SR at NonfictionNOW 2015 Flagstaff

Nonfictionow Conference

28th – 31st October 2015, Northern Arizona University, Flagstaff, AZ

NonfictioNOW is a conference where all kinds of nonfiction are celebrated. From long form journalism to the lyric essay, panelists, keynote speakers, readers, and student come together to discuss the craft of writing. Panel topics range from The Beasts Among Us to The Essay as Ruin, from Creative Nonfiction and Cognitive Science to Unusual Foods. For the first time ever, we are hosting a book fair for literary magazines and presses with a special interest in nonfiction, including Superstition Review.

The conference is in its fifth iteration. In 2005, it was first held in Iowa City. In 2012, RMIT hosted the conference in Melbourne, Australia. This has become an international conference devoted to every walk of nonfiction life. Keynote speakers this year include Roxane Gay, Michael Martone, Ander Monson, Maggie Nelson, Brian Doyle, and Tim Flannery with special guests Alison Deming and Joni Tevis.

Nicole Walker of Northern Arizona University is so thrilled to host the conference this year in Flagstaff, Arizona. Not only does she want to show off this great city with its surprisingly excellent restaurants and its mainstay coffee houses but also to showcase Flagstaff’s nearby access to nine National Parks. Since place informs so much about nonfiction writing, it’s important that the conference be hosted in a fascinating one. When writers converge in one, great place, great things happen.

Blurring the Boundaries: Explorations to the Fringes of Nonfiction

B.J. Hollars provides a multifaceted approach to nonfiction that has a direct application to the writing classroom.  Contributions from leading literary nonfiction writers like Michael Martone, Wendy Rawlings, and Dinty Moore make this book a must for any literary nonfiction class.

BlurringBlurring the Boundaries                                              

Explorations to the Fringes of Nonfiction

Edited by B. J. Hollars

Paperback

2013.280  pp.

978-0-8032-3648-6

$30.00

 

Contemporary discussions on nonfiction are often riddled with questions about the boundaries between truth and memory, honesty and artifice, facts and lies.  Just how much truth is in nonfiction?  How much is a lie? Blurring the Boundaries sets out to answer such questions while simultaneously exploring the limits of the form.

This collection features twenty genre-bending essays from today’s most renowned teachers and writers—including original work from Michael Martone, Marcia Aldrich, Dinty W. Moore, Lia Purpura, and Robin Hemley, among others. These essays experiment with structure, style, and subject matter, and each is accompanied by the writer’s personal reflection on the work itself, illuminating his or her struggles along the way. As these innovative writers stretch the limits of genre, they take us with them, offering readers a front-row seat to an ever-evolving form.

Readers also receive a practical approach to craft thanks to the unique writing exercises provided by the writers themselves. Part groundbreaking nonfiction collection, part writing reference, Blurring the Boundaries serves as the ideal book for literary lovers and practitioners of the craft.

B.J. Hollars is an assistant professor of creative writing at the University of Wisconsin–Eau Claire. He is the author of two books of nonfiction, Thirteen Loops: Race, Violence, and the Last Lynching in America and Opening the Doors: The Desegregation of the University of Alabama and the Fight for Civil Rights in Tuscaloosa, as well as a collection of stories, Sightings.

Witness 2015 Print Issue “Trans/lation” is Now Available

Witness - XXVIII.1 - cover front no barcode
The Witness 2015 Print Issue “Trans/lation” is now available.

This issue features an excerpt from “My Struggle:  Book Four” by Karl Ove Knausgaard, translations of “Circe Maia” by Jesse Lee Kercheval,fiction by Stephan Eirik Clark and Peter Orner, poetry by Jehanne Dubrow, nonfiction by Michael Martone, and a good deal more.

Order online at witnessmag.org.

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SRAWP: Spotted, B.J. Hollars & Michael Martone

Superstition Review editors were happy to catch up with B.J. Hollars, Fiction Issue 6, and Michael Martone, Interview Issue 4.

B.J.’s essay “Fifty Ways Of Looking At Tornadoes” is forthcoming in Quarterly West.

Michael’s new book is Four for a Quarter. It is separated into four sections, with each section further divided into four chapterettes. The book returns again and again to its originating number, making chaos comprehensible and mystery out of the most ordinary.

Superstition Review and The Story Prize

The Story Prize, an annual award for books of short fiction, has recently released its 2011 award winners. Three outstanding short story collections were chosen from among a field of 92 books that 60 different publishers or imprints submitted in 2011. With so many worthy entries this year, The Story Prize included an additional list of seven outstanding contenders and 25 noteworthy mentions.

We would like to congratulate all of our SR contributors who made the list:

Issue 3 contributor Edith Pearlman‘s book Binocular Vision was one of the three award winners.

Of the seven finalists, SR has featured Steve Almond and Daniel Orozco in Issue 2.

Issue 2 contributor, Michael Martone from Issue 4.

Caitlin Horrocks, mentioned for her book, This Is Not Your City, will be featured in our upcoming release of Superstition Review Issue 9.

Issue 4 of Superstition Review

We apologize for not announcing it on the blog sooner, but Issue 4 of Superstition Review is up and running!

Brought to you by Fall 2009’s 23 student interns through the B.A. program in Literature, Writing, and Film at the ASU Polytechnic campus, Superstition Review‘s fourth issue features excellent new work from established and emerging artists and writers.

In our Art section, we present work from Christopher Jagmin, Eric Penington, and José Bechara.

For Fiction, we have stories from Allen Kopp, Cary Holladay, Charlotte Holmes, Jen Knox, Juli Henshaw, Karen Brown, Kate Kostelnik, Leslie Epstein, Sherril Jaffe, Sudha Balagopal, and Vytatuas Malesh.

In Interviews, our interns speak with Carol Ann Bassett, Judith Halberstam, Leslie Epstein, Michael Martone, Robert Ekiss, Robin Hemley, Tania Katan, and Wanda Coleman.

We present Nonfiction essays from Anna Viadero, Carol Ann Bassett, Christine Steele, Jo Scott-Coe, Joseph Lombo, Rachel Yoder, Rick Steigelman, and Tania Katan.

Our Poetry section features poems from Aaron Fagan, Barbara Kingsolver, Billy Collins, Deborah Bogen, Emily Ferrara, James Kimbrell, Katherine Soniat, Kathleen Hellen, Keith Ekiss, Kelli Russell Agodon, Richard Bronson, Sarah J. Wangler, Stefanie Silva, and Timothy Liu.

Check it out and enjoy!