We're about to announce our complete author list for the upcoming issue, but before we do, let's congratulate our Editor's Choice Winners for the upcoming issue:
Brian Spears, for his poem "Hall Raising" Melanie Haney for her short fiction "The Last Thing Before Dirt" Mike Duran for his essay, "The Ark"
Don't miss out on these, folks. Click over to the store to purchase your subscription , or order a single issue in a few days once Coach has announced presales :)
CNF Anthology Nominations
Each year since 2006, Creative Nonfiction Journal has sponsored an anthology of the best creative nonfiction from the calendar year. Editors of both print and online journals may make nominations from their own publication. Editor Dinty Moore makes selections for the anthology, which will be published by Norton.
I sent off our nominations from Relief a couple of weeks ago, and I did so with great satisfaction. Whether or not they are selected for Best of Creative Nonfiction. Vol. 3, I am so proud to have these essays representing Relief’s work before Dinty and his readers. Two of our three nominations are pieces forthcoming in the next couple of issues. Watch for them. Here’s a sneak peek.
From issue 2.2
“The World I Breathe” by Karen Miedrich-Luo
Coming up in issue 2.3 (August/September)
“Letters Home from Sunshine Mountain” by Jill Noel Kandel
In this week's "Relief Recommends," fiction editor Alan Ackmann talks about one of his favorite places to go on the web, The Brick Testament.
In order to understand this week’s recommendation, you have to understand something about my childhood: I was a blockhead.
I don’t mean that I was a scholastically late-bloomer (unless you count long-division, which still makes me sweat). I mean that I was one of those quiet, bookish kids who also loved Legos, creating whole cities and dramas from those clicking, connective bits of plastic. But for me, it went deeper. I loved the imagination, and the aesthetics of Legos. I loved the idea that so much was possible from something so initially unimpressive. I loved the Rubbermaid bin my grandma gave me for storing blocks, and how it rattled when I took it out of the closet. One of the triumphs of my childhood is when I couldn’t afford to buy the latest pirate themed Lego set, and so I recreated the whole darn ship myself with what I had. And you know what? I’m still pretty proud of that.
Even today, I’m the guy who has old sets in his parent’s basement (“it’s a pretty big basement” I’d say if the subject came up), the guy who whines that contemporary Legos are more like model sets, which destroys the creativity (“we had three red bricks, two yellow bricks, one weird blue brick with eyes, and we liked it!”), and the guy who is somewhat indignant that he just had to add the word “Lego” to his MS Word Dictionary (“Take that you squiggly red line!”).
Of course, I’m also the guy who thinks it’s awesome that Brendan Powell Smith created The Brick Testament.
In case you hadn’t guessed, The Brick Testament (to quote their web-site) is “the largest, most comprehensive illustrated Bible in the world, with over 3,600 illustrations that retell more than 300 stories from The Bible.” And every illustration is made entirely out of Legos. But the point of the website (and its accompanying hardcover books) is not subversive; it “is to give people an increased knowledge of the contents of The Bible in a way that is fun and compelling while remaining true to the text of the scriptures.” What follows, then, is a recreation that is not only accurate, but also splendidly artful.
If you don’t believe me, head on over to the site and check out the mammoth Noah’s Ark, the spectacularly detailed Garden of Eden, or the lavishly rampaging hordes of Gideon. It’s impressive stuff, made even more so by the careful art direction—most camera angles seem precisely chosen, and draw focus to the appropriate parts of the work, whether it is Cain’s snide expression following the murder of his brother, or the forlorn tower of Babel, standing starkly against the horizon once the tribes have been scattered. Such images add resonance, and invite meditation.
That’s also the main advantage to the format. Many Bible stories, in their original versions, are written in a way that is artfully efficient but also rather brisk, so that it becomes easy to race through the details and lose the subtlety. The Brick Testament, by contrast, is leisurely, often progressing at a pace of one illustration per verse (and therefore per page). This may help thwart a reader’s natural inclination to brush through the narrative, and forces a more languid pace. And as one of those people who have difficulty reading in a way not at least partially driven by speed (thank you very much, graduate school) I appreciate anything that makes me slow down.
A few disclaimers: First, I have not looked at the entire site in detail. I’ve been working my way through in Biblical order, am almost to Exodus, and therefore cannot fully vouch for anything beyond that. Second, take the ratings system seriously—stories are noted beforehand if the images contain violence, cursing, sexuality, or nudity (strictly the Lego kind), and these might not fully be for children. After all, these are uncensored stories are from the Bible, and we all know that the Bible can be a pretty brutal book. But then again…if such a thing bothered you, you probably wouldn’t be trolling the waters of Relief, now would you?
Speaking of Relief, we’ll back again next week with a review of Stacy Barton’s short story collection Surviving Nashville. Stacy has previously appeared in Relief, and is also forthcoming in our pages. We love it when nice people do well! Until then, tide yourself over with The Brick Testament. Trust me—it’s well worth your time.
Alan Ackmann, Relief's Fiction Editor, received his MFA in fiction from the University of Arkansas and teaches at DePaul University.His work has appeared or is forthcoming in McSweeney’s Quarterly Concern, Clackamas Literary Review, Louisiana Literature, Ontario Review, and elsewhere. He is a former fiction editor of The Evansville Review and was a Tennessee Williams Scholar at the 2007 Sewanee Writer’s Conference.Find out more at www.alanackmann.com.
After struggling through power outages and problems with internal website “updates,” I’m a little less confidant reporting that we are on target with our August issue. Just to be up front, when the May issue hits your doorstep in July, getting the next issue to you in August—well, we’ll deserve some congratulations at the least. We’re frantically trying to get our ducks back in a row, though, so don’t lose hope! Presales will be available soon :-)
A Note from Susie Wirth:
A few months ago we ran an interview with Paul and Susie Wirth from Relevant Church about their congregation’s 30 Day Sex Challenge series. For those of you who were dying to know more, they’ve written a book about their experiences. Susie dropped us all a note that I’ll share:
Dear Relief,
Our book is finally available. You can read about our story and how the 30 days of intimacy helped save our marriage and how it can help yours. To find out more visit 30daysexchallenge.com.
For those of you still looking for more places to submit your hard-boiled detective story, here's a call for submissions we stumbled upon:
For fiction writers (especially you Diner types) Chicago Overcoat: A Print Anthology
A print anthology, coming in late 2008 Submission Deadline: August 1, 2008
1,000 – 6,000 words No reprints Simultaneous submissions considered
Fill in the Blank: “Hard-boiled detective” meets __________.
More than anything, submissions should focus on noir. Since the term Chicago Overcoat is taken straight from The Big Sleep, the stories in this anthology will be as new and adventurous as its inspiration material was back in the day.
Relief would like to welcome guest blogger Deanna Hershiser as she shares with Relief readers a little about her experiences reading for Relief.
Early in my writing experience I received a gift from an editor who read and rejected my work.
A mother of young children seeking to write between naps and peanut butter sandwiches, I’d begun sending out manuscripts. One article to a Christian parenting magazine remained suspended for months in whatever ether existed at the publishing house, before that dreaded SASE finally appeared in my mailbox with the form letter enclosed. Like an auditioner on stage, I longed to know just what had made those big shots dismiss me.
During the same summer I attended my first writing conference and made an appointment with the parenting magazine’s managing editor. I had nothing new to show him, but I decided to ask questions about processes behind the scenes where he worked. Graciously the editor explained to me that an article must pass before several readers’ eyes and then it might end up in a final editorial meeting, only to receive a “no” decision for various reasons.
“What sort of article did you submit?” the editor asked me. I told him the gist of it.
“Oh, I remember that one,” he said. “We liked the humor. It reached the final decision-making round, but the subject was deemed too controversial.”
I floated away from our appointment. Even though rejected, my words had been read, noticed, and they’d even stirred controversy. What more could a writer desire?
An acceptance, of course, wouldn’t have hurt.
Many years and several “yes” letters from editors later, I’m still curious about what goes on behind and within publishing domains. So I agreed when asked to be a Relief reader, someone who reads submissions as they come in and recommends or doesn’t recommend them to an editor. Already the job reminds me of my limitations—I operate by instinct, not on academic or editorial know-how. Whether or not I like an essay is purely a subjective decision.
But that’s okay with the editors, who always make the final choices. What they get from readers like me is another reaction to each submission, complementing (or creating controversy with) an editor’s point of view. The result is multiple facets to the editing process for every Relief submission.
How does this process benefit you writers toiling over manuscripts, trying to keep PB&J crumbs off your keyboards? For one thing, you can relax a bit. If you’re like me, after submitting you imagine all sorts of malignant perils thwarting your piece’s journey through cyberspace. But once you see on Relief’s RWN that your work has been received, you needn’t obsess over whether your literary progeny will be summarily dismissed, lost, or worse, laughed at.
I find the Relief editors and readers committed to taking care and being genuine with each submission. That doesn’t guarantee anybody’s manuscript an acceptance, but I notice that even when everyone is saying no to somebody’s work, we’re not tromping the rejected piece into the dust. It doesn’t fit, or the writer needs to mature in their craft, or it’s good but enough submissions are better this time that the editors can’t use it.
I can now see why many submitted pieces prove tough to sort out. I’ll read one, thinking, Hmm, starts okay, loses me here, and so on till by the end I’m sure it won’t work. Then I read the next reader’s comment: “Yes! Wonderful!” Or I find myself grinning, laughing, charmed, or moved by another piece, only to see someone comment that it didn’t do anything for them. The positive point in these cases is I’m compelled to go back and read again, to make sure I didn’t blink and miss something critical.
What can you do to ease the process for readers like me, paving the way for a quality read of your material? Start by carefully considering your cover letter. I know, I’ve rushed through them, too, especially when I forgot I had to do that part, because I’m submitting online. Oh, wait! They want something about me to lure them into reading mine first, or liking me before they read. Rest assured your cover doesn’t need to be pushy, because we read through submissions in the order that they arrive. I do like to see a word count; that way I can gauge whether or not I have time to read one more before my rice finishes cooking on the stove. A short message is fine: Here’s my manuscript. Thank you for considering it.
At this stage I don’t need your bio (that will be requested after your piece is accepted). I’d rather not wade through rambling introductions, especially when peppered with typos. I definitely will groan if you tell me this was your Creative Writing class assignment. Not that I've come to think no one should submit to a journal one of their papers from class. I just recognize in such essays I've read (and I remember too well from personal experience) a sense of, Wow, I finished a piece of writing! Sure, a teacher prompted me to do it, but she said it's good, so, let's see, I'll just send it right out for publication!
You’ll do well to become a Relief reader yourself before submitting. In other words, get an issue and read every selection. Take time here on the website studying what the editors say. Ponder what you’re trying to express and decide whether it might fit. If you think your ideas come anywhere close, work on them and send them. Do your simple, genuine best, and I’ll be eager to read it. Deanna Hershiserlearns more all the time about creative nonfiction and hopes to complete enough essays for a memoir she’s calling Deep Water, Bright Mercy. Her second Relief essay will appear in issue 2.3. She comments on various blogs and updates her own at storieshappen.blogspot.com .
Announcing the Editor's Choice Winners 
In this week's "Relief Recommends," fiction editor 
Relief would like to welcome guest blogger Deanna Hershiser as she shares with Relief readers a little about her experiences reading for Relief.
