Contest Winners Announcement
Gazing Grain Press is delighted to announce the results of the 2015 feminist poetry and prose chapbook contests. Judge Natalie Diaz has selected Marisa Crawford as the winner of our 2015 poetry/hybrid contest, and her chapbook Big Brown Bag will be published in September. We’ll have a launch and celebratory reading during Fall for the Book. Judge Amber Sparks has chosen Heidi Czerwiec’s Sweet/Crude as the winner of the 2015 prose/hybrid contest, and her chapbook will be publi
Arisa White Talks Emotional Mapping, Comprehending Trauma, Inclusivity, Intersectionality, & Mor
Sarah Marcus: You are one of the founding editors for HER KIND, an online literary community powered by VIDA: Women in the Literary Arts. The New York Times has said that “since it began several years ago, the VIDA count has been a reliable conversation-starter about gender disparity in the literary world.” How did you get involved with VIDA, and how did this initial blog come to be? Is there overlap in purpose and message with your work as a Kore Biters columnist at Kore Pre
Review: The Apocalyptic Visions of Natalie Diaz: When My Brother was an Aztec
Natalie Diaz
When My Brother Was an Aztec
Copper Canyon Press, 2012
103 pages, $16.00 “And I will strike down upon thee with great vengeance and furious anger those who would attempt to poison and destroy my brothers” – Ezekiel 25:17 What can you do when the world breaks apart? Turn to Natalie Diaz and her debut poetry collection When My Brother was an Aztec, perhaps the most anguished, eloquent, mournful document emerging from American poetry in the past quarter century. W
Lynn Melnick Talks Feminism, VIDA, Please Excuse This Poem, & If I Should Say I Have Hope
Sarah Marcus: You do incredible work on the executive board at VIDA: Women in the Literary Arts, and you focus specifically on Social Media and Outreach. After my year as a VIDA Counter and two years as a Count Coordinator, I think our current literary landscape needs VIDA now more than ever! Can you tell us about how VIDA is changing the way they count? Why is counting so crucial, and how can writers help keep this conversation moving forward? Lynn Melnick: Thank you so much
Chapbook Review: Cecilia Woloch's Earth
Cecilia Woloch
Earth
Two Sylvias Press, 2015
46 pages, $9.90 In Earth, winner of the 2014 Two Sylvias Press Chapbook Prize, Cecilia Woloch focuses on the major movements of life—across continents, between childhood and adulthood, and from life to death—in compelling poems that allow each transition its full measure of significance in a network of shifting pieces. What I appreciate most about these poems is that they are not in a rush. Woloch develops each character, each fa
(Micro)Chapbook (Micro)Review: Jonterri Gadson's Interruptions
Jonterri Gadson
Interruptions
MIEL, 2014
Dimensions: 10cm square (cover), 9cm square (text)
Binding: staple
12 pages, €5.00 Jonterri Gadson’s Interruptions is the second book in MIEL’s microseries of tiny books—at 10x10cm, about the size of a coaster. What Gadson achieves in this miniature space, however, is quite remarkable; MIEL’s goal of publishing “difficult, interesting, intelligent, deeply felt” work is clearly realized here in three poems that press the brevity of
Cynthia Marie Hoffman on Writing Paper Doll Fetus, Feminism, Motherhood, & Place
Sarah Marcus: Firstly, your newest collection, Paper Doll Fetus, from Persea Books is absolutely stunning, strange, and gorgeous in all of the right ways. You give voice to the unborn and you examine the intimacies and intricacies of grief in all of its complexity and messiness. This work is layered, politically aware, and filled with beautiful and uncomfortable imagery. Can you tell us more about this project? What inspired you? What do you hope your reader takes away from t
On the Collaboration of Words and Art
The first time I made a book, I did so with words and art. My second grade teacher asked us to illustrate a story we wrote. She taught us book arts, how to sew pages, bind by stitching, design covers. I bound mine in red checked contact paper to suggest picnic, tablecloth, summer feast. My crayoned cover featured a girl and a bowl of fruit. I think I must have known at that moment that what writers do, is put together books, and that some of the best books are illustrated. I
2015 Contest Judges: Natalie Diaz and Amber Sparks
Dear friends, We're delighted to announce the judges for this year's poetry chapbook contest and our inaugural prose chapbook contest: Natalie Diaz and Amber Sparks. Contest submissions will be open from March 1 through May 15, 2015; you can view the contest guidelines here. Poetry Judge: Natalie Diaz
Natalie Diaz was born and raised in the Fort Mojave Indian Village in Needles, California, on the banks of the Colorado River. She is Mojave and an enrolled member of the Gila
An Interview with Melissa Studdard
Sarah Marcus: Cate Marvin wrote of your stunning debut poetry collection, I Ate the Cosmos for Breakfast (Saint Julian Press), “In so many ways the poems in this book read like paintings, touching and absorbing the light of the known world while fingering the soul until it lifts, trembling.” Which is exactly how these poems made me feel, but I also had the sense that the “known world” was also somehow secret. The poem “In Another Dimension, We Are Making Love” ends with: “Eve