of the “Discovery”/The Nation Prize, a fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Center for Book Arts’ Poetry Chapbook Prize, and two Pushcart Prizes. His poems have appeared in many magazines and journals, including The New Republic, Nation, Paris Review, Poetry, Kenyon Review, Georgia Review, Virginia Quarterly Review, Field, Iowa Review, Southwest Review, and Southern Review, and have been anthologized in The Best American Poetry 2000 and 2006. He lives with his wife, the poet Dana Roeser, and their two daughters in West Lafayette, Indiana.

"Donald Platt’s aptly titled and arresting fourth collection of poems, Dirt Angels, examines how we exist in states of physical disrepair, decay, and disability: the world’s transience exhibited in the slow degradation of our very consciousness and flesh."—Paisley Rekdal

"Poets in Print" Reading Series at the Kalamazoo Book Arts Center -- Featuring David Dodd Lee and Mary Ann Samyn

New Issues Poets David Dodd Lee and Mary Ann Samyn will present readings from their work on Saturday, March 13,2010 at 7 p.m. Broadsides featuring the poet's work will be created by KBAC artists. The broadsides and other works by the poets will be available during the event for sale and signing. Broadsides from other "Poets in Print" events and other book arts creations are also available for sale. This event is free and refreshments are served. Doors open at 6:30.


David Dodd Lee is the author of The Nervous Filaments (2010, Four Way Books), a book of Ashbery erasure poems, which is forthcoming from Blazevox, and Orphan, Indiana, which is forthcoming from U. of Akron Press. His four other books of poetry include: Downsides of Fish Culture (1997, New Issues), Arrow Pointing North (2002), and Abrupt Rural (2004, New Issues).

Mary Ann Samyn is the author of several collections of poetry, including Beauty Breaks In (New Issues, 2009) and The Boom of a Small Cannon (Dancing Girl Press, 2010). She teaches in the MFA program at West Virginia University where she is also the Bolton Professor for Teaching and Mentoring.

The Poets in Print Reading Series
Kalamazoo Book Arts Center
Suite 103A, Park Trades Center
326 W. Kalamazoo Avenue
Kalamazoo, MI 49007

Winner of the 2010 Green Rose Prize from New Issues

The Editors of New Issues Poetry & Prose are pleased to announce the winner of the 2010 Green Rose Prize: Seth Abramson for his manuscript Northerners. Seth wins a $2,000 award and publication of his manuscript in the spring of 2011.

Seth Abramson is the author of The Suburban Ecstasies (Ghost Road Press, 2009) and winner of the 2008 J. Howard and Barbara M.J. Wood Prize from Poetry. His poems have recently appeared in Best New Poets 2008, Poetry, The American Poetry Review, New American Writing, Colorado Review, Gulf Coast, Crazyhorse, and elsewhere. A graduate of Harvard Law School and a former public defender, he received an MFA from the University of Iowa Writers' Workshop in 2009 and is currently a doctoral candidate in English at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Up to three finalists (still under consideration) will also be accepted for publication in the Green Rose Series.

The Green Rose Prize is awarded to an author who has previously published at least one full-length book of poems. Winners are chosen by the editors of New Issues Press. Guidelines are available on the New Issues website.

Happy New Year from New Issues

2009 was a fantastic year for New Issues and our authors. We started off 2009 by announcing that Malinda Markham won the 2009 Green Rose Prize and that Marvin Bell picked Judy Halebsky's Sky=Empty as the winner of our first book prize. These books are at the printer and will be released this spring, just in time for the 2010 AWP Bookfair in Denver.


We published seven books of poetry and one novel:

• Zero at the Bone by Stacie Cassarino
• A Million in Prizes by Justin Marks, Winner of the 2008 New Issues Poetry Prize
• Dirt Angels by Donald Platt
• Hilarity by Patty Seyburn, Winner of the 2008 Green Rose Prize
• Talking Diamonds by Linda Nemec Foster
• Missing Her by Claudia Keelan
• Beauty Breaks In by Mary Ann Samyn
• We Agreed to Meet Just Here by Scott Blackwood, Winner of the 2007 AWP Award for the Novel

Here are some of the highlights of 2009:

Myronn Hardy’s The Headless Saints won the 2009 Hurston/Wright Legacy Award from the The Zora Neale Hurston/Richard Wright Foundation.

Jericho Brown's book Please continues to heap up honors. Most recently, he was named a winner of the 30th Annual American Book Awards, a rare if not exceptional accomplishment for a writer of a first book, placing him this year alongside such national treasures as Jack Spicer and Linda Gregg. Jericho Brown also received the 2009 Whiting Writers’ Award. Please, released in October of 2008, has become a New Issues best seller, needing to be reprinted twice already.

Katie Peterson (This One Tree, 2007) and Jericho Brown (Please, 2008) each were awarded a Bunting Fellowship from the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard University and are spending the 2009/2010 academic year at Harvard working on their poetry.

Justin Mark’s A Million in Prizes (Winner of the 2008 New Issues Poetry Prize) was featured in Poets & Writers’ fifth annual Debut Poets Roundup.

Sandra Beasley, whose debut poetry collection Theories of Falling won our 2007 New Issues Poetry Prize, had her second book of poetry (I Was the Jukebox, Norton, April 2010) chosen by Joy Harjo as the winner of the 2009 Barnard Women Poets Prize and her memoir (Don't Kill the Birthday Girl) purchased by Crown Publishing Group, a division of Random House, for a 2010 publication.

Our first annual Fundraiser Gala exceed our expectations. The Eccentric Café of Kalamazoo’s own Bell’s Brewery hosted the event, which brought many of our authors, friends, and supporters together for an afternoon of music, poetry, and art auctions.

On Deck for 2010:

In a few weeks we expect to announce the winner of the 2010 Green Rose Prize. In April, judge Linda Gregerson will pick a first book to win our 2010 New Issues Poetry Prize.

February: Toads’ Museum of Freaks and Wonders by Goldie Goldbloom will be released. This novel, winner of the 2008 AWP Award for the Novel, selected by Joanna Scott, is set in the Australian outback during WWII and introduces us to the character of Gin Toad, a truly original voice.

We'll see everyone in April at the 2010 AWP Conference and Bookfair. Come by our table for book signings and to see three newly released poetry books:

• Sky=Empty by Judy Halebsky
• Having Cut the Sparrow’s Heart by Malinda Markham
• Tocqueville by Khaled Mattawa

In the fall of 2010, New Issues will publish the following poetry collections:

• Vivisect by Lisa Lewis
• Reliquary Fever: Selected & New Poems by Beckian Fritz Goldberg
• Pima Road Notebook by Keith Ekiss

And check our website in about a month to see a complete redesign.

New Issues Poet Jericho Brown Wins Whiting Award

Congratulations to Jericho Brown, author of the debut poetry collection Please (New Issues, 2008), on receiving a 2009 Whiting Writers' Award, given to recognize emerging writers. "The awards, which are $50,000 each, totaling $500,000, have been given annually since 1985 to writers of exceptional talent and promise in early career." Joan Kane and Jay Hopler also received the award for poetry.

Please, winner of a 2009 American Book Award, is currently in its third printing. -- "Jericho Brown and Salvatore Scibona Among Whiting Award Winners" on the Poets & Writers website.