Crab Creek Review Blog

Fire On Her Tongue: An eBook Anthology of Contemporary Women's Poetry

2012-01-16T15:17:00.000-08:00

Fire On Her Tongue: An eBook Anthology of Contemporary Women's Poetry is the first electronic collection of poems by women writing today. Poets Kelli Russell Agodon and Annette Spaulding-Convy, Co-Editors of Crab Creek Review and Co-Founders of Two Sylvias Press, have collaborated on this ground-breaking literary project. Featuring over 70 of the most extraordinary poets from a variety of backgrounds and whose ages span from thirteen to ninety-one, Fire On Her Tongue showcases superbly crafted poems exploring the contemporary woman’s experience. Fire On Her Tongue is a unique collection created specifically with eBook readers in mind. This anthology has been entirely produced with a zero-carbon footprint as a “green” way to share today’s most exciting poetry with a larger audience. Fire On Her Tongue is an amazing resource for any reader or student who wants to explore an in-depth selection of work from some of today’s strongest women poets.

Fire On Her Tongue: An eBook Anthology of Contemporary Women's Poetry includes poems by Kim Addonizio, Deborah Ager, Ivy Alvarez, Nin Andrews, Elizabeth Aoki, Elizabeth Austen, Lana Hechtman Ayers, Dorothy Barresi, Judith Barrington, Mary Biddinger, Elizabeth Bradfield, Ronda Broatch, Gloria Burgess, Jill Crammond, Barbara Crooker, Rachel Dacus, Madeline DeFrees, Susan Elbe, Patricia Fargnoli, Annie Finch, Kathleen Flenniken, Rachel Contreni Flynn, Rebecca Foust, Suzanne Frischkorn, Jeannine Hall Gailey, Maya Ganesan, Arielle Greenberg, Kate Greenstreet, Lola Haskins, Eloise Klein Healy, Jane Hirshfield, Erin Coughlin Hollowell, Anna Maria Hong, Holly Hughes, Ann Batchelor Hursey, Luisa A. Igloria, Jill McCabe Johnson, Tina Kelley, Janet Norman Knox, Keetje Kuipers, Dorianne Laux, Jenifer Browne Lawrence, Kate Lebo, Carol Levin, Rebecca Loudon, Erin Malone, Marjorie Manwaring, Frances McCue, Aimee Nezhukumatathil, January Gill O’Neil, Alicia Ostriker, Nancy Pagh, Alison Pelegrin, Susan Rich, Rachel Rose, Natasha Sajé, Peggy Shumaker, Martha Silano, Judith Skillman, Patricia Smith, Ann Spiers, A.E. Stallings, Joannie Kervran Stangeland, Marilyn L. Taylor, Molly Tenenbaum, Ann Tweedy, Nance Van Winckel, Katrina Vandenberg, Sarah Vap, Kary Wayson, Katharine Whitcomb, Wendy Wisner, Rachel Zucker.

To download on Kindle (Amazon): click here.
To download on Nook (Barnes & Noble): click here.
For a PDF copy to read on your laptop: click here and scroll down to the "Buy Now" button.
Also available on iBooks, eBooks.com, and Kobo.

For more information, please visit Two Sylvias Press.

Watch the Book Trailer for Fire On Her Tongue:

Crab Creek Review Announces 2011 Pushcart Prize Nominations & 2011 Editors' Prize

2011-12-31T10:22:00.000-08:00

Each year Crab Creek Review nominates six poets and writers for the Pushcart Prize--the Pushcart winners are part of the Pushcart Prize: Best of the Small Presses series, published annually by W.W. Norton Co., edited by Bill Henderson.

We have nominated the following poets and writers from Crab Creek Review 2011 v.1 and v.2 for the Pushcart Prize:

Hal Ackerman: "The Dancer Horse" (fiction)
Sarah Cohen: "Summer Was Made of Clicks and Hisses" (poetry)
Katrina Hays: "Peaches" (poetry)
Kelley Henry: "Because I Might Need One, Twelve Definitions of Crown" (poetry)
Sonja James: "Never Ask a Cloud to Marry You" (poetry)
Cindy Stewart-Rinier: "Pre-K Pollock" (poetry)

Congratulations to our Pushcart nominees! Thank you for submitting your outstanding work!

***

The Co-Editors of Crab Creek Review (Kelli Russell Agodon and Annette Spaulding-Convy) are awarding the Crab Creek Review 2011 Editors' Prize to Portland, OR poet and MFA student, Cindy Stewart-Rinier, for her poem, "Pre-K Pollock" (2011 v.2). Our annual Editors' Prize is awarded for the best poem, short story, or creative non-fiction essay published by Crab Creek Review in a given year. Congratulations, Cindy!

We would like to thank all of our 2011 contributors for the fantastic work they submitted to us!

Crab Creek Review 2011 v.2 is now available!

2011-12-23T14:09:00.000-08:00

Crab Creek Review 2011 v. 2 features Nin Andrews, Jose Angel Araguz, Anne Barngrover, Scott Blackwell, Karina Borowicz, Erin Byrne, Sarah Cohen, Susan J. Erickson, Lauren Fink, Marie Gauthier, Emily M. Green, Katrina Hays, Sonja James, Kathleen Kirk, Adrian Gibbons Koesters, Michael Lauchlan, Joseph O. Legaspi, Amelia Martens, Lucia Neare, Fernando Perez, Mary Elizabeth Pope, Jenna Rindo, Cindy Stewart-Rinier, Mark Wagenaar, James Valvis, and Maritess Zurbano.

Cover Art: Lullaby Moon VII, April 25, 2009, Green Lake Park, Seattle, WA (performance still) by Lucia Neare. Photographer Credit: Michael Doucett Photography.

Order your copy of Crab Creek Review 2011 v. 2 here. And subscribe!

Crab Creek Review's 2011 Fiction Contest (Sept. 15 - Dec. 15). Contest Judge: Pulitzer Prize nominated, Kim Barnes

2011-10-20T10:00:00.000-07:00

Crab Creek Review's Annual Fiction Contest is now open for submissions!

We are delighted that award winning author, Kim Barnes, has agreed to serve as this year's contest judge.

Kim Barnes is the author of two memoirs and three novels, most recently In the Kingdom of Men, the story of a young American couple living in 1960s Saudi Arabia (Knopf, May, 2012). A Country Called Home, which received the 2009 PEN Center USA Literary Award in Fiction, was named a best book of 2008 by The Washington Post, Kansas City Star, and The Oregonian. She is the recipient of the PEN/Jerard Fund Award for an emerging woman writer of nonfiction, and her first memoir, In the Wilderness, was nominated for the Pulitzer Prize. Her work has appeared in a number of journals and anthologies, including the New York Times, MORE Magazine, O Magazine, Good Housekeeping, Fourth Genre, The Georgia Review, Shenandoah, and the Pushcart Prize anthology. Barnes is a professor of English and teaches writing at the University of Idaho. She lives with her husband, the poet Robert Wrigley, on Moscow Mountain. http://www.uidaho.edu/class/english/kimbarnes

Contest Guidelines:

Original, previously unpublished fiction up to 3,000 words, double spaced
Entry fee: $10
Postmark deadline is Dec. 15, 2011
Winner will receive $150 and publication in Crab Creek Review
All contest submissions will be considered for publication
Check back on our website in January 2012 for contest results
Contest Judge: Kim Barnes

Please visit our Contest page for complete guidelines.

Crab Creek Review @ Northwest Bookfest 2011 (Oct.1 & 2)

2011-09-28T08:34:00.000-07:00

Crab Creek Review will have an exhibitor's table at Northwest Bookfest in Kirkland, WA on October 1st and 2nd. Drop by and chat with us--we'll have our current issue available for purchase as well as back issues at a reduced price, submission information (we accept poetry, fiction, creative nonfiction), subscription information, and we're happy to answer any questions about writing and submitting your work.

Crab Creek Review's own Kelli Russell Agodon, Jeannine Hall Gailey, Susan Rich, and good friend and CCR contributor, Elizabeth Austen, will read at 2 p.m. on Sunday (Northwest Women's Voices, Poetry) in the Peter Kirk Community Center Multipurpose Room.

At 12 p.m. on Sunday, Seattle's Jack Straw Writers (Susan Rich, Curator) will give a reading, featuring Robert Lamirande, Larissa Min, Ann Teplick, Nora Wendl, and Maritess Zurbano (Kirkland Teen Union Building).

Northwest Bookfest has a full schedule of fantastic readings and writing workshops. For more information visit: http://www.northwestbookfest2011.com/program/

Northwest Bookfest 2011
October 1st and 2nd, 10am – 6pm
Peter Kirk Park, 202 Third Street, Kirkland, WA
Over fifty author panels, hundreds of authors, writing and publishing workshops, family programs and more!
FREE!
(suggested $5 donation/$10 per family)
Directions: http://www.northwestbookfest2011.com/directions/

Northwest Bookfest is an amazing opportunity for networking and learning more about writing/publishing. See you there!

Enter Crab Creek Review's 2011 Fiction Contest (Sept. 15 - Dec. 15)

2011-09-17T10:24:00.000-07:00

Crab Creek Review's Annual Fiction Contest is now open for submissions!

Original, previously unpublished fiction up to 3,000 words, double spaced
Entry fee: $10
Postmark deadline is Dec. 15, 2011
Winner will receive $150 and publication in Crab Creek Review
All contest submissions will be considered for publication
Check back on our website in January 2012 for contest results

Please visit our Contest page for complete guidelines.

Crab Creek Review's 2011 Poetry Contest--The Results!

2011-09-13T22:36:00.000-07:00

Thank you to all of the poets who entered Crab Creek Review's 2011 Poetry Contest and special thanks to our wonderful judge, Dorianne Laux and to our poetry editor, Lana Hechtman Ayers.

Winner:

"Widowing" by Laura E. Davis. Dorianne Laux writes, "This poem reminds me of a Ruth Stone poem, both in its subject, and in the simple, precise details that reveal worlds.The irony of "That happy nighttime" the contortion of sadness in "her body a backward question mark", the anti-romantic "stump of a man". I admire the way the poem leaps into a vision of the difficulties of not only writing of grief, but into what could be a definition of grief itself: "curled strings" "bitter taste of an empty hearth", "the foggy hunger of widowing". This poem finishes with a sound image, one that can almost be heard, the subtle, and exquisitely lonely sound of a whiskey glass being lifted and then set back down. Lovely poem."

Honorable Mentions:

"The Contours of the Lake Lost to Cloud" by Jill Osier "is made from careful listening, and such a wonderful unexpected ending." ~Dorianne Laux

"Boundaries" by Claire Zoghb "is a poem that allows the reader access to a large political argument through a domestic and quite personal exchange." ~Dorianne Laux

"Seeing You" by Maya Jewell Zeller "is a visual treat. I loved those 'vertebrae a mouth stacked on a mouth'." ~Dorianne Laux

Finalists:

"Gretel Remembers" by Brent Calderwood
"Fairy Tale" by Rebecca Foust
"Someday My Stomach Will Be a Museum" by Jill Osier
"Love: Sun::" by Ben Purkett
"Relative Identity" by Cindy Steward Rinier
"Elegy/Elk River" by Michael Schmeltzer
"Tautology" by Michael Schmeltzer
"Departure" by John Willson
"Divorce on Mars" by Francine Witte

Congratulations to Laura E. Davis and to all of the Honorable Mentions and Finalists! Look for all of these poems in Crab Creek Review 2012 v. I.

Crab Creek Review is a Media Sponsor for the Seattle Arts & Lectures 2011/2012 Poetry Series

2011-09-01T09:13:00.000-07:00

Crab Creek Review is a Media Sponsor for the Seattle Arts & Lectures Poetry Series (2011-2012). We encourage our Seattle area subscribers and contributors to support SAL’s mission of presenting programs that further the arts and invite cultural dialogue. To learn more about SAL and to purchase tickets to the Poetry Series and other events, please visit their website: http://www.lectures.org/. If you attend the Poetry Series, please stop by the Crab Creek Review table, browse our current issue, and chat with us. We have subscription and submission information available, as well as back issues for sale at a reduced price.

The 2011-2012 SAL Poetry Series:

Oct. 5th: Dorianne Laux

Nov. 6th: Peter Cole, Bill Porter, and Nikolai Popov

Dec. 8th: Terrance Hayes

Feb. 9th: Albert Goldbarth

Mar. 15th: Louise Gluck

Apr. 4th: Troy Jollimore and John Koethe

May 15th: Matthew and Michael Dickman

Hope to see you there!

"Nightfall" by Ben Mann (Cover Art for Crab Creek Review 2011 v.1)

2011-06-07T08:33:00.000-07:00

Painted by Ben Mann in response to the earthquake and tsunami in Japan, Nightfall,(the cover art for our current issue, 2011 v.1), is available for purchase as a print, with all proceeds going to the Red Cross.
As Japan's recent news of natural disaster crossed the airwaves, Bellingham, WA Artist Ben Mann joined the legions of Americans sharing one sentiment: "What can I do?" Mann elected to put his feelings down in paint, specifically wanting to depict the spirit of survival in the wake of devastation. "The black stems honor their citizens either killed or missing. Plum Blossoms, to me, are iconic of Spring and therefore renewal," commented Mann from his Fairhaven Art Studio. He wants to make a difference by thinking globally while working at a grassroots level locally. All proceeds from the sale of this print will be forwarded to Red Cross Aid to Sendai.
You can purchase Mann's print here: http://www.localartistprints.com/nightfall.html
Ben Mann works in the Historic Fairhaven District, making artworks that both depict and impact the local landscape. When he isn't painitng, sketching and meeting with clients, he frequents public elmentary school classrooms. Via the Allied Arts Education Project, Mann presents a 2-hour workshop for students K-6, and is funded to do so through a grant from the Washington State Arts Commission. Bridging one's passion and one's livelihood is never a simple task, but Mann has relished the challenge. "I convey to kids that I went into commercial art not to get rich, but because I simply wanted to make art everyday! Consequently I paint all week long, and still reach enthusiastically for my sketchbook on the weekends."

Order a copy of the current issue of Crab Creek Review here: http://www.crabcreekreview.org/subscrb.htm
The poets and writers in 2011 v.1: Hal Ackerman (fiction contest winner), Cameron Aveson (poetry contest winner), Mary Jo Balistreri, Michelle Brittan, Dennis Caswell, Todd Davis (interview), Mark DeCarteret, Deborah H. Doolittle, Mark Doty (interview), Ken Fifer, Matthew Guenette, Kelley Henry, Sky Joiner, Valarie Jonas, Mary Julia Klimenko, Dorianne Laux, Ben Mann (cover artist), Frank Matagrano, Claire McQuerry, Greg Nicholl, Hannah Oberman-Breindel, Doug Ramspeck, Bethany Reid, Susan Sample, Tina Schumann, Linda Strever, Jeanne Wagner, John Whalen, Monica Woelfel, Mabel Yu, and Jody A. Zorgdrager.

Crab Creek Review 2011 Vol.I--out in May

2011-05-11T09:01:00.000-07:00

Crab Creek Review 2011 Vol.I will be available at the end of May! The poets and writers in this issue: Hal Ackerman (fiction contest winner), Cameron Aveson (poetry contest winner), Mary Jo Balistreri, Michelle Brittan, Dennis Caswell, Todd Davis (interview), Mark DeCarteret, Deborah H. Doolittle, Mark Doty (interview), Ken Fifer, Matthew Guenette, Kelley Henry, Sky Joiner, Valarie Jonas, Mary Julia Klimenko, Dorianne Laux, Ben Mann (cover artist), Frank Matagrano, Claire McQuerry, Greg Nicholl, Hannah Oberman-Breindel, Doug Ramspeck, Bethany Reid, Susan Sample, Tina Schumann, Linda Strever, Jeanne Wagner, John Whalen, Monica Woelfel, Mabel Yu, and Jody A. Zorgdrager.

From the Editors' Note: In this issue, we peek behind the doors of two incredible poets, Mark Doty and Todd Davis, to see what their own writing worlds are made from. We find Martha Silano in a Kelley Henry poem about crowns, Gerald Stern and Leonardo da Vinci in a poem about a parachute, and Emily Dickinson appearing in a couple of places in the issue. We also celebrate the winners and finalists of our fiction and poetry contests...

Order Crab Creek Review 2011 Vol.I here--http://www.crabcreekreview.org/subscrb.htm

Thank you for supporting our literary journal!

Midge Raymond Discusses the Importance of Putting Some Space & Time Between You & Your Writing

2011-04-12T05:25:00.000-07:00

Author Midge Raymond

I am thrilled to introduce our guest blogger (and past contributor) at Crab Creek Review, Midge Raymond.

Her book, Forgetting English is being rereleased today! Check out the link below for your own copy. You will not be disappointed.

And now, to her Guest Blogger post below---

By Midge Raymond, Author of Forgetting English

Absence makes the heart grow fonder … of your own writing

I've always been the type of writer who loves revision. (I know: I’m a little insane.) But think of it this way: As much as most of us dread revision, if you were given the choice between a blank page and a work in progress, which would you choose?

For me, there's no contest; I’ll choose the work in progress over the blank page any day.

Lately, though, as I’ve begun to approach an old project after a long time away, I’ve found myself somewhere in between: I’ve got words on the page (a whole lot of words), but I am realizing that most of them must go. I've literally written hundreds of pages, and very few of them will make it into my next version. It’s a little sad—but at the same time, I’m learning that it’s also pretty great.

Why? Because as I begin to delve into the story again, as I get reacquainted with my characters, I can now see that all this work I'm going to “throw away” is probably the most important work I’ve done. I know my characters inside and out, even though in this next version they may appear on the page more or less often than I envisioned, or from a different point of view. (There’s also a character who now wants to be a bigger part of the story, and who am I to say no?) I’ve always known where the story is going to take place, and so in that sense I’ve already done my research—so the next time I sit down to write, my scenes will flow a little more smoothly, without having to constantly interrupt myself to look something up, or call someone for information, or set up an interview.

Most of us writers can always use a little time away from our work—and yet often we're so eager to finish something that we often neglect to take this precious time. (Or am I the only one?) Fortunately, I’d been forced to take some time away from this project, giving me this new perspective that I needed—it’s almost like getting sick and being forced to get the rest you've needed for a long time, rather than planning that vacation weekend you know you need but can’t give yourself permission to take.

So I've instituted a new policy for my writing self: to file away each first draft and let it spend a little time in its room. So far, this has accomplished not one goal but at least two: 1) I'll get time and space away from the project so I can return to it with fresh eyes; and 2) it forces me to begin something new rather than rewrite, edit, and fret over a piece that needs an objective eye.

Next, I’ll need a strategy for what to do with all those story beginnings. But I’ll save that for another guest post.

Happy writing!

You can find Midge Raymond at her website: http://www.midgeraymond.com/

On her blog: http://www.midgeraymond.com/blog/

And info about her book can be found here: http://www.press53.com/BioMidgeRaymond.html

Or buy her book from Amazon here: Forgetting English

BIO:

Midge Raymond's short-story collection,Forgetting English, received the Spokane Prize for Short Fiction. Her stories have appeared inTriQuarterly, American Literary Review, Indiana Review, North American Review, Bellevue Literary Review, the Los Angeles Times magazine, and many other publications. Her work has been nominated for three Pushcart Prizes and received an Artist Trust/Washington State Arts Commission Fellowship.

Midge taught communication writing at Boston University for six years, and she has taught creative writing at Boston's Grub Street Writers and Seattle'sRichard Hugo House. While living in Southern California, she held writing workshops and seminars at San Diego Writers, Ink, where she also served as vice president of the board of directors.

Midge lives and writes in the Pacific Northwest.

Two Beautiful Books Received here at Crab Creek Review

2011-03-17T20:40:00.000-07:00

The chapbook-- Only as a Body by Jessica Young (Bateau Press)

and the full collection

Before I Came Home Naked by Christina Olson (Spire Press, Inc)

Both lovely inside and out. Support your indie presses! And support your poets!

Congratulations Foreword Book Finalists!

2011-03-17T20:31:00.000-07:00

Co-Editor Kelli Russell Agodon's Letters From the Emily Dickinson Room (White Pine Press Poetry Prize), Editorial Board & Guest Editor Susan Rich's The Alchemist's Kitchen and contributor Rebecca Foust's All That Gorgeous Pitiless Song and God, Seed are all finalists in the Foreword Book of the Year Prize for Poetry.

They will find out in June 2011, who the winner will be. Good luck to all three of them!

Crab Creek Review's Annual Poetry Contest--Judge: Dorianne Laux

2011-03-13T13:43:00.000-07:00

Submit now to Crab Creek Review's 2011 Poetry Contest (March 15th-June 30th):
Guest Judge: Dorianne Laux
•Submit up to 5 previously unpublished poems
•Entry fee: $10, check payable to Crab Creek Review
•The winning poet will receive $200 and publication in Crab Creek Review
•All entries will be considered for publication

Please read our complete guidelines here: http://www.crabcreekreview.org/contest.htm

Dorianne Laux’s fourth book of poems, Facts about the Moon, is the recipient of the Oregon Book Award and was short-listed for the Lenore Marshall Poetry Prize. Laux is also author of Awake, What We Carry, finalist for the National Book Critic’s Circle Award, and Smoke, as well as two fine small press editions, Superman: The Chapbook and Dark Charms, both from Red Dragonfly Press. Co-author of The Poet's Companion: A Guide to the Pleasures of Writing Poetry, she’s the recipient of two Best American Poetry Prizes, a Pushcart Prize, two fellowships from The National Endowment for the Arts and a Guggenheim Fellowship. Widely anthologized, her work has appeared in the Best of APR, The Norton Anthology of Contemporary Poetry and The Best of the Net. She and her husband, poet Joseph Millar, moved to Raleigh in 2008 where she teaches poetry in the MFA program at North Carolina State University.

Peter Pereira's Poem on Verse Daily (From Crab Creek Review, 2010 Vol.2)

2011-03-11T15:13:00.000-08:00

Peter Pereira's poem, "Magnolia Blossom," from Crab Creek Review 2010 Vol.2 is featured on Verse Daily today: http://www.versedaily.org/2011/magnoliablossom.shtml "Magnolia Blossom" is part of 2010 Vol.2's special Ekphrastic Section, guest edited by Susan Rich, who put out a call for poems inspired by other art forms. Peter's poem is inspired by Imogen Cunningham's 1925 photograph, Magnolia Blossom.

About his poem, Peter writes, “Magnolia Blossom” was written for the Seattle Art Museum’s monthly reading series SAM-Word, for which I was asked to respond to an exhibit of Imogen Cunningham’s photography. She was part of a group of photographers called Group f/64. The term f/64 refers to the smallest aperture setting on a large format camera. It allows for maximum depth of field, rendering a photograph evenly sharp from foreground to background. These photographs possess an amazing purity of image, and clarity of detail. In an interview Imogen Cunningham gave before her death, referring to her work she said, “In order to make a good photograph you have to be enthusiastic, that is you have to think about it, like a poet would . . .” I hope Imogen would like what this poet thought about, responding to her images.

Peter Pereira’s most recent books are What’s Written on the Body (Copper Canyon 2007) and Saying the World (Copper Canyon 2003). Recent poems have appeared in New England Review, Prairie Schooner, and the anthology Looking Together: Writers on Art. Peter is also on the Advisory Board of Crab Creek Review.

Crab Creek Review Announces Fiction Contest Winner: Hal Ackerman

2011-03-09T08:41:00.000-08:00

Western Washington University professor and author, Kathryn Trueblood, has chosen "The Dancer Horse" by Hal Ackerman as the winner of Crab Creek Review's Annual Fiction Contest.

Hal Ackerman has been on the faculty of the UCLA School of Theater, Film and Television since 1985 and is currently co-area head of the screenwriting program. His book, Write Screenplays That Sell…The Ackerman Way, is in its third printing, and is the text of choice in a growing number of screenwriting programs around the country. He has had numerous short stories published in literary journals over the past two years, including North Dakota Review, New Millennium Writings, Southeast Review, The Pinch, Storyglossia, Passages and The Yalobusha Review. His short Story, “Roof Garden” won the Warren Adler 2008 award for fiction and is published by Kindle. “Alfalfa,” was included in the anthology, I Wanna Be Sedated…30 Writers on Parenting Teenagers. Among the twenty-nine “other writers” were Louise Erdrich, Dave Barry, Anna Quindlen, Roz Chast, and Barbara Kingsolver. “Walk Through” is among Southeast Review’s World’s Best Short Shorts of 2010. Ackerman's non-fiction baseball memoir, “Talk To The Stars” appears in the 15th anniversary issue of Sports Literate. His play, TESTOSTERONE: How Prostate Cancer Made A Man of Me, won the William Saroyan Centennial Prize for drama and enjoyed a successful run in Los Angeles and has been performed nationwide for Prostate support groups. Ackerman's first novel, STEIN, STONED (www.tyrusbooks.com) was published in July 2010. STEIN, STUNG is forthcoming in late spring of 2011.

About his winning short story, "The Dancer Horse," Ackerman writes, "The race track is a great place to watch fate unfold. Everyone believes the story and judgment of their lives is playing out in the results of the next race. The best part is watching people watch the TV replay and hoping the result might be different." Fiction Contest Judge, Kathryn Trueblood, writes, "The story ("The Dancer Horse") introduces a richly idiosyncratic voice and the prose is percussive. The rhythm of the race track pervades but there are many kinds of urgency at work here. The story surprises the reader the way our own emotions often do, surfacing suddenly."

Special thanks to our judge, Kathryn Trueblood, Associate Professor of English at Western Washington University and award winning author. And, thank you to Jen Betterley and Nancy Canyon, Crab Creek Review's fiction editors.

Look for "The Dancer Horse" in Crab Creek Review 2011, Vol.1, which will be available at the end of May.

Congratulations, Hal!

Crab Creek Review is a "Fine Arts Sponsor" for Local High School

2011-02-24T10:32:00.000-08:00

Crab Creek Review's good friend, Marilyn Liden Bode, (the cover artist for our Fall/Winter '08 issue and local community arts activist) has invited us to become corporate sponsors for the Fine Arts programs at our high school here in Kingston, WA. Because of Washington State's severe budget cuts, funding for these programs will be impacted. Here are two excerpts from FAB's introductory letter:

The fine arts programs at KHS (Kingston High School) have created a Fine Arts Booster group (FAB). The purpose of this booster group is to advocate and fundraise for all the fine arts at KHS including band, choir, drama, visual and media arts and debate.

FAB is currently fundraising for ongoing band expenses, fees for auditorium use for drama, entrance fees for Debate tournaments and FAB senior scholarships. Your support will also help us to demonstrate to the school district the value our community places on the arts in our school.

It is odd to think of our literary journal as a "corporate sponsor" since we are a non-profit that also struggles for funding through donations/sponsorship, but because we want to be active in our community in support of artists, we are both willing and pleased to donate to keep the fine arts programs afloat at our local high school. Several of us on the Crab Creek Review staff are mothers of past students, current students, and future students of Kingston High School and we highly value the school's music, drama, and visual arts departments.

Thank you for your commitment to the arts and to our students, FAB, and best of luck with your fundraising!

Kingston High School Marching Band performing in Portland, OR

Crab Creek Review on NewPages.com

2011-01-23T10:52:00.000-08:00

Crab Creek Review has been reviewed by David Morck for NewPages.com. It's a fantastic review of our journal! Thank you, NewPages! http://www.newpages.com/literary-magazine-reviews/2011-01-15/

Crab Creek Review
Volume 23 Number 2 2010
Biannual

Review by David Morck

After winning a year’s subscription during last year’s National Poetry Day, I discovered the joy of the Crab Creek Review. What had drawn me into past issues was the range of voices, both from experienced writers and fresh, emerging writers. There has always been a certain charm to the pieces selected, whether their tone leans towards the more serious or whimsical, and this issue is no exception.

The biggest standout in the second issue for 2010 is the section entitled Beyond Ekphrasis: Poems of the Musical, Mathematical, and Visual in which Crab Creek Review’s first guest editor Susan Rich pulled from “over fifteen hundred poems submitted by more than four hundred poets from three different continents,” “work inspired by photography, sculpture, music, film and even a mathematical equation.” One of the exceptional pieces inspired by art in this section is a poem called “The Plague Doctor” by Peter Pereira based on a 1656 engraving entitled “Doktor Schabel von Rom” by Paul Fürst. The engraving is included above the poem and lends itself to the poem’s dark and mystical force. The poem begins:

Brow shadowed by a black
wide-brimmed hat, he swings
his wooden cane to part the swarm
of flies crawling your motionless body,
prods you with the cane’s tip
to measure your response.

The word choice in the poem is exquisitely brutal, offering images of “erupting pustules”, “flea-infested straw”, “pungence repelling pungence,” and the pitch-perfect ending leaves an enduring image of:

Its two oval sockets lensed in red glass
as if to warn you—how scavenger birds
always begin with the eyes.

Other poems that are worthy of mention within the section on ekphrasis are “Prelude” by Valerie Nieman, based on a photograph of Rosa Parks getting her fingerprints taken, and a heart-rending look at youth and strength in “Patrick Swayze” by Casey Fuller, highlighting the promise of Hollywood vigor, about the actor, who unfortunately fell victim to cancer last year.

For those that are animal aficionados, there seems to be a strong motif of animals throughout many of this issue’s poems. One particularly enjoyable poem, although perhaps light in its content, is Anita K. Boyle’s “Time with Cats,” which is a very charming piece, and echoes the epigraph from Colette, “Time with cats is never wasted,” in its ending:

The cats have fallen asleep.
One is upside down.
It begins to purr.
This is a day not wasted.

Another enjoyable piece is “My Pet Chicken” by James Bertolino, in which there is a recall of having a pet chicken killed because of fencing that was:

…high enough
to keep my chicken in, but not
strong enough to keep the neighbor’s
German Shepherd from knocking
them down

The reflection in the ending of this carefully constructed piece is beautifully done:

…Disappointed
I hadn’t built a better pen for my bird,
I didn’t blame that dog, and decided
to try pigeons next. I knew they could fly
away when molested.

There is no lack of truly well-constructed poetry within this issue, and as well the fiction is strong, especially Midge Raymond’s “Two Lies and a Truth,” which plays off of the game of telling someone two lies and one truth, then guessing which is which, and speaks deeply to the nature of friendship and what truth really entails.

Overall, this issue of Crab Creek Review is successful in capturing your attention, interest, and imagination, and is a worthy addition to anyone’s reading schedule.

[www.crabcreekreview.org/]

Crab Creek Review at the Seattle Arts & Lectures Poetry Series

2011-01-21T09:19:00.000-08:00

Crab Creek Review is now a Media Sponsor of the Seattle Arts & Lectures Poetry Series at Benaroya Hall. At last night's reading (with Olympia poet and Pulitzer nominee, Lucia Perillo), we sold our journal in the lobby along with fellow SAL sponsors Poetry Northwest, Copper Canyon Press, and Open Books. Look for us at the following 2011 Poetry Series events:

Feb. 15: Patricia Smith
Mar. 15: Marie Howe
Apr. 14: Brian Turner, Major Jackson, and Susan Rich (our own Crab Creek Review Advisory Board Member!)
May 22: Billy Collins

We encourage our Seattle area subscribers and contributors to support SAL’s mission of presenting programs that further the arts and invite cultural dialogue. To learn more about SAL and to purchase tickets to the Poetry Series and other events, please visit their website: http://www.lectures.org./

Crab Creek Review Announces 2010 Pushcart Nominations and Editors' Prize

2010-11-30T20:02:00.000-08:00

*
Crab Creek Review has nominated the following poets and writers for the 2010 Pushcart Prize:

Fiction:
Two Lies and a Truth by Midge Raymond, 2010 Vol 2
Live Model by Laura Maylene Walter, 2010 Vol 2

Poetry:
Not Love by Rachel Mehl, 2010 Vol I
Inherited Music by Michael Schmeltzer, 2010 Vol 2
Girl Walking in Wallace, Idaho by Tim Sherry, 2010 Vol I
The Aprons of Adam and Eve by Molly Tenenbaum, 2010 Vol I

Congratulations to our nominees!

The Co-Editors of Crab Creek Review (Kelli Russell Agodon and Annette Spaulding-Convy) are awarding the Crab Creek Review 2010 Editors' Prize to Seattle poet, musician, and teacher, Molly Tenenbaum, for her poem, The Aprons of Adam and Eve (2010 Vol I). Our annual Editors' Prize is awarded for the best poem, short story, or creative non-fiction essay published by Crab Creek Review in a given year.

Congratulations, Molly!

*

Crab Creek Review 2010 Vol.2 Now Available!

2010-11-06T14:51:00.000-07:00

2010 Vol.2 features new work from John M. Anderson, Deborah Bauer, James Bertolino, Anita K. Boyle, John Davis, Tracy DeBrincat, Alice Derry, Hilary Vaughn Dobel, Paul Fisher, Rebecca J. Foust, Matthew Guenette, Joe Haferbecker, Jeff Hardin, Michael Kriesel, Joanne Lowery, John McKay, Kevin Miller, Matt Mulder, Fernando Perez, Midge Raymond, Michael Schmeltzer, Tina Schumann, Britton Shurley, Martha Silano, Ann Spiers, David Stallings, Joannie Kervran Stangeland, Sara Tracey, James Valvis, Rebecca van Laer, Laura Van Prooyen, David Wagoner, Laura Maylene Walter, and Yim Tan Wong.
2010 Vol.2 also features a special section of poetry, Beyond Ekphrasis, guest edited by Susan Rich. Beyond Ekphrasis contains poems based on other art forms and features new work from Lavonne J. Adams, Emily Bedard, Patricia Fargnoli, Kerri French, Casey Fuller, Erin Malone, Anne McDuffie, Valerie Nieman, Mary Peelen, Peter Pereira, Ellie Rogers, and Ann Teplick.
Cover Art: See Food? by Joanne Schoener Scott.
An excerpt from our Editors' Note:
It is late October here, writes Britton Shurley in his poem, “To James Wright” (p.54). It is late October here on Puget Sound, and though the big leaf maples are turning brown, we haven’t had our first, hard frost, yet. Welcome to Crab Creek Review, 2010 Vol. 2, an issue which several of our editors have described as “quirky,” “dark and light” and “ultimately life affirming.” This past year we have had a noticeable increase in submissions, and for our editorial staff this has brought excitement and some late nights. The poetry and fiction in this issue is both captivating and unique and these particular submissions jumped out at us from the bundles of strong writing that we received...
Order 2010 Vol.2 here and consider subscribing to Crab Creek Review!

Crab Creek Review Reading at Elliott Bay Book Co., Seattle

2010-10-16T18:50:00.000-07:00

Please join us on Saturday, Nov. 20th at 3 p.m. for our 2010 Vol.2 launch at Elliott Bay Book Co. in Seattle. The featured readers are well known Seattle area poets whose work appears in our new issue: Erin Malone, Kevin Miller, Peter Pereira, Michael Schmeltzer, and Martha Silano.
Special thanks to Elliott Bay Book Co. for hosting our reading at their new location: 1521 10th Avenue, Seattle, WA.

Hope to see you there for an afternoon of terrific poetry!
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Crab Creek Review 2010 Fiction Contest Judge: Kathryn Trueblood

2010-10-05T10:49:00.000-07:00

We are delighted and honored that Western Washington University professor and writer, Kathryn Trueblood, will be judging our annual Fiction Contest. Kathryn Trueblood is the author of The Baby Lottery, which was a Book Sense Pick in 2007, and The Sperm Donor's Daughter, which received a Special Mention for the Pushcart Prize in 2000. She has co-edited two anthologies of multicultural literature, The Before Columbus Foundation Fiction Anthology: Selections from the American Book Awards with Ishmael Reed and Shawn Wong, (W.W. Norton, 1992); also Homeground, which won the Jurors' Choice Award at the Seattle’s City Arts Festival. Her stories and articles have been published in Poets & Writers Magazine, Rain Taxi Review of Books, Publishers Weekly, The Seattle Weekly, Glimmer Train, and Zyzzyva, among others. She is an Associate Professor of English at Western Washington University.

Crab Creek Review's Fiction Contest: Sept. 15th - Dec. 31, 2010

Original, previously unpublished fiction up to 3,000 words, double spaced.
Please include a $10 entry fee (check made payable to Crab Creek Review) and a SASE.
Postmark deadline is Dec. 31, 2010.
Winner will receive $150 and publication in Crab Creek Review.
All contest submissions will be considered for publication.

Please read our complete guidelines: http://www.crabcreekreview.org/contest.htm

We look forward to reading your work!

Crab Creek Review's Annual Fiction Contest: Sept. 15th - Nov. 30th, 2010

2010-09-04T15:14:00.000-07:00

We encourage both emerging and established fiction writers to submit to our 2010 Fiction Contest. We look forward to reading your work!

SUBMISSION GUIDELINES:

•Original, previously unpublished fiction up to 3,000 words, double spaced.
•Name and contact info must NOT appear on any pages of the fiction piece.
•Please include a cover letter with your name, address, telephone number, email address, and the title of your story with a brief bio.
•Please include a $10 entry fee (check made payable to Crab Creek Review) and a SASE.
•Postmark deadline is Nov. 30th, 2010.
•Mail submissions to:
Crab Creek Review Fiction Contest
c/o 7315 34th Ave NW
Seattle, WA 98117
•Winner will receive $150 and publication in Crab Creek Review.
•All contest submissions will be considered for publication.
•Simultaneous submissions are permitted as long as Crab Creek Review is notified immediately if your work is accepted elsewhere.
•Contest Judge: TBA
http://www.crabcreekreview.org/contest.htm

Crab Creek Review will be at Wordstock: Portland, OR (Oct. 9-10, 2010)

2010-09-04T15:09:00.000-07:00

We are excited to be part of the annual Wordstock Festival this year in Portland! Wordstock is one of the Pacific Northwest's largest book fairs for writers and educators. Crab Creek Review will have a table at the festival with our current issue/past issues for sale and we will have our submission guidelines available as well. Stop by and chat with us!

Co-Editor, Kelli Russell Agodon, and Advisory Board Member, Susan Rich, will have their recently published books available for purchase. Both Kelli and Susan are 2010 Wordstock Festival Authors and are featured readers. Susan's book, The Alchemist's Kitchen, is published by White Pine Press (2010) and Kelli's book, Letters from the Emily Dickinson Room, is also published by White Pine Press (2010) and is the winner of the White Pine Press Poetry Prize.

The Wordstock Book Fair @ the Oregon Convention Center
777 NE MLK Jr Blvd.
Portland, Oregon
10am-6pm
$7 for one day, $10 for two days. Tickets are available at TicketsWest or the door.
Children 13 and under are free.
Saturday, October 9th & Sunday, October 10th, 2010

For More Information: http://www.wordstockfestival.com/

Crab Creek Review Announces 2010 Poetry Contest Winners

2010-07-15T09:12:00.000-07:00

The quality of work submitted was extremely high which made judging very difficult. Our guest judge, Nancy Pagh, commented that she enjoyed every single poem. All sixteen selected finalists will be published. Her choices are:

Winner:
“Finding Randy in Window Creek”— Cameron Aveson

Honorable Mention:
“The Perfect Sentence”—Cameron Aveson
“Chicken Day”—Hannah Oberman-Breindel
“I Would Have Had Some Other Version of You, That’s All”—Valarie Jonas
“Ontology”—Claire McQuerry
“Banishment at Noon”—Tina Schumann

Finalists:
“Bonnard Remembers Marthe in Evening Light”—Mary Jo Balistreri
“Aesop’s Table”—Deborah Doolittle
“The Produce and Me”—Matthew Guenette
“Bootlaces Stay Tight”—Sky Joiner
“Cemetery of Glass”—Greg Nicholl
“Hush”—Susan Sample
“Watching a Gull at Cannon Beach”—Linda Strever
“The Fitting”—Jeanne Wagner
“Don’t Bring Yourself, Just Gifts”—Jody Zorgdrager
“Why So Many Poets Commit Suicide”—Jody Zorgdrager

Congratulations to all of the selected poets. And to all of our participants, keep writing those wonderful poems and thank you for supporting our nonprofit independent literary journal. We greatly appreciate your entries.

Look for all these poems in Crab Creek Review 2011, Vol.I.
And, special thanks to our wonderful poetry editor, Lana Hechtman Ayers.

Crab Creek Review Reading and Editors Panel at Centrum Writers' Conference in Port Townsend, WA (July 21 & 23, 2010)

2010-06-09T09:56:00.000-07:00

Join us on July 23rd at 7:30 p.m. as we celebrate the release of our 2010 Vol.I issue at Fort Worden (Port Townsend) in a joint reading with Willow Springs Literary Magazine. Our featured readers will be poets, Molly Tenenbaum and Peter Munro (both of whom have poems featured in 2010 Vol.I). Special thanks to the Centrum Writers' Conference for hosting us.

About our readers:

Molly Tenenbaum’s books: Now (Bear Star Press, 2007)
and By a Thread (Van West & Co, 2000). Her chapbooks:
Blue Willow, Old Voile, and Story. Her old-time stringband:
The Queen City Bulldogs. Her CD: Instead of a Pony.
Her location: Seattle. Her work: teaching music and
English.

Peter Munro is a fisheries scientist who works in the
Bering Sea, the Aleutian Islands, the Gulf of Alaska, and
Seattle. On-line, he hangs out at Café Blue, a literary
listserv, which can be found at http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/
mailman/listinfo/cafe-blue.

The editors from Crab Creek Review will be participating in a panel about publishing on July 21st from 2-3:30 p.m. at the Centrum Writers' Conference:
Panel Discussion Room D “How to Run a Literary Journal”
Featuring the editors of the Crab Creek Review (Kelli Russell Agodon, Lana Hechtman Ayers, Jen Betterley, and Annette Spaulding-Convy); The Meadow (Lindsay Wilson); and Willow Springs (Sam Ligon); this discussion will center, from an editor’s perspective, on how to successfully curate the most vital and essential sector of the world’s literary venues: the literary journal.

Congrats to Crab Creek Review Fiction Winner: Shann Ray

2010-05-11T19:55:00.000-07:00

Gonzaga U. Professor Shann Ferch Wins Prestigious Nason Bakeless Literary Prize

Shann Ferch’s pen name — (Shann) Ray — is the name he and his mother share. “I write fiction and poetry under my middle name in honor of my Mom,” said Ferch, whose mother and father live in Bozeman, Mont. (Below) is the author with his mother.

SPOKANE, Wash. – Shann Ferch, professor of leadership in Gonzaga University’s Doctoral Program in Leadership Studies, has won the prestigious 2010 Katharine Nason Bakeless Literary Publication Prize, for his collection of short stories entitled: “American Masculine: Montana Stories.”

Read the entire article here. Congrats Shann!

Guest Blogger: Shann Ray

2010-05-11T19:43:00.000-07:00

We are thrilled to have one of favorite fiction writers guest blog for us this week-- Shann Ray, winner of 2009 Crab Creek Review Fiction Prize for this story, Rodin's The Hand of God.

Shann is also a recent winner of the prestigious 2010 Katharine Nason Bakeless Literary Publication Prize, for his collection of short stories entitled: American Masculine: Montana Stories.

Congratulations, Shann!

________________

This Spring, after some long years, news came that brought one of those family moments that speak so clearly to the mystery of life: when it came, my wife and I cried with joy and our three daughters danced. I know many of you are familiar with the many rejections as well as the quiet beauty of the writing life. My first story was taken by South Dakota Review 10 years ago, after 8 years of rejections. Now 18 years later I received a call from Michael Collier, director of the Bread Loaf Writers' Conference and Poetry Editor at Harcourt to say my story collection American Masculine had won the Bakeless Prize and would be published by Graywolf Press. That's what all the tears and dancing were about!

Along the way, there have been some very joyful moments in among the over 400 rejection slips for poems and stories. Of course, writing, or trying to see people with new and compassionate eyes is not about stories being accepted for publication by the journals we love. But when those acceptance letters or emails or phone calls come in it always reminds me of the subtle presence of gratitude in the world. Last fall, when the lovely editors here at Crab Creek Review informed me "Rodin's The Hand of God" had won the CCR Fiction Prize it came when I was personally taking a hard close look at writing as vocation, and doubting if I had the necessary heart for the work. Happily, I'm still searching. Crab Creek Review is an important part of the nexus in the literary arts where poetry and prose intersect, and in this place I think there is strength and comfort for me and others who hope to find life's vitality even in the global uncertainty that often haunts people and nations.

The story taken by Crab Creek Review is one of the central stories in the collection that won the Bakeless Prize and that is a tribute to CCR, especially considering the history of the Bread Loaf Writers' Conference and the Bakeless Prize. Since 1926 the Bread Loaf Writers' Conference has convened every August. The conference, founded by Robert Frost and Willa Cather, brings together established poets and prose writers, editors, and literary agents to work with writers at various stages of their careers. While part of Bread Loaf's reputation was built on the writers associated with it-W. H. Auden, Wallace Stegner, Katherine Anne Porter, Toni Morrison, and Adrienne Rich, to name a few-it has an equally high reputation for finding and supporting writers of promise in the earliest stages of their careers. Eudora Welty, Carson McCullers, Anne Sexton, May Swenson, Russell Banks, Joan Didion, Richard Ford, Julia Alvarez, Carolyn Forché, Linda Pastan, Ellen Bryant Voigt, Andrea Barrett, and Tim O'Brien are some of the poets, novelists, and short story writers who benefited from early associations with Bread Loaf.

Again, gratitude is something that I'm finding it hard to live without. I believe art can give us the opportunity to face despair with longing, forgiveness, responsibility, and the generosity that can be a profound undercurrent even in the complexity and chaos of contemporary life. Van Gogh said, 'The greatest work of art is to love someone.' I agree. An artistic sense of love brings about justice and engenders grace. I believe the artistry involved in truly loving and serving others is inherently imbued with authentic power. In the artists I look to for direction-from van Gogh to Bach, from Alice Walker to Marilynne Robinson-- I believe it is this power that helps heal the heart of the world.

I want to say thanks to the whole Crab Creek Review community for your care and the light you give to me and to many!

~Shann Ray

Bio:
Shann Ray is the winner of the Subterrain Poetry Prize, the Crab Creek Review Fiction Prize, and the Ruminate Short Story Prize. His work has also appeared in Montana Quarterly, Poetry International, South Dakota Review, McSweeney's, Narrative, and StoryQuarterly among other venues. He holds a Ph.D. in systems psychology from the University of Alberta in Canada, an MA in clinical psychology from Pepperdine University, and an MFA in poetry and fiction from the Inland Northwest Center for Writers at Eastern Washington University. He grew up in Montana and spent part of his childhood on the Northern Cheyenne Reservation in southeast Montana. He lives with his wife and three daughters in Spokane, Washington, where he teaches leadership and forgiveness studies at Gonzaga University.

His collection of stories, American Masculine, won the Bakeless Fiction Prize and will appear in 2011 with Graywolf Press.

See Shann's website at www.shannray.com

Crab Creek Review 2010 Vol.I is Now Available

2010-05-11T19:30:00.000-07:00

We are pleased to announce that Crab Creek Review 2010 Vol.I has just been released!

An excerpt from our Editors' Note: As we celebrate National Poetry Month and the creative writing process, we realize how privileged we are as editors to read the diversity of poems and stories received in the mail each week, as varied and intriguing as our April weather. Putting this issue together, we found that we had chosen works covering a wide scope of topics: contemplation of the past, former and present lovers, the surrealistic and fantastical, parenthood, the humorous, rural and urban living, the writing process, springtime and birds, to name a few. This “everything themed” issue is an apt way to begin a new decade as yet undefined, and therefore filled with every possibility. David Wagoner might express it best in his poem, How Birds Feel About Air, “and some carve it like constantly astonishing experts / into shapes ordinarily unimaginable.”
This issue features the work of: Dmitri Avaliani, P.K. Brask, Alex Cigale, Josh Cooper, Sharon Doyle, Rachel Contreni Flynn, Patrick Friesen, Terry Godbey, David Guterson, Jeremy Halinen, Michael Hanner, Jordan, Hartt, Sharon Hashimoto, Deborah Hauser, Niels Hav, Erin Coughlin Hollowell, Michael Johnsen, Robert Kostuck, Kate Lebo, Diane Lockward, George Looney, Brendan McBreen, Rachel Mehl, Natasha Kochicheril Moni, Peter Munro, Justin Petropoulos, Cati Porter, Connie Post, Rahna Reiko Rizzuto, Victor David Sandiego, Emily Scudder, Andrei Sen-Senkov, Tim Sherry, Laura Stott, George Such, Molly Tenenbaum, Natalie Haney Tilghman, David Wagoner, Wendy Wisner, Mark Wisniewski, and Rachel Zitomer.
Cover Art: Memphis Girl, by Rowland Salley.
Order Crab Creek Review 2010 Vol.I here and please consider subscribing to our journal.

Winners!! - From the Great Poetry Book Giveaway!

2010-05-02T21:41:00.000-07:00

Here's the list of winners from our drawing for our poetry prizes -

If you see your name below, please send us an email with your mailing address to crabcreekeditors (a) gmail.com and we'll get your prizes shipped out to you!

Congrats to all and thank you to all who entered!

OUR WINNERS--

Winner of the Crab Creek Review Anniversary Anthology: Sam Boyd

Winner of the current issue: Je' Maverick

Winner of Madeline DeFrees collection: Barry Napier

Winner of the one-year subscription: Ron Lewis

Congratulations to all the winners!

National Poetry Month Giveaway

2010-04-05T19:14:00.000-07:00

Kelli Russell Agodon, the co-editor of Crab Creek Review (with co-editor Annette Spaulding-Convy) has organized a poetry book giveaway for National Poetry Month on her blog, Book of Kells. So how could Crab Creek Review *not* take part in it?

Here's our giveaway for National Poetry Month--

Crab Creek Review is offering 4 chances to win for National Poetry Month.

Here's our giveaway--

1. Our Anniversary Anthology

2. Our current issue with a fantastic interview with Madeline DeFrees and poems by January Gill O'Neil, Alison Pelegrin, Joannie Kervran Stangeland, Jill Crammond Wickham, Tod Marshall, Maya Ganesan, and many others.

3. Seattle Poet and Literary Icon, Madeline DeFrees' Magpie on the Gallows. A first edition copy published by Copper Canyon Press in 1982.

Madeline has just celebrated her 90th birthday and we were honored to include a few of her unpublished poems in our last issue.

4. A One-Year subscription to Crab Creek Review delivered directly to your home!

Go here for more details

To entry this drawing, all we need you to do is leave us a comment below with an email or link so we can get ahold of you if you win to get your mailing address.

You must leave your comment by April 30th, 2010 at 11:59 pm PST to be entered.

We will use the random number generator to choose the four winners on May 1st, 2010.
Good luck to you!

Crab Creek Review 2010 Vol. I due out in April

2010-03-10T15:58:00.000-08:00

We are just beginning the proofing stage of our next issue--CCR 2010 Vol. I, which will be published in April, just in time for National Poetry Month.

2010 Vol. I will feature:

*An interview with author David Guterson (Snow Falling on Cedars) in which he discusses his writing life, specifically his venture from fiction into poetry.

* Two poems by one of the Pacific Northwest's most notable poets, David Wagoner, author of eighteen books of poetry.

* Two poems by award winning poet, Rachel Contreni Flynn, who was a finalist in our 2009 poetry contest.

* Two poems by Seattle poet, teacher, and musician, Molly Tenenbaum, who was the runner-up in our 2009 poetry contest.

* And new poems from Sharon Hashimoto, Natasha Kochicheril Moni, Peter Munro, Jordan Hartt, Erin Coughlin Hollowell, Kate Lebo, Cati Porter, and Wendy Wisner as well as poetry and fiction from some strong emerging writers.

* We will also be featuring the artwork of Rowland Salley (Roly Salley), bass guitarist and vocalist with Chris Isaak's band Silvertone and a Grammy Award winner for his song, Killing the Blues.

Look for Crab Creek Review 2010 Vol. I to be out in April.
If you don't already have a subscription to CCR, please visit our subscriptions page.
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Crab Creek Review's Annual Poetry Contest (Feb.1-May 31) Guest Judge: Nancy Pagh

2010-01-27T08:23:00.000-08:00

Beginning February 1st, we are accepting submissions for our 2010 Poetry Contest!

•Submit up to 5 previously unpublished poems
•Entry fee: $10, check payable to Crab Creek Review
•Deadline for all submissions: May 31, 2010
•The winner will receive $200 and publication in CCR 2010 Vol.II
•All entries will be considered for publication
•Guest Judge: Crab Creek Review Advisory Board member and poet, Nancy Pagh
Please read the complete guidelines on our contest page.

Nancy Pagh is the author of No Sweeter Fat (Autumn House Press, 2007) and After (Floating Bridge Press, 2008), and her poems appear in many publications, including Crab Creek Review, Prairie Schooner, Rattle, Fourth River, The Bellingham Review, O magazine, and When She Named Fire: An Anthology of Contemporary Poems by American Women. She received an Artist Trust fellowship in 2007 and was the 2008 D. H. Lawrence Fellow at the Taos Summer Writers Conference. An enthusiastic performer, she was a featured poet at the Skagit River Poetry Festival and a headliner in the Gist Street Masters Series in Pittsburgh. She has taught workshops at the Whidbey Island Writers Association conference and with the Field’s End program on Bainbridge Island. She currently teaches at Western Washington University. http://www.autumnhouse.org/catalog/no-sweeter-fat-by-nancy-pagh/

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The Writer's Notebook: A time and place for writing (or not) by Midge Raymond

2010-01-24T09:06:00.000-08:00

A time and place for writing (or not)
by
Midge Raymond
www.MidgeRaymond.com

I have several writer friends who write in the morning. In the early hours of the morning. In fact, at least one of them is done with her daily writing around the time I’m getting out of bed. This me feel sort of lazy, as though I’m not a very dedicated writer.

But I’m not a night owl like many writers, either. I used to write simply whenever the mood struck me — and even once I got serious about writing fiction, I never managed to stick with a routine. Eventually I got very anxious about that. It seemed that everywhere I looked, writers were talking about their writing schedules, their dedicated spaces. Having a strict routine, and a writing sanctuary, seemed to be a prerequisite for success.

Then I learned that Raymond Carver wrote “Cathedral” on a train to New York City. And that he used to write in the back seat of his car. This — along with a few other stories from successful writers who admit to having no real schedule — helped me see that the when and where isn’t what’s important. What matters is that you write.

A lot of us become disciplined because we have to: day jobs, kids, and other aspects of Everyday Life force us to set aside that precious time to write. But what happens when you sit down for your Writing Time and absolutely nothing happens? Or if something else comes up that forces you to skip your writing hour(s)? This is when it’s good to have a Plan B.

I’ll admit that my entire writing routine is a Plan B. I still don’t have a set time of day to write, even when I’m in the middle of a project. In a way, this is a good thing: when I’m really into something, I’d never want to limit my writing to a couple hours a day anyway. But when I’m in a more challenging phase — say, that horrible first-draft stage — I have to work harder to stay inspired.

So what I do to keep a project going is to set goals, rather than dates and times. This way, I can be flexible about when and where I write but still get the work done. Some days, I’m able to devote four hours to writing; others days, I’m lucky to write for an hour. When I find myself blocked, I’ll do some research, which doesn’t result in words on the page but nevertheless keeps the project moving forward. If I find that I simply can’t stare at the computer any longer, I’ll take a notebook somewhere — and the change in perspective is almost always illuminating.

A few tips…

Know that you can write anywhere. I wrote my first published short story in a tiny corner of a railroad flat in New York City. When I moved to an even smaller apartment after that (which I didn’t think was possible), I wrote at university libraries. Even if you don’t have enough space at home (and you’d be surprised by how little you need), you can find it somewhere.

Make your writing space a special one. Wherever your writing space is, make it a place you want to be — and one you want to keep returning to. If you’re writing in the tiniest corner of your kitchen table, for example, surround yourself with books. If you’re in a cubby at the library, bring your iPod to tune out noise, or leave the laptop at home and write by hand (as Natalie Goldberg writes: “Arm connected to shoulder, chest, heart”).

Set your own rules and make people follow them. One of my early-morning writer friends put an outgoing message on her voice mail that said, “If you’re calling before 1:00 p.m., this is my writing time. I’ll get back to you after 1:00.” Ask the people in your life to take your writing time as seriously as you do.

Be flexible. Whether you’ve set aside time in the early hours of the morning or the late hours of the night, eventually you’re likely to be struck with some form of writer’s block. You can use this time for extra sleep (the subconscious can do wonders), or simply do something else that’s related, even tangentially, to your work. Research. Read. Watch a film set in the era in which your novel takes place. Listen to the type of music your character listens to. Even these little things can help create a mood that will inspire you and help get you back into the work.

And finally, if you don’t already, carry a notebook. My favorite ideas have come to me in random places, and if I hadn’t written them down, they’d have been lost. And the notebook is a good reminder that no matter where you are, you’re a writer.

_________________

Midge Raymond's short-story collection, Forgetting English (Eastern Washington University Press, 2009), received the Spokane Prize for Short Fiction. Her work has appeared in American Literary Review, Ontario Review, Indiana Review, North American Review, Bellevue Literary Review, Passages North, the Los Angeles Times, and other publications. She is on the editorial board of the literary journal Green Hills Literary Lantern.

You can learn more about Midge and her projects here: www.MidgeRaymond.com

Thank you from Crab Creek Review...

2010-01-21T14:28:00.001-08:00

Make a Smilebox slideshow

Here are some images from our last year at Crab Creek Review. Though the journal has been around for 26 years, last year was our first year as editors (Annette Spaulding-Convy, a fantastic poet whose book will be picked up soon is the other editor). We had to learn a lot and realize just what goes into publishing a literary journal. The first big realization is that "your work is never done." Once we finish an issue, there's another one biting at our heels.

But really, it is so worth it.

It is so worth it opening a folder of poems put together by our wonderful poetry editor, Lana Ayers, and falling in love with someone's writing. I fell in love with a couple poets this morning. I spoke up for their poems.

In so many other places in life, poetry doesn't matter. But in our group, in our pages, it does. We stand up for our favorite poems. There will be a poem overlooked and someone will say, "Wait, that was my favorite" and then it is published. Someone will say, "I love this poem, we have to take it."

And we do.

It's a magical moment. This morning in my living room with Lana & Annette, saying, "We need this poem in our journal." Needing poetry. It's a good place to be on a Thursday morning.

If you're interested in seeing Crab Creek Review for yourself and reading the poets I fall in love with, you can subscribe here.

It's only $15 a year (or 2 years for $28).

And we create a lovely perfect-bound with poems and stories from writers all over the world. It's kind of magical receiving that in your mailbox 2 times a year.

And I'll tell you a secret about the next issue and what it will include-- the first interview I've done for Crab Creek Review with Snow Falling on Cedars author, David Guterson. And poems from Molly Tenenbaum, Rachel Contreni Flynn, Kate Lebo, Cati Porter, and others who will be receiving their acceptances quite soon...

With so many print journals ending because of financial issues, we are so thankful to have such a strong readership that keeps us afloat.

Thank you all for your support of the literary arts and our journal. We so appreciate it! ~

~Kelli

Please note correct email address for Ekphrastic Submissions Series in Crab Creek Review

2010-01-19T09:56:00.000-08:00

The first call for submissions by CRWOPPS had an incorrect email address (it was missing the 7).

To submit poems to Susan Rich, our guest editor, for the Ekphrastic Poem Series, please use this email address:

duende3417 (at) yahoo.com

Sorry about the confusion!

call for Submissions - Crab Creek Review on Ekphrastic Poetry

2010-01-18T15:22:00.001-08:00

Crab Creek Review Call for Submissions
(www.crabcreekreview.org)

We are pleased to have our very first guest editor, Susan Rich, who will be putting together a section of poems for an upcoming issue on the theme of Ekphrastic Poetry.

Here are the details below...

Special Editor's Portfolio edited by Guest Editor, Susan Rich
Theme: Ekphrastic Poetry

We begin with the visual. Ekphrastic poetry is a response in words to a painting, photograph, dance, building, sculpture, Ikea catalogue, child’s drawing, or bumper sticker. An ekphrastic poem begins with inspiration from another piece of art and with the intuitive understanding that art begets art. In a sense, the art object becomes the rough draft of the poem.

We are looking for the best ekphrastic poems, 30-lines (or less) to showcase in an upcoming issue of Crab Creek Review.

For this project, we are accepting email submissions to the email address below. To submit to this special portfolio of ekphrastic poetry, write your name and title of the submission in the subject line and then send your previously unpublished poems in the body of an email to Editor, Susan Rich at: duende3417 (a) yahoo.com

Please send 3-5 poems at the most.
Also, include a short bio and contact info as well.

Deadline is May 31, 2010

The Writer's Notebook featuring Jamie L. Olson, PHD: On Translating Russian Poetry

2009-12-30T15:15:00.000-08:00

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Jamie L. Olson's translations of Russian poet, Vyacheslav Kiktenko's poems appear in the Summer '09 issue of Crab Creek Review. We asked Dr. Olson about his translation of Kiktenko's work and the process he went through to convey both the thematic and structural elements of the original Russian poems. He graciously agreed to write an entry for our Writer's Notebook Series:

On Translating Russian Poetry (and Kiktenko in Particular)

I suspect that my translations of the three poems by Vyacheslav Kiktenko that appear in the Summer 2009 issue of Crab Creek Review must have contributed to the editors’ impulse to dub this the “corpse issue,” as they did in their introductory note. Reading the first of Kiktenko’s poems—which incidentally are not arranged in any meaningful order—we experience a distinct sense of Jekyll-and-Hyde grimness as Kiktenko’s speaker gazes into a forest puddle and finds that, through his reflection, he has been “exposed as a monster.” His soul becomes “blackened” in the puddle’s “contrary hell-pit.”

The real gloom, though, arrives with the second poem, “A Cry in the Night,” which is dedicated to Sadako Sasaki, the Japanese girl who developed leukemia after being exposed to radiation in the U.S. bombing of Hiroshima. (The poem seems to be voiced for her as well.) A Japanese legend has it that anyone who folds a thousand paper cranes will be granted one wish, so with an eye towards calling for peace, Sasaki spent her last months transforming whatever paper she could get her hands on into origami cranes. Alas, she never reached her goal. Still, Sasaki’s effort has become a unifying symbol for the peace movement, and a statue memorializing her stands in Seattle Peace Park in the city’s University District.

In Kiktenko’s poem for her, however, we have only the disease, the suffering, the futile desire for life—not the peace movement that found inspiration in her, nor even the paper cranes that caught the world’s attention. By the poem's climax, all that remains is a hunger for red blood cells to displace the “white blood” (belokrovie) of the disease:

In the stars, the night keeps a cache
of blood cells slyly hidden.
And the stars transfuse the sultry,
cherry heat with a scarlet hue…
A butterfly, a chalky butterfly
flits about beneath the moon!
Ah, but for a bit, just a drop,
of those rich, crimson globes…
Yes!

Although we know that the speaker’s desire for the “rich, crimson globes” goes ungratified, just as Sasaki never finished folding her cranes, the poem remains nonetheless poignant and even uplifting; sometimes, just wishing is enough. (If everyone wished for peace, wouldn’t it ultimately happen?) But the uplift of “A Cry in the Night” comes from the form of the poem as well—a chant that builds to an exultant shout. Indeed, form in its most traditional guise is fundamental to much contemporary Russian poetry, and I hope I’ve left more than a trace of Kiktenko’s forms intact in my translations.

Let me jump right to a key point: most Russian poets would never play “tennis with the net down,” as Frost put it. That is to say, free verse doesn’t dominate Russian poetry as it does American poetry. In fact, more Russian poems are composed in tetrameter quatrains—the 4x4 blocks favored by Russian poets at least since the beginning of the nineteenth century—than in any other form. (Among Kiktenko’s poems in Crab Creek Review, the third one, “A yellowish moon,” consists in practice of tetrameter quatrains, though it lacks stanza breaks.) When translating a poem from Russian, therefore, one must consider not only the form of that particular poem, but the general preponderance of formal poetry across Russian literature. To put it another way, a Russian translator would never translate an American poem without carefully and conscientiously recreating its form in Russian, so shouldn’t I play by the same rules?

A. E. Stallings wrote in the February 2009 issue of Poetry that stripping a poem of its form amounts to a kind of pillaging: “Translators who translate poems that rhyme into poems that don’t rhyme solely because they claim keeping the rhyme is impossible without doing violence to the poem have done violence to the poem. They are also lazy.” To my mind, the violence that Stallings speaks of becomes multiplied when a Russian poem is poorly translated—that is, when it is translated without careful attention to form. In a tradition of formalism, form matters all that much more.

On the other hand, even the cleverest translator can’t always find an equivalent phrase in the target language while maintaining form, meaning, and tone, so to some degree translation must be an “act of compromise,” as Brian Boyd explains in his recent introduction to Nabokov’s Verses and Versions: no matter how much we translators strive for perfection, we must acknowledge that our task is an “inevitable compromise between the resources of From-ish and those of To-ish.” Still, we should keep striving. The mere awareness of an apotheosis of perfection, elusive as it may be, should ensure that we don’t grow complacent—or “lazy,” as Stallings puts it—and leave form by the wayside.

Others who translate from Russian to English also struggle with the issue of fidelity to form. Jim Kates, the editor of several collections of contemporary Russian poetry in English, describes an exchange in his afterword to In the Grip of Strange Thoughts that I think expresses well the tension that Russian-to-English translators feel between the two traditions:

Once in Moscow I was reading my own poems—all of which begin in strict rhyme and meter, and many of which stay that way—as well as my translations of Mikhail Aizenberg. In the critical discussion that always follows a Russian poetry reading, I explained my reasons for translating the strict forms of the Russian verses into slightly looser structures in English—a practice understood and approved by Aizenberg. But one prominent critic stood up and commented, “That’s all very well. You make a good case. But you should try harder.”
Since then, I have tried harder.

Kates has chosen, as I have, to do his best to maintain form in his translations of Russian verse, but others have made the opposite decision with sometimes impressive results. Indeed, wherever you land in the debate, you would be foolish to wish that Clarence Brown and W. S. Merwin’s marvelous free-verse translations of Mandelstam had been written any other way. In the end, the only true test of a translation comes when you ask yourself the question, Is it poetry?

The Russian originals of the poems by Kiktenko that appear in Crab Creek Review were first published in a Moscow journal called Druzhba narodov, a phrase whose figurative meaning could be rendered in English as “multiculturalism” or “cultural diversity,” and whose literal meaning, “Friendship of the Peoples,” is a Soviet-era cliché—the idea being that international communism happily held together a diverse bunch of ethnic groups from Central Europe to Central Asia. Indeed, Kiktenko was born and spent much of his life in one of those far-flung corners of the Soviet empire that were home to non-Russian “peoples”: Alma-Ata (now Almaty), Kazakhstan’s former capital and largest city. And although he relocated to Moscow a few years back, he has continued to be involved in Kazakh literary culture, often sustaining Kazakh-Russian “friendship of the peoples” as a translator himself, so it seems appropriate that his poems should now reach another people in another language—beyond even the post-Soviet audience in Baku or Belarus that one might expect him to have. I just hope that I have done my job and turned Kiktenko’s poems into something more than mere wooden renderings: with any luck, they have become English poems in their own right.

Jamie L. Olson teaches in the English Department at Saint Martin’s University in Lacey, Washington. These are his first published translations.

Guest Blogger: Kathi Morrison-Taylor

2009-12-21T11:50:00.000-08:00

Today's blog post is by poet Kathi Morrison-Taylor, author of By the Nest...

The Oven Timer

On the first day of the MFA program, a professor asked our class, “Why do you write?” We wrote in our notebooks and then discussed our responses in class. A surprising number of students, myself included, answered “Because I have to.” At 22, I was bewildered by the sort of gentle scolding that ensued. What was wrong with this debonair, senior poet that he didn’t understand the inescapable power of the muse? But now I get it– I don’t have to write. The choice to write can become inconvenient and difficult. The choice to write is something I have to fight for, fighting harder, perhaps, as my life grows richer.

My husband is more practical than I am and knowing how much I cherish free time to write, he asks me questions: Why are you baking those cookies for your students? Why are you reading The Lord of the Rings to our children? Why are you planting tomatoes again this year? (I don’t have to.)

It’s August; this last August. (Remember August?) The oven timer is on, and I’m at my computer. The oven timer is serious business in our house. When it goes off you better be ready to move on – out the door to the bus stop, or off the computer game to the homework task, or back inside and into the tub.

While my family is loading the car for our annual long weekend at the ocean – the last hurrah before school begins—I am trying to pry my weekly poem from a pop culture prompt, and I’ve put myself on the clock. I’m in one of the final weeks of a poetry contest modeled on Project Runway – Dustin Brookshire’s Project Verse. I find myself tangled in emotions and details: a scene from Star Wars, my father’s autopsy report, a rubberband ball of grief, longing, anger, regret...

“Where’s the crabbing net?!” someone yells from upstairs.

Little feet coming down...”Mommy, when are we getting new sandals?” Then, “Oh, I forgot...your poem, the contest.”

The timer is on – something my kids understand. I have one hour and forty-eight minutes left. While none of us imagines I’d really be left behind, the threat seems more real with that digital countdown.

Now, watching my middle school students and my own children grow and learn, I feel the years accelerating, becoming both more fleeting and more pressing. In a good way—in a garden tomato way, sweet and labor-intensive. Milestones matter. Bilbo is eleventy-one at the beginning of The Fellowship of the Ring, a milestone of a birthday that never fully registered in my childhood reading of Tolkien. At 111 Bilbo makes his own new beginning, as he leaves the Shire to write his book. In fact, it was the magic age of 40, combined with missing my final opportunity to enter the Yale Younger Poet’s Prize (that was the year the deadline changed) that convinced me to put away my old manuscript. I began something new, By the Nest, which became my first book of poems, dedicated to my family. And, off the page, dedicated to the oven timer that helps me manage the childish part of myself and focus on writing, something I have chosen to do.

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Pushcart Prize Nominations for 2009!

2009-11-23T12:34:00.000-08:00

Crab Creek Review would like to congratulate the following contributors whose work we nominated for this year's Pushcart Prize from either our Fall/Winter 2009 issue or our Summer 2009 issue--

Shannon Robinson for her story "Everyone Has A Tell"

Martha Silano for her poem "Women are Not Alone and That"

Tod Marshall for his poem "Bait"

Fernando Perez for his poem "In The Mirror When You're Wearing Someone Else's Clothes"

Lisa Allen Ortiz for her poem "The Tortoise Survives the Fire"

Elizabeth Austen for her poem "Humans"

Congratulations! And good luck!

Lisa Allen Ortiz featured on Verse Daily (from Crab Creek Review's Summer '09 issue)

2009-10-31T09:40:00.000-07:00

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Lisa Allen Ortiz's poem, The Tortoise Survives the Fire, from Crab Creek Review's Summer '09 issue is featured today on Verse Daily. You can read Lisa's poem here.

The poems of Lisa Allen Ortiz have appeared in Zyzzyva, Comstock Review and Literary Mama among other places. She lives in Santa Cruz, California with her husband and two daughters. Lisa wrote this about her inspiration for The Tortoise Survives the Fire: My seven year old daughter has a voice for our cat—when we hear this voice, we in the family know it is the cat talking. I have a similar voice for the cat, also for a horse I keep out in a barn in the country. It’s funny to me how we understand the animals in our lives this way: by the narratives we improvise when we watch them. Someday, you should go to the zoo and look at the tortoises; I swear, you will open your mouth and their opinions will pour out.

Congratulations, Lisa!

Verse Daily features "Wonder" by Kascha Semonovitch (from our current issue, Summer '09)

2009-10-29T09:27:00.000-07:00

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Congratulations, Kascha!

You can read Kascha Semonovitch's poem, Wonder, here on Verse Daily. The current issue of Crab Creek Review (Summer '09) features this poem along with two other poems by Kascha.

Kascha Semonovitch is completing an MFA in poetry at the Warren Wilson College and a PhD in philosophy at Boston College. Meanwhile, she teaches philosophy at Seattle University. Her work has or will appear in the Kenyon Review, Broome Review and Tar Wolf Review.

When asked about the inspiration behind Wonder, Kascha wrote, I have been thinking about hospitality and how we encounter the unfamiliar--human, divine or animal. In Wonder, I take up that theme directly.

Crab Creek Review Co-Editor Wins White Pine Press Poetry Prize

2009-10-21T08:05:00.000-07:00

Crab Creek Review's Co-Editor, Kelli Russell Agodon, has won the White Pine Press Poetry Prize for her manuscript, Letters From the Emily Dickinson Room.

Kelli's collection was chosen by guest judge, Carl Dennis, from over 500 poetry manuscripts.

Letters From the Emily Dickinson Room will be published in October 2010. Kelli is also the author of Small Knots (2004) and Geography, winner of the 2003 Floating Bridge Press Chapbook Award. Visit Kelli's website here.

White Pine Press is a non-profit literary publisher, established in 1973, which publishes poetry, fiction, essays, and literature in translation from around the world. For the past thirty years they have been at the forefront in bringing the rich diversity of world literature to the English speaking audience. White Pine Press seeks to enrich our literary heritage; to promote the cultural awareness, understanding, and respect so vital in out rapidly changing world; and to address complex social and human rights issues through literature.

Congratulations, Kelli, from all of us on the Crab Creek Review staff! You are both an incredible editor and a talented poet and we can't wait to read your new collection!

Visit White Pine Press here and learn more about Kelli's upcoming book. We will keep you updated on Letters From the Emily Dickinson Room , so check back often.

Crab Creek Review's Summer '09 Issue is Available!

2009-10-10T15:12:00.000-07:00

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Summer '09 is hot off the press! This issue is filled with some exceptional poetry and fiction (including Anne McDuffie's interview with notable Seattle poet, Madeline DeFrees) and features the beautiful cover art, Girl in a Green Room, by Emily Ruch. Two other works of visual art by Emily are also featured in the journal.

You can purchase your copy of Summer '09 here.

The poets/writers in Summer '09: Paul David Adkins, Judith Arcana, Nick Bacon, Kimberly L. Becker, Ashley Chow, Madeline DeFrees, Maya Ganesan, Ann Gerike, Ann Batchelor Hursey, Vyacheslav Kiktenko (translated by Jamie L. Olson), Eric Lee, Marjorie Manwaring, Chad Marsh, Tod Marshall, Buzz Mauro, Anne McDuffie, James McKean, January Gill O'Neil, Lisa Allen Ortiz, Alison Pelegrin, Fernando Perez, Paul S. Piper, Joseph Powell, Shann Ray, Shannon Robinson, Emily Ruch, Kascha Semonovitch, Joannie Kervran Stangeland, Katerina Stoykova-Klemer, Gail White, and Jill Crammond Wickham.

Here's a snippet from our Editors' Note:

As we read through the submissions for our Summer ’09 issue, we were struck by a consistent theme that echoed through each piece of work—struggle. The writers in this issue represent a variety of backgrounds in terms of culture, age, and writing experience, yet all of their work engages us in the struggle with life’s inherent difficulties, whether political, social, interpersonal, or philosophical. One of our editors jokingly referred to Summer ’09 as the “corpse issue” because many of the pieces deal with mortality and serious global concerns, but we believe the writing in this issue is ultimately an affirmation of the resilience of the human spirit.

Among the voices you will discover in this issue are two veterans of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, an eleven year old girl, a ninety year old poet who is still publishing new work, several NEA winners, and a first time published high school teacher. We are proud to feature distinguished, established writers and several amazing emerging writers whose work impressed us. . .

Thank you to all of our contributors in this issue--it is an honor for us to publish your work.

An Evening with A River and Sound Review

2009-10-10T13:32:00.000-07:00

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Crab Creek Review Staff with Madeline DeFrees and Anne McDuffie (from left to right: Anne McDuffie, Madeline DeFrees, Nancy Canyon, Carol Levin, Lana Hechtman Ayers, Annette Spaulding-Convy, Jennifer Culkin, Kelli Russell Agodon, and Ronda Broatch).

A River and Sound Review's founder and host for the evening, Jay Bates.

Crab Creek Review joined A River and Sound Review's live performance on Oct. 8th at Richard Hugo House in Seattle for the release of our Summer '09 Issue. We enjoyed an evening of poetry, music, humor, and interviews hosted by A River and Sound Review's Jay Bates, Michael Schmeltzer, and Julie Case.

Special thanks to our readers: Ann Batchelor Hursey, Kate Lebo, and Joannie Kervran Stangeland. And special thanks to Anne McDuffie for her wonderful on stage interview with Madeline DeFrees, who will be turning 90 in November! We also enjoyed the incredible music of Andrea Wittgens (her CDs are available here).

Thanks to Hugo House and to the great Cabaret Cafe staff who invented a cocktail for the evening called, "The Crab Walk."

The performance will be posted soon (podcast) on A River and Sound Review's website, so please visit and download this musical and literary show. And we owe Jay and Michael a huge thank you for organizing the event.

Look for more photos of the performance to be posted soon on our website.

Crab Creek Review Fiction Contest, Judged by Kathleen Alcala

2009-10-03T09:10:00.000-07:00

Crab Creek Review is currently accepting submissions for our Fiction Contest (Sept. 15th - Nov. 16th). We are delighted that author Kathleen Alcala will be the judge for the contest.

Submit your original, unpublished fiction (up to 3,000 words) and win $100 and publication in Crab Creek Review. All contest submissions will be considered for publication. $10 entry fee. Please read the complete contest guidelines here.

Kathleen Alcalá is a writer whose trilogy on nineteenth century Mexico was published by Chronicle Books. Her work has received the Western States Book Award, the Governor's Writers Award, a Pacific Northwest Bookseller's Award, and a Washington State Book Award. A co-founder and contributing editor to The Raven Chronicles, Kathleen teaches at the Northwest Institute of Literary Arts on Whidbey Island, a low-residency program.

She is the recipient of an Artist Trust/Washington State Arts Commission Award for work on her new book, Cities of Gold. Her work was recently nominated for a Pushcart Prize, and her most recent book received a Latino International Book Award and a ForeWord Magazine Award.

Kathleen is a member of Los Norteños writers group. Her work has been produced for public radio, and she co-wrote, with director Olga Sanchez, a play based on her novel, Spirits of the Ordinary that was produced by The Miracle Theatre of Portland, Oregon.

Kathleen is the author of a short story collection, Mrs. Vargas and the Dead Naturalist, and three novels: Spirits of the Ordinary, The Flower in the Skull, and Treasures in Heaven. Her collection of essays, The Desert Remembers My Name is available from the University of Arizona Press, and her previous books are all available in paperback.

For more information on Kathleen Alcala's work, please visit her website.

And The Winners Are... (2009 Crab Creek Review Poetry Contest)

2009-09-15T07:42:00.000-07:00

Our Poetry Editor, Lana Hechtman Ayers, wrote such a wonderful announcement letter to all of the poets who submitted work for our annual Poetry Contest, we are going to post it here verbatim:

All of us at Crab Creek Review sincerely thank you for entering our 2009 poetry contest. The hundreds of wonderful poems we received made it an enjoyable yet challenging process to judge. Aimee Nezhukumatathil has selected the following poems:

Winner
"bring back the knife" by Victor David Sandiego

Runner-Up
“My Eyebrows” by Molly Tenenbaum

Honorable Mentions
"The Cure For Headaches" by Kate Lebo
"The Aprons of Adam and Eve" by Molly Tenenbaum

Finalists
"And What If Bookmarks Are Claustrophobic" by Josh Cooper
"Fitness For Duty" by Rachel Contreni Flynn
"That Which I Should Have Done I Did Not Do" by Rachel Contreni Flynn
"Dear Reader" by Deborah Hauser
"Not Sorry" by Kate Lebo
"Greed" by Cati Porter

We are grateful for your confidence in Crab Creek Review and hope you will allow us to consider more of your work in the future.

Wishing you all the best in your poetry endeavors,

The Editors

Upcoming Events/News--Crab Creek Review

2009-09-06T08:44:00.000-07:00

Crab Creek Review welcomes autumn! Here are some of the things we are currently working on:

*Look for our Summer '09 Issue to be out by the beginning of October.

*Crab Creek Review will join A River & Sound Review for an evening of music, poetry, interviews, and humor at Richard Hugo House in Seattle on Oct. 8th. Check out A River & Sound Review here.

*Crab Creek Review staff will be involved with Dinner With An Author--a fundraiser for the Kitsap Regional Library Foundation. Kingston poets and CCR editors Kelli Russell Agodon, Ronda Broatch, and Annette Spaulding-Convy (along with Bainbridge Island poets John Davis and Janet Norman Knox, Poulsbo poet, Jenifer Browne Lawrence and Seattle poet/harpist, Monica Schley) will be reading from their work on Sunday, Oct. 18th at 7:00 p.m. at Pegasus Coffee House on Bainbridge Island. Crab Creek Review's graphic designer, Jessica Star Rockers, will also be performing her songs. For information on tickets for the Dinner With An Author Series please visit: http://www.krl.org/index.php/calendar2/1/379-dinner-with-an-author

*Our annual Fiction Contest is underway (Sept.15th - Nov. 16th). Submit your short fiction (up to 3,000) words and win $100 and publication in Crab Creek Review. $10 entry fee. Our guest Fiction Judge is award winning writer Kathleen Alcala. Read complete guidelines here.

*We will be announcing the winners/finalists of our Poetry Contest soon! Many thanks to judge Aimee Nezhukumatathil, who chose four winners.

*We are excited about announcing our first annual 2009 Editors' Prize, awarded to the writer of an outstanding piece of fiction or poetry chosen from the two issues we have published this year.

*In early December, Crab Creek Review will post nominations for the Pushcart Prize. It will be a difficult choice because this year's issues are filled with exceptional writing, both poetry and fiction.

Crab Creek Review's Summer '09 Issue available at the beginning of October

2009-09-02T11:58:00.000-07:00

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We are in the final production phase of our Summer '09 Issue and we're very excited about the quality of the poetry, short fiction, the interview, and artwork.

Summer '09 will feature a "kitchen table" interview with the distinguished Seattle poet, Madeline DeFrees, conducted by Seattle writer, Anne McDuffie. Three previously unpublished poems by Madeline DeFrees are also included at the end of the interview. We will also feature our Fiction Contest winner, Shann Ray, and a short story that all of the editors found intriguing by Shannon Robinson.

As always, we have some incredible Seattle area and WA State poets in this issue: Joseph Powell, Tod Marshall, Marjorie Manwaring, Ann Batchelor Hursey, Kascha Semonovitch, Joannie Kervran Stangeland, Ann Gerike, and Jamie L. Olson, translator of the poetry of Russian writer, Vyacheslav Kiktenko.

This issue also features the artwork and poetry of Evergreen State College student Emily Ruch, an army mechanic twice deployed to Iraq. Poets January Gill O'Neil, James McKean, and Alison Pelegrin have poems in Summer '09, and we are also proud to publish some amazing emerging writers (one of them is only eleven years old!).

We can't wait for you to read this issue!

SlugFest!

2009-08-13T08:55:00.000-07:00

Crab Creek Review was happy to sponsor and judge the poetry contest for the first ever Slug inFESTation (SlugFest '09!) in Kingston, Washington.

Our winner, a 5th grader from the community named Paige Lamar read her poem at the gallery's celebration that evening.

She was award a cash prize and certificate from Crab Creek Review and did a wonderful reading of her poem to a packed house!

We hope to be part of this wonderful event every year and are thankful to have so many incredible artists and writers in our community.

Read more about what the SLUGFEST is here in the Kingston Community News.

And see photos of some of the slugs and details about the event in an article from the KITSAP SUN.

A River & Sound Review

2009-06-14T22:15:00.001-07:00

My favorite people River & Sound Review sent us an email saying their first issue of the RSR is online right now.

Here's the details. Check it out, they have some great writers included--

We at RSR are proud to annouce that our first issue of the RSR online journal is available now at our new website, www.riverandsoundreview.org, featuring the best in poetry, fiction, nonfiction, humor, and more.

Our first issue includes work contributed by Peggy Shumaker, David Huddle, Anne-Marie Oomen, and Brian Doyle.

Stay tuned for more details, as we are soon to open the reading period for our 2009 Poetry Contest, including a $500 first place prize. More info can be found on our website.

Let us know what you think, and help us pass the word of our new journal.

Many Thanks,

Jay Bates

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We hope to be having our October reading with River & Sound Review, more details on that coming later!

Crab Creek Review Staff Changes

2009-05-28T16:29:00.000-07:00

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Crab Creek Review wishes the best of luck to two of our staff members who are beginning new projects and leaving their CCR positions: Design and Production Manager, Tonya Namura, and Fiction Editor, Kerry Banazek. Thank you, Tonya and Kerry, for all of the thought and time that you put into Crab Creek Review and for the high level of skill and professionalism that you brought to the journal. You will both be greatly missed and we wish you the best of luck in your future literary and design endeavors.

We would also like to welcome our new Graphic Designer, Jessica Star Rockers, who is the former Managing Editor of Willow Springs literary journal (Eastern WA University) and the Editor and Publisher of the strange fruit literary journal, which she both created and designed. Jessica has her MFA from Eastern WA University in literary editing and design. Welcome to Crab Creek Review, Jessica! We look forward to working with you.

Our amazing intern, Jen Betterley, is now Fiction Editor with Nancy Canyon. Jen did such outstanding work for us as an intern in marketing, reading, and proofing, that we know she will be an excellent editor.

And as always, thank you to our terrific staff whose positions aren't changing: Lana Hechtman Ayers, Carol Levin, Jennifer Culkin, Nancy Canyon, and Ronda Broatch.

Look for the new issue of Crab Creek Review to be out in October.

Crab Creek Review Reading at the Kingston Art Gallery (May 9th)

2009-05-10T12:29:00.000-07:00

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Crab Creek Review joined the Kingston Art Gallery at the Second Saturday Gallery Night on May 9th. The Gallery is currently featuring the work of printmaker/artist, Marilyn Liden Bode and potter, Betty Claire. Marilyn and Betty shared the stage with Crab Creek Review staff, who read poetry from the Fall/Winter 2009 issue, which features Marilyn's linocut/collage, We Are The Reason Our Ancestors Existed, on the cover (Marilyn's linocut/collage is currently on display at the Gallery). Poetry Editor, Lana Hechtman Ayers, Creative Non-Fiction Editor, Jennifer Culkin, Editorial Assistant, Ronda Broatch, and Co-Editor, Annette Spaulding-Convy read selected poems from the latest issue and then joined the Gallery's artists and art-loving members of the Kingston community for an array of homemade appetizers and creative conversation. Former Crab Creek Review Editor-in-Chief, Natasha Moni, also joined CCR in celebrating the release of the current issue at the Gallery.

Crab Creek Review would like to thank the Kingston Art Gallery (http://www.kingstonartgallery.com/) for graciously hosting our reading and for selling copies of the Fall/Winter '09 issue. Special thanks to Marilyn Liden Bode for inviting the CCR staff to read and for enthusiastically letting CCR use her linocut/collage on the cover of the current issue.

Here's to many more evenings of poetry, art, good food, and inspiring conversation in Kingston!

Kingston Art Gallery's Second Saturday Gallery Night/Crab Creek Review Reading. Left to Right: Marilyn Liden Bode, Lana Hechtman Ayers, Natasha Moni, Annette Spaulding-Convy, Ronda Broatch, and Jennifer Culkin.

Eagle Harbor Reading (April 19th)

2009-04-21T12:40:00.000-07:00

Crab Creek Review celebrated our Fall/Winter '09 Issue with a fantastic poetry reading on Sunday, April 19th at Eagle Harbor Books on Bainbridge Island. Many thanks to our amazing readers--Jenifer Browne Lawrence, Nancy Pagh, and Susan Rich. Special thanks to John Willson and Eagle Harbor Book Company for hosting our reading and to Marilyn Liden Bode for bringing her linocut/collage, which is featured on the Fall/Winter '09 cover.

CCR Staff and Readers with We Are The Reason Our Ancestors Existed (linocut/collage featured on our F/W '09 cover) at Eagle Harbor Books.

Left to Right: Jenifer Browne Lawrence, Ronda Broatch, Annette Spaulding-Convy, Kelli Russell Agodon, Marilyn Liden Bode, Nancy Pagh, Lana Hechtman Ayers, Carol Levin, Susan Rich, and Jennifer Culkin.

Crab Creek Review Staff Celebrates Book Releases

2009-04-19T13:03:00.000-07:00

Crab Creek Review's Carol Levin and Jennifer Culkin have new books available.

Carol Levin is the Editorial Assistant (Seattle) for Crab Creek Review. Carol is in charge of the CCR database, which involves sorting the large amounts of mail we receive, entering author/submission information into our database, and passing the submissions on to our various editors.

Her new chapbook, Red Rooms and Others, is published by Pecan Grove Press. According to Carol, "Each poem in Red Rooms and Others has some relationship to a room. The rooms have many qualities and are scattered around the world. The room that inspired the original concept of the collection is our red guest bedroom where many people have rested throughout the years generously leaving an aura for us to enjoy."

Carol will celebrate the release of her new chapbook with a reading at the following bookstore:
Open Books: A Poem Emporium (Seattle)
Tuesday, May 12, 2009
7:30 PM

Carol's first chapbook Sea Lions Sing Scat was a semi-finalist in Finishing Line Press' open competition '06 and released from Finishing Line Press in '07. Her work appears or is forthcoming in The New York Quarterly, Gander Press Review, Aquila Review, Late Blooms postcard series, The Massachusetts Review, Third Coast,The Seattle Review, The Pedestal Magazine, issues #16 and 35 of the Cortland Review, The Comstock Review, Junctures Journal, Umbrella and others. Poems were set as a choral work by composer Carol Sams and have been performed by various choirs. She collaborated in translating Anton Chekhov’s four major plays, now being offered in a manuscript “The Three Sisters and Three More, Plays by Anton Chekhov." She also wrote a dictionary of Stanislavski terms for theater artists. Carol teaches the Alexander Technique in Seattle.

Carol's book is available for purchase at Pecan Grove Press, Amazon, and at Open Books.

Jennifer Culkin is the new Non-Fiction Editor for Crab Creek Review. In addition to poetry and short fiction, Crab Creek Review will begin publishing non-fiction in our next issue, due out in late summer/early fall of 2009.

A Final Arc of Sky: A Memoir of Critical Care, published by Beacon Press, is Jennifer's first book. Author Judith Kitchen describes Jennifer's essays, "This book gives us so much more than the details of Jennifer Culkin's experiences as an intensive care nurse; it lifts us into the world of the helicopter and into some of life's highest dramas. A Final Arc of Sky carries its 'mortal freight' with candid honesty as it addresses how we choose to live our lives, and sometimes how we end them. "

Jennifer will be reading from A Final Arc of Sky at the following bookstores:

University of Washington Bookstore (Seattle)
Tuesday, April 21, 2009
7:00 PM

Village Books (Bellingham)
Sunday, April 26, 2009
4:00 PM

Eagle Harbor Books (Bainbridge Island)
Sunday, May 3, 2009
3:00 PM

Jennifer is a critical care and former emergency flight nurse. In the course of a thirty-year career, she has cared for people across the life span, from the smallest premature infants to adults entering their second century. Educated at Russell Sage College & the Rainier Writing Workshop at Pacific Lutheran University where she received her MFA, Jennifer's essays have appeared in publications such as Utne Reader and The Georgia Review. She has received awards from the Atlantic Monthly and was a 2008 recipient of the Rona Jaffe Foundation Writers’ Award.

Jennifer's book is available for purchase at Amazon and at local bookstores.

Congratulations, Carol and Jennifer!

The Writer's Notebook featuring Monica Schley

2009-04-19T12:20:00.000-07:00

Monica Schley's poems have been published in Burnside Review, Cranky, Cream City Review, Naked Joy, Raven Chronicles, Wandering Hermit Review, and the Seattle Review. She also has a chapbook, Black Eden: Nocturnes, forthcoming from Pudding House Press. A classically trained harpist, Monica has worked on recordings or live performances with many reputable musicians including Bill Horist, The Dead Science, Degenerate Art Ensemble, Greg Sinibaldi, Masada, Kanye West, Lori Goldston, Monktail Creative Music Concern, The New Seattle Ensembles, Parenthetical Girls and Amanda Palmer. She has also worked with the butoh dance and performance art ensembles P.A.N. and Implied Violence. She is the former president of the American Harp Society Seattle Chapter.

Monica's poem, Nocturne #17, appeared in Crab Creek Review's Spring/Summer '08 Issue. At our Hugo House reading in October of 2008, Monica gave an amazing performance in which she read her poetry while playing the harp. We asked Monica to write her thoughts on poetry, music, and the inspiration for Nocturne #17:

On the Making of Diamonds

Nocturne #17, the poem that appeared in the Spring/Summer 08 issue, is part of a series called Black Eden: Nocturnes. All of the pieces are in prose, and were composed during evening hours, either just before sleep or after waking. They are heavily influenced by the surrealness of dreams, subterranean urban scenes and music. Writing Black Eden was a bit like working in a subconscious mine where I went down and chipped away every night.

Something new happened at the time I was writing this: I didn’t edit. It was as if NO filter WAS the filter, so I there was no judgement on myself. Because of that, the train was able to keep moving. Though I didn’t know what I was doing while I was doing it, the writing felt honest, so I just kept it up with encouragement from a close poet friend. Very importantly, I trusted that there were no accidents in this process, expecting nothing and improvising all along. Stephen Nakmonovich has a great book about these ideas called Free Play: Improvising in Life & Art. After a year had past and I had 70 pieces. Then, I started to edit.

The music part of these poems (nocturne means meloncholic evening piece for piano) encouraged me to play while simultaneously reading. Though a musician for most of my life, I’m a shy songwriter, but I used some of the poetry as a springboard for lyrics, which worked better than attempts in the past. Eventually, I called upon a dancer friend and other musicians to turn the piece into a performance.

As a shared performance, the poems were given aural space just as much as written space, which is something I feel pretty strongly about. I don’t think every poem has to become a performance piece, but I do believe a good poem has to both sound pleasing and look pleasing. This is not to say good poems are spoken versus written or vice versa – I don’t live in a black and white world. There just needs to be a balance of both expressions, and a writer should be conscious of this in order for the poem to live after she isn’t there to present it.

Donald Hall wrote that “poetry out loud is never quite so beautiful as poetry read in silence." I don’t agree with this much, but I do think that for a poem to last longer than the poet, it must be read privately. However, I do take his notions to into great consideration (even though in this specific case - because the nocturnes are prose - it was stylistically easier for me to do then say, write a sestina, or even free verse). Hall also wrote that “Keats exists without being spoken. Performance poetry flames out like a match.” Personally, I prefer to have my poetry live somewhere between those two places.

The narrativity that came out of these Nocturnes are loose and surreal, stemming from a first person perspective in a pychological underworld. In Nocturne #17, the use of woman’s make-up is a way to disguise the real from the unreal. Waking and dreaming are blurred concepts. In truth, the entirety of Black Eden is an exploration of those deep subconcious things we all know but don’t want to, or dismiss in passing moments. It is only when those thoughts ride up to our ears and whisper a little random joke that we might see a connection to something else more concious and wonder – what!? Where did that come from? I didn’t want to forget all of the randomness in life, because for the most part, I don’t believe its all that random.

One last thing that inspired these poems for me was Seattle. I love the city in which I live, even in its worst. And for all of our urban banalitites, inconveniences, and stereotypes, I wanted to capture that too. I think that’s something that all artists have the opportunity to do, which is perhaps the greatest challenge: to make sense of the garbage and take beauty from the wreckage – create a new message with your own voice.

That’s how you make diamonds.

Reference:
Hall, Donald. Knock Knock II. American Poetry Review March/April 2005.

Tom Holmes and Crab Creek Review featured on Verse Daily

2009-04-13T09:03:00.000-07:00

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Tom Holmes' poem, "A Corpse of Vortices" —Sophie's Last Coherent Journal Entry to Henri from the County Mental Hospital, Barnwood Rural District, Gloucester, from Crab Creek Review's new issue (Fall/Winter 2009) is featured today (April 12th) on Verse Daily:
http://www.versedaily.org/2009/acorpseofvortices.shtml

Tom Holmes is the editor of Redactions: Poetry & Poetics. He is the author of After Malaguena (FootHills Publishing, 2005), Negative Time (Pudding House , 2007), Pre-Dew Poems (FootHills Publishing, 2008), and Poetry Assignments: The Book (Sage Hill Press, 2009).

About the background of his poem, Tom told Crab Creek Review, "Henri is Henri Gaudier-Brzeska--Modern French Vorticist Sculptor who died in WWI at the age of 23. Sophie is his lover."

Congratulations, Tom!

And thank you, Verse Daily, for featuring Crab Creek Review.

Annie Lighthart and Crab Creek Review featured on Verse Daily

2009-04-11T08:18:00.000-07:00

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Annie Lighthart's poem, There Were Horses, from the new issue of Crab Creek Review (Fall/Winter 2009) is featured today (April 11th) on Verse Daily: http://www.versedaily.org/2009/therewerehorses.shtml

Annie's poem won the Crab Creek Review 2008 Poetry Contest, judged by Kathleen Flenniken.

A mother and environmental writer, Annie lives in Portland, OR. Her poems have appeared in Cimarron Review, CALYX, Good Foot, and So To Speak, among others.

Annie told Crab Creek Review about the inspiration for There Were Horses: "Writing this poem was like sensing a storm coming on. By degrees, I felt a change in the air, remembered being a small creature among the magic ones in the fields, felt the encroaching world."

Congratulations, Annie!

Article on Crab Creek Review in the North Kitsap Herald

2009-04-10T15:07:00.000-07:00

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Crab Creek Review awoke to a lovely surprise this morning--an article in the North Kitsap Herald, which not only talks about our journal, but also discusses National Poetry Month here in Kitsap County and the numerous writers hidden in our forests.

The article is entitled, "National Poetry Month Shines Light On The Recluse" and can be read online: http://www.pnwlocalnews.com/kitsap/nkh/entertainment/42758647.html

An excerpt:
A pair of North Kitsap residents, and poets, Kelli Russell Agodon and Annette Spaulding-Convy have taken the volunteer editorial reins from former editor Natasha Moni, effectively “placing” the longtime Seattle-area journal’s operation in Kingston. Which, given the wealth of writers scattered throughout the woods of North Kitsap, isn’t all too surprising.

We have moved a portion of our literary operations to Kingston, but Crab Creek Review is still partly housed in Seattle. Look for us on both sides of the Sound!

(Special thanks to Bill Mickelson for the great interview at the coffee house)

Elizabeth Austen and Crab Creek Review featured on Verse Daily

2009-04-09T11:10:00.000-07:00

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Elizabeth Austen's poem, Humans, from our new issue of Crab Creek Review is featured today (April 9th) on Verse Daily, http://www.versedaily.org/2009/humans.shtml

Elizabeth is a Seattle poet and is the literary producer for KUOW, 94.9, public radio. Her audio CD, "skin prayers," is available on her website, http://www.elizabethausten.org./

Elizabeth told Crab Creek Review about the inspiration for her poem: "Humans came together while I was in residence at the Whiteley Center on San Juan Island. I spent many hours watching birds and wondering if they found human behavior as interesting as I found theirs."

Congratulations, Elizabeth!

The Writer's Notebook featuring Jenifer Browne Lawrence

2009-04-05T10:06:00.001-07:00

We are delighted to feature Seattle area poet, Jenifer Browne Lawrence, in our Writer's Notebook series. Jenifer is the author of One Hundred Steps from Shore (Blue Begonia Press, 2006) and her work has appeared in Court Green, North American Review, and Potomac Review, among others. She is also the recipient of a Washington State Artist Trust GAP Grant.
Jenifer's poem From Involution appears in Crab Creek Review's Fall/Winter '09 issue, and here the poet talks about her writing process:

Last weekend, the wind blew hard enough to knock out the internet connection for a few hours. At loose ends, my partner and I opened our (paper) notebooks and wrote together. We gave each other writing prompts as the sky turned black and freezing rain pelted the glass. The storm blew in and out overnight, and brought a few pages of words written in the dark. Sunrise brought a clear sky and a bald eagle to the battered Douglas fir outside our window.

I don't know how the rest of the world writes, but I have a confession: At the top of the page, I have no idea where I am going. In fact, I seldom begin with an idea at all. Writing, for me, begins with words—a phrase from a novel or poem I've been reading, a newspaper headline, or a fragment of speech I've overheard somewhere. Waiting for the ferry the other night, I eavesdropped on a cell phone conversation, and stole this line: "If you eat red mango three times…" The line is waiting for me somewhere, just outside the margin.

I am a vivid dreamer. Occasionally, I dream in words. Printed or spoken, a word may be the only image I recall upon waking. I like the idea of word as image, and perhaps this is why, when I open my notebook in the morning, the first word I write is outside the margin, prompting me from the top of the page.

This morning my dream contained the word Star. It was the name of somebody's dying grandmother. Perhaps a poem will come from that image. Written in snow that was stuck to a car window, a previous dream contained the words Mr. Soft. Nothing has come of that, other than a raised eyebrow from my partner when I shared the dream with him.

A word from a dream prompted a series of poems using various definitions of the word, coupled with personal or world events. In that dream, (I'll spare you the embarrassing details) a list of songs on the back of a CD included the title Involution. When I woke, I looked up the word's definition to see if it held any significance for me. I was surprised to find nearly a dozen entries in the dictionary. The poem Involution (7) began as a response to one of the definitions combined with details from a brochure about a behavioral therapy treatment method. If I were writing the piece today, however, I'd have to rethink item 4a: because look who's running the country.

I have never been the type to wear a t-shirt emblazoned with the image of the nation's latest heartthrob. Maybe that's because, even at seventeen, I knew that Mick Jagger's face did not belong on any woman's chest. Although if Hugh Jackman could sing Satisfaction as well as he plays Wolverine … lately, though, I have been sleeping with the image of another man. I've been wearing one of my partner's t-shirts as a nightgown. Printed on the shirt is a pixilated image of Barack Obama and the date 01-20-09. But it's not the shirt influencing my dreams these days. Even as spring resists entry into the northwest—yes, we did have snow in the Seattle area in April—I believe we are heading toward a warmer world, a more compassionate world, that is. After all, if Queen Elizabeth and Michelle Obama are hugging in public, can world peace be far behind?

I love how writing begins with a sense of not knowing (That's not an original thought—who was the writer that first talked about "not knowing"?). By the time a poem or story makes a path into the world, however, the words should be measured and deliberate. Sometimes meaning takes a long time to discover. My writing progresses in small steps—a word at a time, some days. After a longhand draft, I type up what's there and print it out. I fiddle with the poem a little while, then slip the draft into a manila folder, where the words sit, sometimes for months. What I find in the folder often surprises me. For me, coming across that unexpectedly perfect line is one of the great pleasures of writing. It doesn't always happen like that, of course. There's a lot of revision, editing and thumb-biting involved in the process. And sometimes there is no path. Sometimes I slip the page into the recycle bin and pick up my notebook. Maybe I catch the Seattle ferry, hike to Pike Place Market, where I wander among the stalls, on the lookout for red mangoes.

From Involution

Involution (7) the process of raising a quantity to some assigned power [syn: exponentiation]

Generalized Anxiety Disorder is often a result of childhood experience in the family of origin. A family skilled at secrets fosters the ability to cope by learning to covertly control most situations. When the control is threatened, anxiety emerges. Psychologist Albert Ellis in 1955 developed a type of therapy designed to help an individual reshape his or her thinking to a more positive, rational pattern, thereby relieving emotional distress.

He named his work Rational-Emotive Behavior Therapy (REBT). It is not pronounced "rebbet" and is not a frog. That is, if you kiss this therapy goodbye, no prince will magically appear to rescue you.

Ten Irrational Ideas:

It is critical for a person to be loved and approved of by everyone for everything.
1. Because you were always/never daddy's favorite.
2. Because you were always always/never.
A person must be competent, adequate, and successful in every aspect.
1. See irrational idea 1a.
2. See irrational idea 5b.
Certain people are bad, evil or villainous and should be punished for their sins.
1. Because Cain slew Abel.
2. Because Santa Claus keeps a list.
3. Those heathens next door.
Human unhappiness is externally caused. People have little control over their sorrows and are unable to rid themselves of negative feelings.
1. Because look who's running the country.
2. Because in sorrow shall you bring forth.
It is justifiable to be completely preoccupied with and upset about something scary and/or possibly dangerous.
1. Because why are we supposed to be boyscout-ready?
I said that's enough, young lady.

Our New Issue (Fall/Wtr 2009) is Available! (and other Crab Creek Review news)

2009-03-20T14:19:00.000-07:00

Visit our website http://www.crabcreekreview.org/ to purchase a copy!

We are so happy to tell you our new issue of Crab Creek Review (Fall/Wtr 2009) is available with new work from: Denise Duhamel, Aimee Nezhukumatathil, Peter Pereira, Susan Rich, Martha Silano, Peggy Shumaker, Nancy Pagh, Jenifer Lawrence, Elizabeth Austen, Barbara Crooker, Susan Elbe, Michelle Bitting, Jim Daniels, Kevin Miller, Bethany Reid, and others.

You can purchase your copy or subscribe here.

For a little peek of what's inside, here's the opening from Denise Duhamel's incredible poem, "Kiss Me You Fool," When we were first datingI bought you a pair of wind-up lips...

Or sample Nancy Pagh's poem "At the Erotic Bakery" where There are no cameras allowed.

Or discover with Peter Pereira as he reads the newspaper who had three wives, a lover/never married, lived alone, in his poem, "Reading the Obits."

We have a feeling this issue is going to sell out, so order your copies soon: www.crabcreekreview.org/subscrb.htm

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Also, we've begun our 2009 Poetry Contest and our judge this year will be Aimee Nezhukumatathil, author of At the Drive-In Volcano (2007) and Miracle Fruit (2003). The Crab Creek Review Poetry Prize is $150 and publication in Crab Creek Review. All entries are considered for publication. For complete guidelines, please go to: www.crabcreekreview.org/contest.htm

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We are now on Facebook! Join our Crab Creek Review group and receive the latest news and updates.

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Thank you all for your support of our literary journal! We are glad to have you as readers and hope to bring you the best poems and short stories. And now we are accepting creative non-fiction essays for our next issue!For more details on our journal or how to submit your poems, stories, or creative non-fiction, please visit our website at: http://www.crabcreekreview.org/

Kelli Russell Agodon
Annette Spaulding-Convy
Editors

Winner of the Crab Creek Review Fiction Prize Announced --

2009-03-20T14:16:00.000-07:00

The editors of Crab Creek Review would like to congratulate--

Shann Ray, winner of the Crab Creek Review Fiction Prize for his short story, Rodin's the Hand of God...

Other finalists: Jim Bainbridge, Zan Agzigian, Laura Gibson, Richard Fellinger, Debra Brenegan, and Gary Parks.

Thank you all for the fine work and our thanks also to all the other writers who participated. We greatly appreciate your support of our journal. Thank you!

Mark Your Calendars for April 19th!

2009-03-17T15:21:00.000-07:00

Save The Date for Crab Creek Review's April Reading at Eagle Harbor Bookstore
Sunday, April 19, 2009 at 3:30 pm
Eagle Harbor Book Company
Bainbridge Island, WA

Join us for an afternoon of poetry, featuring writers from our Fall/Winter '09 Issue with

Nancy Pagh
Peter Pereira
Susan Rich
Jenifer Lawrence

Kingston artist, Marilyn Liden Bode, will also be at the reading with her beautiful linocut, We Are The Reason Our Ancestors Existed, which is featured on our cover.

Join us for National Poetry Month to celebrate these poets and our new issue!

See you there!

Pushcart Prize Nominations from Crab Creek Review--

2009-03-17T15:17:00.000-07:00

Crab Creek Review would like to congratulate the following writers for their good work and nomination for the Pushcart Prize--

Kathleen Alcala, The Accidental Zoo
Patricia Fargnoli, Lovers
Sidney Hall, Jr., What the Loon Must Have Known
Marjorie Manwaring, You Ask About the Letting Go
Kay Mullen, The Tent
Peter Munro, The Fatman Can’t Get a Country and Western Tune Out of His Head: ‘Mamas, Don’t Let Your Sons Grow Up (To Be Intertidal Ecologists)’

Thanks for being part of our publication!

Congratulations!

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Crab Creek Review Reading in Seattle

2008-11-10T08:07:00.000-08:00

We had a great reading in Seattle on October 22 for Crab Creek Review. You can view the photos from the event here.

It was an incredible night! I want to personally thank Nin Andrews, Barbara Crooker, Tom C. Hunley & Steel Toe Books (Jeannine Hall Gailey & Mary Biddinger's press!), Jenifer Lawrence, Holly Hughes, and novelist Jennie Shortridge, along with all the editors (Annette Spaulding-Convy, Lana Ayers, Jeannine Gailey,& Ronda Broatch) all who donated books to help with our raffle. People were thrilled to get their books and we enjoyed being able to showcase such incredible writers.

Just so you know, our fiction contest is still open for a couple more weeks and we haven't received a lot of submissions. There's still time for you to enter if you're interested. Check out the guidelines here. The deadline is Nov 30, 2008.

--Kelli

The Writer's Notebook featuring Marjorie Manwaring

2008-10-21T15:08:00.000-07:00

Thank you, Crab Creek Review editors, for asking me to participate in the Writer’s Notebook.

I wrote the first draft of the poem “You Ask About the Letting Go” over six years ago, worked on revisions for about a year, and then, in frustration, let it lie fallow for about 3-1/2 years. I wasn’t sure it was ever going to go anywhere. Then I started working on it again last year while at a residency at the Whiteley Center. I think the long period of time away from the piece was helpful; it provided me with a certain detachment I hadn’t had before and allowed me to go in and make some “surgical” changes that were needed.

I hadn’t looked at old versions of the poem in some time. But because I’m a pack rat—computer-wise and otherwise (though I’m trying to change my ways!) I had copies of every draft on my hard disk, the earlier ones transferred over from a long since departed computer, and with a few mouse clicks I had the history of the poem before me. (I save a poem with a new version number each time I make substantial changes to it. I find that makes it easier for me to take risks in revisions, because I can “always go back to the way it was.”)

It surprised me that the first line of the poem as it stands now was unchanged from the 2002 version. Early first lines are often “throw-aways” for me—just placeholders that allow me get to where I really want to be. I suspect the line in this poem might have been one of those rare ones that floats into my head unexpectedly and becomes a kind of obsession.

I was in graduate school in 2002 and had been immersing myself in the work of H.D. (Hilda Doolittle). I had originally been attracted to her because of her early poems like “Sea Rose” and “Garden.” I soon realized that while her Imagist work was what she was most known for (“Oread” is her most anthologized poem), her life’s work went way beyond the “no excesses” mantra of Imagism and was informed by her fascination with, among other things, alchemy, mythology, psychoanalysis (she was actually a patient of Sigmund Freud!), and the “re-visioning” of myths and religious stories (“Helen” and the long poem Trilogy are two examples). Friends described H.D. as intense and prone to trances, and she details some of these experiences in Notes on Thoughts and Vision. H.D. was able to access liminal states, what I’ve also seen referred to as “borderlines,” “the wild zone, and “the marginal world.” She once wrote in a letter, “I seem a very between-worlds person.” (Friedman, Penelope’s Web)

I think it’s likely that this notion of “in-between states” influenced “You Ask About the Letting Go.” I like to think that maybe some of the “re-visioning” I’d seen in the writings of H.D. and other poets like Adrienne Rich, Hélène Cixous, and Anne Carson may have influenced how I went about tackling the subject matter of the poem—I knew the scene I wanted to set the poem in, but I didn’t want the voice to be the expected voice.

In terms of the poem’s form, my comfort zone was narrative poetry, but I was reading poets who were writing in fragments, whose words carried mystery and gained cumulative associations when used in circular and repetitive ways. My hope is that some of what was intriguing and pleasurable to me in reading those works managed to find its way into this poem.

Sources:
Friedman, Susan Stanford. Penelope’s Web: Gender, Modernity, H.D.’s Fiction. Cambridge University Press: Cambridge, 1990.

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Web sites:
www.mmanwaring.com (includes information on how to get a copy of Marjorie’s chapbook Magic Word)

www.dmqreview.com (the DMQ Review, an online poetry and art journal)

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With Thanks to Natasha Moni

2008-10-12T19:02:00.000-07:00

Annette & I are thrilled to be editing Crab Creek Review. Since coming on, we have been busy trying to continue the upward swing of the magazine and reach out to new readers and writers, but we want to take a moment to say thank you. We feel so lucky to have joined into such a strong team. And we hope our expanding team of people will help make things easier for all and help make our journal stronger for our readers. Thank you all for your help and support.

We also wanted to take some time to thank the last editor, Natasha Moni, who did so much for Crab Creek Review to keep it going and active in the literary arts world. We are so thankful for all that she did and also for her continuing ongoing support and friendship.

So this week, we'd like to share with you a lovely thank you post our incredible poetry editor, Lana Hechtman Ayers wrote for Natasha to let us all say thank you more formally and share a little more about her and what she did. We wish Natasha well in her travels, her writing, and her life. Good luck to you, Natasha! We will miss you!

--Kelli & Annette

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As Natasha Kochicheril Moni, Crab Creek Review's former editor-in-chief, heads to sunny California for her next big adventure in life we wish her a thrilling journey.

Natasha came aboard as a staff editor for Crab Creek a few years back, just as all the long-time editors were about to part ways. She soon found herself one of two remaining staff, the other, Emily Bedard, pregnant and about to exit for her adventure into new motherhood. Natasha had two options—let the journal die a quiet death or try to recruit a whole new staff to keep it going. Crab Creek Review is an independent, nonprofit and all its staff members have always been volunteers. Finding folks who have the skill, time, and energy to donate to nonprofits is a daunting task. Add to that the fact that the coffers were pretty near dry, so in addition to finding qualified staff, she'd need to raise a lot of funds just to get out an issue or two. Crab Creek had been around for over twenty years and was always one of Natasha's favorite journals. She understood that one less literary journal meant much less beauty and goodness in the world, the potential silencing of necessary voices.

So Natasha rose to the occasion like the true hero she is. She consulted friends, former editors, advertised on Craigslist, did whatever it took to find a staff that would be willing to go the distance with her. Then she undertook the intimidating fundraising campaign. She wrote letters, applied for grants, hit up family and friends. In a short time, her tireless efforts were rewarded with enough funds to publish for nearly two years. Managing a literary journal is a full time job she had to cram in with gainful employment, relationships, and her own writing life. Natasha gave of herself no matter the sacrifice to see to it that Crab Creek not only stayed in business, but also surpassed its reputation as one the finest literary journals in the country.

As poetry editor for the last two issues it has been a privilege to work with Natasha. Her dedication and integrity have been inspiring. She is both grounded and innovative—a rare combination. Our staff meetings were not only productive, but also great fun. It's been the best working environment I've ever experienced. And most of all, I am proud and honored to have gained in Natasha a true friend.

Her final act as editor-in-chief was to find a way to fill her shoes. In doing so, she recruited Kelli Russell Agodon and Annette Spaulding-Convy as co-editors, thus ensuring the journal's brilliant future. Natasha, you will be greatly missed, but your legacy of excellence at Crab Creek will continue on.

--Lana Hechtman Ayers

The Writer's Notebook featuring Barbara Crooker

2008-10-01T10:16:00.000-07:00

Dear Readers,

Today for our series, The Writer's Notebook, I'd like to introduce Barbara Crooker, a wonderful poet whose new book Line Dance came out from Word Press this year. We'd also like to thank Barbara for donating her books and a broadside to help support Crab Creek Review at our upcoming reading; we so appreciate the great support from writers we've received recently.

Below you'll find a couple poems from Barbara and something interesting thoughts on the topic "poetry as therapy."

Thanks for inviting me to join this conversation. I've been thinking lately about poetry as therapy, partly because of an email conversation with a new friend who's a former therapist, and partly because my own dear mother passed away recently, and this weekend, we brought her ashes to Cape Cod, to be scattered on the beach where my father's ashes lie. Mom had been ill with emphysema for over ten years, so I both witnessed and chronicled her slow decline.

Here are two poems from our previous trips:

EATING MELTAWAYS IN HARWICHPORT

It's been four years since my father died,
and it seems like I'm becoming him,
driving my mother to this sandy spit
where we vacation with their friends
of thirty years, go to thrift shops
and lobster roll lunches at the white
Congregational church, admire the blue
hydrangeas bobbing along the picket fence.
This year, death's been busy as a surfcaster
on a moon-filled night, blues and stripers
running wild, reeling them in one after another:
Dottie talking on the phone, Merrick dozing
in his recliner, cancer's heavy weather
taking Jean and Clare, and only Mom and I remain.

We're sitting at our favorite restaurant, stirring
sugar in iced tea, hearing the little cubes tinkle
like wind chimes. I want to skip the next chapter,
stay here like this, life rolling on predictable
as morning fog, or thick milky chowder, the sun,
a pat of butter, melting through. Our waitress,
in a white apron and pink uniform, her name scrolled
on her left breast, waits with a pad of paper:
"The meltaways just came out of the oven," she says,
"Can you smell them? I can put them in a box
if you don't have room for now."

previously published in Nimrod

THE WINDS OF NOVEMBER

strip the leaves off the sycamores; they scuttle down
the street like an army of fiddler crabs crazed for the sea.
In the hospital, my mother's breathing grows more
and more labored, difficult without the silver ribbon
of oxygen in her nose- This year, we didn't get to see
the ocean off Cape Cod, hear the gulls call, watch the waves
hurl themselves on the sand, or feel the fog turn the night air
milky as chowder. Though she's still here, already she's starting
to fade, a clipping yellowing in a drawer, a snapshot
in a black album. The tide goes out, erasing our footprints;
the wind knocks the last leaves from the tree.

Previously published in The South Carolina Review

So, did writing these poems (and many others) prepare me for the great waves of grief I experienced at her passing? Of course not. And yet. Because the other side of me thinks that emotions not expressed fester inside us, creating worse scars, and other problems. Since she passed in early August, I've been writing and writing and writing. I need more time to see if any of them turn out to be any good, but my heart, at least, is lighter than I think it would be.

Some years ago, a close friend was diagnosed with Stage IV metastatic breast cancer. I think we thought if we talked about it, the worst wouldn't happen, but of course, it did. I hadn't intended to write anything, but the poems came and kept on coming during those three years, and they ended up as a chapbook, The White Poems. (Barnwood Press)(http://www.bsu.edu/classes/koontz/barnwood/indbks/bc.htm)

Here's one of the last poems in the book:

REQUIEM
for Judy

It is early March, each day a little bit greener,
crocus and snowdrops already in bloom, daffodils
sending up the tips of their spears.
When summer comes, we will take you to the river,
trickle your ashes through our fingers.
You will return to us in rain and snow,
season after season, roses, daisies, asters,
chrysanthemums. Wait for us on the other side.
The maple trees let go their red-gold leaves in fall;
in spring, apple blossoms blow to the ground
in the slightest breeze, a dusting of snow.
Let our prayers lift you, small and fine as they are,
like the breath of a sleeping baby. There is never
enough time. It runs through our fingers like water
in a stream. How many springs are enough,
peepers calling in the swamps? How many firefly-spangled
summers? Your father is waiting on the river bank,
he has two fishing poles and is baiting your hook.
Cross over, fish are rising to the surface,
a great blue heron stalks in the cattails,
the morning mist is rising, and the sun is breaking
through. Go, and let our hearts be broken.
We will not forget you.

previously published in Vol No

It could have been written for my mother. Maybe it could have been written for you?

What's very strange is that the poem was written about three years before her husband and I took her ashes to the river; it's amazing to me how sometimes poems possess knowledge and lives of their own. It didn't stop the pain, but surely it stitched the wound, put a clean patch on it.

So while I don't think poetry is therapy; ie, I'm not writing to heal myself, but rather, to craft an object, the best way that I can, I think that many times it ends up functioning as therapy, in spite of itself. And surely, there's nothing wrong with that.

~Barbara Crooker

*

Our thanks to Barbara Crooker for her words.

To learn more about Barbara Crooker & learn more about her work please visit these links--

www.barbaracrooker.com
books: Line Dance: http://www.word-press.com/crooker_linedance.html
Radiance: http://www.word-press.com/crooker.html

Richard Hugo House Reading and a Special Thanks to Writers--

2008-09-25T14:06:00.000-07:00

We are excited about our upcoming reading at Seattle's Richard Hugo House on Wednesday, October 22, 2008 at 7 pm for a few reasons.

The first is that we have an outstanding group of readers who will be their work:

Kathleen Alcala
Jim Bertolino
Ronda Broatch
Kathleen Flenniken
Marjorie Manwaring
Kay Mullen
Monica Schley

Monica Schley is also a harpist who will be playing a few selections during the evening as well.

The second is the generosity of these writers:

Nin Andrews
Barbara Crooker
Holly Hughes
Tom Hunley & his press Steel Toe Books
Jennifer Lawrence
Jennie Shortridge

who have all donated books and literary items to be part of a drawing at the reading. We want to give them our deepest thanks for supporting our journal.

So not only does the reading have a spectular group of poets, but we are also having drawings throughout the event for some wonderful literary items below--

Signed novels by Jennie Shortridge including Riding with the Queen, Eating Heaven, Love and Biology at the Center of the Universe

Signed books from Tom Hunley of Steel Toe Books

Jenifer Lawrence's signed copy of first edition One Hundred Steps From Shore

Holly Hughes' broadside & signed chapbook, Boxing the Compass, winner of the Floating Bridge Chapbook Award

Signed book of poems from Barbara Crooker

Signed books from Nin Andrews

Editors' Bundle featuring signed copies of In the Convent We Become Clouds by Annette Spaulding-Convy, Small Knots by Kelli Russell Agodon, Becoming the Villainess by Jeannine Hall Gailey, Love is a Weed by Lana Hechtman Ayers, and Shedding Our Skins by Ronda Broatch.

And of course, with Hugo House there is always wine and coffee available, so please mark your calendars for Wednesday, October 22nd so you can join in the literary festivities with us.

So please join us--

Crab Creek Review Reading: Wednesday, October 22, 2008
Contributors from the Spring/Summer '08 Issue
read their work Oct. 22, 2008 at 7 pm
Richard Hugo House
1634 11th Avenue
Seattle, WA

Notes on Writing “Stuck Inside”

2008-09-01T21:31:00.000-07:00

Dear Readers,

We are beginning a series here at our Crab Creek Review blog that will feature some of the poets we have published in previous issues talking about their work, the writing life, and other creative and literary topics.

I'm pleased to announce our first poet-blogger in this series will be Julene Tripp Weaver whose poem "Stuck Inside" was featured in our current issue.

Below you will find her poem and her thoughts about writing and how her poem came to be.

We hope you enjoy this new series!

Kelli Russell Agodon

__________________________________

Stuck Inside

A little man bucking and barking fights with a ceiling built over his head but, one inch shorter than he is. His neck bent he paces complaining of the short wall and the people who built it.
He doesn’t have enough money to redo the wall. It should have been built right to start with.
He sits and can only think of his too low ceiling.
He goes outside and stretches, but outside he is not inside and it is cold, so he goes back into
his house where he feels trapped.
He cries, empties his pockets, takes off his shoes, crawls on his knees but nothing will help, nothing.
His girlfriend really doesn’t understand, she’s fine in his space, but she’s five inches shorter than him.
She says, “Oh Honey, lets lie down in bed and stretch out, I’ll bring you some relaxing tea.”
He continues to fume about the wall height.
They hardly have fun any longer because he is preoccupied with the ceiling.
“Perhaps you could move,” she says. She’s said it before.
“I can’t move, I can’t afford to move,” he says, his gritted teeth in his tilted head look like fangs of a wolf.
She shivers and says, “We could go to my place,” wondering if he’d be happier living with her at her apartment. But inside she doesn’t want him there. He’s grumpy and she wonders what he would find to rail against.
“Your place? Fine, if I want to roast my body like a cashew over a fire,” he says, his voice a growl.
“Honey, I think I’ll go now, I need to stop by my mother’s with some cabbage,” she says gathering her coat.
He hardly notices when she leaves.

by Julene Tripp Weaver
from Crab Creek Review, Spring/Summer 2008

* * *

Notes on Writing “Stuck Inside”

When the editors at Crab Creek Review asked me how I came to write “Stuck Inside” I answered, “Sometimes the little people sit in my head and tell me stories—this is one of them.” This poem captures a mindset of someone unable to see outside their own story. In my work with people living with AIDS I watch people spin the same stories repeatedly; I am continually confronted with the confirmation of how tightly each of us are wrapped in our own belief systems. Our thinking moves in set groves to what we tell ourselves, and the more we repeat it without change, or at a faster speed the more set it becomes. AIDS now has a new story, yet many are unable to change their story of what AIDS means.

One way of changing a story is by slowing it down, interrupting the pattern by changing it ever so slightly. Gertrude Stein was a master at this repetition that is always changing. In her view each repetition has a different insistence with subtle changes, like a birdcall.

I’ve been obsessed. As an adolescent one of the books that changed my life was Jane Roberts’ The Nature of Personal Reality. It opened my mind to the understanding that our lives are what we make them by what we believe is possible. There is a mirror-like paradox in how we see ourselves when we are locked inside a reality we do not know can change. The quandary of self-perpetuating beliefs, how we only see what we can see, has hounded me for decades as I’ve lived my life experimenting with how I make change.

Since reading this channeled book, I’ve explored many realities and played with edges—intentionally wondering how deeply I could tip the balance of one worldview into the next. I’ve wondered about getting stuck in the mundane, and the repetitive mass of cultural norms. I slip in and out of the roles of observer, listener, describer, in my work, my writing, and my life. I love William Stafford’s writings on writing—his idea of picking a strand, a thought wave, or a sensory impulse in the moment, and letting it lead.

Emilie Conrad[1] is one of my personal icons. In the many intensive workshops I’ve taken with her since 1988, she has been a guide in my quest to identity and how we create change; an example is her process of founding Continuum Movement. Emilie and Rebecca Mark[2] create a container and lead an experiential process for hand-to-page exploration at yearly workshops combining Continuum Movement and language. This involves a slowed down process using sound, movement, and pauses to create interruption and perturbation of the senses. These intensives have helped me come to a place in my writing where I write fluidly. Rebecca has taught me there is no such thing as writers block, and there is no separation between movement and writing. Now when a voice, or a sensation, rings through me I write easily. This poem came in the particular voice of a young woman with a boyfriend who felt trapped. He is like so many obsessed in whatever life trauma they are living out.

In The Triggering Town Richard Hugo says, “Never want to say anything so strongly that you give up the option of finding something better. If you have to say it you will.” My poem “Stuck Inside” found me after many attempts to write about people stuck in their own stories. I was in a conversation with a friend about a topic we’d discussed many times, and the voice started; my friend suddenly was a man in a house too small. I grabbed my pen and started writing. Like William Stafford, one line led to the next as I attended to the story this new voice gave to me. All my earlier failed poems around this topic are now superseded.

Julene Tripp Weaver
http://www.drizzle.com/~newroots

__________________________________

[1] Emily Conrad is author of Life on Land, in which she talks about founding Continuum.[1] Rebecca Mark is a tenured professor at Tulane University and author of The Dragon’s Blood: Feminist Intertextuality in Eudora Welty’s Fiction.

* * *

Read more work from Julene and learn about her projects at her website: http://www.drizzle.com/~newroots

Hugo House Reading, Wednesday, October 22nd

2008-08-31T08:20:00.001-07:00

Along with a great reading at Hugo House, we'll also have a raffle and some of the items will include--

Signed books from Nin Andrews including Sleeping with Houdini and the Book of Orgasms

6 signed novels by Jennie Shortridge including Riding with the Queen, Eating Heaven, Love and Biology at the Center of the Universe

Books from Tom Hunley of Steel Toe Books

Jenifer Lawrence's first edition One Hundred Steps From Shore

Holly Hughes' broadside & signed chapbook, Boxing the Compass, winner of the Floating Bridge Chapbook Award

Signed book of poems from Barbara Crooker

Editors' Bundle featuring signed copies of In the Convent We Become Clouds by Annette Spaulding-Convy, Small Knots by Kelli Russell Agodon, Becoming the Villainess by Jeannine Hall Gailey, Love is a Weed, by Lana Hechtman Ayers, and Shedding Our Skins by Ronda Broatch.

* * * *

We dearly thank our authors

Nin Andrews
Jennie Shortridge
Tom Hunley
Barbara Crooker
Holly Hughes
Jenifer Lawrence

who generously their donated books!

Press Release: Oct. 22nd Hugo House Reading

2008-08-23T20:04:00.000-07:00

Writers from Crab Creek Review’s Spring/Summer ‘08 Issue
Read at Richard Hugo House in Seattle

Seattle, Washington, August 22, 2008—Crab Creek Review celebrates its Spring/Summer ’08 Issue with an evening of poetry and fiction. Writers James Bertolino, Kathleen Flenniken, Kathleen Alcala, Marjorie Manwaring, Kay Mullen, Ronda Broatch, Brendan McBreen and Monica Schley will read from their work on Wednesday, October 22nd, 7pm, at Richard Hugo House in Seattle. The celebration will include musical selections from poet and harpist Monica Schley and drawings for signed, first edition books. The event is free and is open to the public.

Bellingham poet James Bertolino is the author of nine volumes of poetry published by Copper Canyon Press, Carnegie Mellon University Press, the QRL Award Series, among others, and is the recipient of numerous awards, including the 2007 Jeanne Lohmann Poetry Prize. Co-editor of Floating Bridge Press, Kathleen Flenniken is the author of Famous, which won the 2006 Prairie Schooner Book Prize and was a finalist for the Washington State Book Award. Bainbridge Island writer, Kathleen Alcala, author of five books and co-founder of The Raven Chronicles, teaches in the Whidbey Island Writers Association MFA Program. Poet and freelance writer, Marjorie Manwaring is an associate editor for the online journal, DMQ Review, and author of Magic Word (2007). Kay Mullen is the author of two full length poetry collections, Let Morning Begin (2001) and A Long Remembering: Return to Vietnam (2006). Kingston poet Ronda Broatch is the author of Some Other Eden (2005) and Shedding Our Skins (2008). Brendan McBreen is a member of Auburn’s Striped Water Poets and is published in various places, including Leading Edge and Bellowing Arc. Monica Schley is a poet, harpist, and performer whose poetry has appeared in Burnside Review and The Raven Chronicles, among others.

Celebrating its twenty-fifth year in the Pacific Northwest, Crab Creek Review is an independent literary journal with a national readership. Publishing poetry and short fiction, Crab Creek Review has recently welcomed new head editors, Kelli Russell Agodon and Annette Spaulding-Convy, both Seattle area poets. Founded by Linda Clifton, the journal is proud to have been managed by women since 1983.

Annette Spaulding-Convy

Save the Date! Crab Creek Review Reading

2008-08-21T20:40:00.000-07:00

YOU'RE INVITED!

Crab Creek Review Reading
at Seattle's Richard Hugo House,
Join us Wednesday, October 22, 2008 at 7 p.m.

*

Dear friends,

As the new editors of Crab Creek Review, we're having a celebration reading on Wednesday, October 22nd at Seattle's Richard Hugo House at 7 p.m. and we would love for you to join us there.

Not only will there be incredible readers including

Jim Bertolino
Kathleen Flenniken
Kathleen Alcala
Marjorie Manwaring
Kay Mullen
Ronda Broatch
Brendan McBreen
and Monica Schley

But one of our readers, Monica Schley is a harpist and will be performing as well.

We will also be having drawings for some great literary prizes including signed books, t-shirts, and free copies of Crab Creek Review! And of course, with Hugo House there is always wine and coffee available, so please mark your calendars for Wednesday, October 22nd so you can join in the literary festivities with us.

It looks to be a great night of poetry, a bit of fiction, and some wonderful music!

We hope to see you there!

warmly,

Kelli & Annette

Postcard from a Literary Journal

2008-08-03T18:46:00.000-07:00

We have set down our luggage and are now starting to unpack. I may have tripped walking up the stairs, but it was with the excitement of arriving. So yes, it's official, Annette Spaulding-Convy & I have keys to the place and will be the new editors of Crab Creek Review.

The Crab Creek Review website has been updated and our submission guidelines are up. Poetry submissions start September 1st, so get your envelopes ready, we look forward to reading your work. There's also a fiction contest going on right now.

We'll be blogging about the writing life here every once in a while and will have some guest bloggers that will hopefully entertain you if not make you smarter.

If you haven't checked out our website, please do. Otherwise, I have a lot of unpacking to do and a little sightseeing too. I have hope this will be a good trip.

Wishing you good work and good writing,

Kelli Russell Agodon

Crab Creek announces

2008-07-09T21:22:00.000-07:00

With this our Anniversary year, we are celebrating 25 years of publication supported by a host of dedicated editors. By this August, Crab Creek Review will be guided by the talented poets Annette Spaulding Convy and Kelli Russell Agodon. I could not ask for two more capable co-editors to lead this already dynamic collective.

Thanks to all the contributors, editors, fellow publishers, subscribers, donors, booksellers, venues, and of course--current and past staff who've made these past couple of years at Crab Creek an incredibly valuable experience for me.

Cheers!
Natasha Moni

Welcome to the New Crab Creek Review Blog!

2008-07-02T19:52:00.000-07:00

Dear Readers,

Welcome to the new Crab Creek Review blog!

Crab Creek Review has been publishing the best poetry and fiction for 25 years. It is a literary journal that was born in the Northwest and reaches poets, writers, and readers across America.

This blog will be a place to see featured work from our published writers as well as unique essays and thoughts on the writing life and the writing process. Check back here in the next few months to meet our editors, our writers, and see what's going on at Crab Creek Review as well as in the writing world.

Thanks for visiting.