Denzel, Morgan, Chris & Bernie Walk Into A Bar…

By Tambay, on August 24th, 2010

Jokes… the clip title says this young comedian’s Denzel Washington impersonation is perfect. Do you agree? He throws in some Morgan Freeman, Chris Rock & Bernie Mac too.

2010 Literary awards

Contest Guidelines

    Please note that we do not accept submissions via email.   

• Three prizes of $1,000 each and publication in the Spring 2011 issue of the American Literary Review will be given for a poem, a short story, and an essay.
• Submit up to three poems, a short story of up to 8,000 words, or an essay of
  up to 6,500 words with a $15 entry fee by October 1, 2010. Entries submitted after this deadline will be returned unread.
• Include a cover page with author's name, title(s), address, and phone number.
  Do not include any identifying information on subsequent pages except for the
  title of the work.
• Enclose a $15.00 reading fee (includes subscription) and a SASE for contest
  results. Multiple entries are acceptable; however each entry must be accompanied
  by a reading fee. (Note: only the initial entry fee includes a subscription.
  Subsequent entry fees go to contest costs only and will not extend the subscription.)
• Short Fiction: One work of fiction per entry ($15), limit 8,000 words per work.
• Creative Nonfiction: One work per entry fee, limit 6,500 words per work.
• Poetry: Entry fee covers up to three poems (i.e. one to three poems would
  require an entry fee of $15; four to six poems would be $30, and so on).
• Label entries according to contest genre and mail to ALR's regular submission address:

  
  For example: American Literary Review Short Fiction Contest
                      P.O. Box 311307
                      University of North Texas
                      Denton, TX 76203-1307

Poetry Prizes

New Issues Poetry & Prose offers two contests annually. The Green Rose Prize is awarded to an author who has previously published at least one full-length book of poems. The New Issues Poetry Prize, an award for a first book of poems, is chosen by a guest judge. Past judges have included Philip Levine, C.K. Williams, C.D. Wright, and Campbell McGrath.

New Issues does not read manuscripts outside our contests. Graduate students in the Ph.D. and M.F.A. programs of Western Michigan University often volunteer their time reading manuscripts. Finalists are chosen by the editors. New Issues often publishes up to two additional manuscripts selected from the finalists.

Please visit the AWP website for guidelines to submit to the AWP Award Series in the Novel contest.

*Download Guidelines

Submission Guidelines

The 2011 Green Rose Prize

$2,000 and publication for a book of poems by an established poet

Guidelines:

• Eligibility: Poets writing in English who have already published one or more full-length collections of poetry. We will consider individual collections and volumes of new and selected poems. Besides the winner, New Issues may publish as many as three additional manuscripts from this competition.
• Please include a $20 reading fee. Checks should be made payable to New Issues Press.
• Postmark Deadline: September 30, 2010. The winning manuscript will be named in January 2011 and published in the spring of 2012.

The 2011 New Issues Poetry Prize

$2,000 and publication for a first book of poems
Judge: David Wojahn

Guidelines:

• Eligibility: Poets writing in English who have not previously published or self-published a full-length collection (48+ pages) of poems.
• Please include a $15 reading fee. Checks should be made payable to New Issues Press.
• Postmark Deadline: November 30, 2010. The winning manuscript will be named in April 2011 and published in the spring of 2012.

General Guidelines:

• Submit a manuscript at least 48 pages in length, typed on one side, single-spaced preferred. Photocopies are acceptable. Please do not bind manuscript. Include a brief bio, relevant publication information, cover page with name, address, phone number, and title of the manuscript, and a page with only the title.
• Enclose a stamped, self-addressed postcard for notification that the manuscript has been received. For notification of title and author of the winning manuscript enclose a stamped, self-addressed envelope. Manuscripts will be recycled.
• A manuscript may be submitted that is being considered elsewhere but New Issues should be notified upon the manuscript’s acceptance elsewhere.

Send manuscripts and queries to:

The New Issues Poetry Prize
(or) The Green Rose Prize
New Issues Poetry & Prose
Western Michigan University
1903 West Michigan Ave.
Kalamazoo, MI 49008-5463

Call for Submissions: CONTEMPORARY AFRICAN WOMEN’S POETRY

Written by Kwani · August 25, 2010

Across the continent as well as in the African Diaspora, African women are well
known for their word craft. Over the centuries, African women have accomplished
difficult feats using a capacity for words that is only surpassed by their
ability for physical labor. This project on Contemporary African Women’s Poetry
is looking for submission of poems written by African women from all works of
life. We are looking for: (A) poetry about contemporary African life and
experience on the continent; (B) poetry about life in the African Diaspora.

Poems may focus on any of the following: the work life, motherhood, wifehood,
children, the state and nation, war, Africa’s wealth or lack thereof, poverty,
HIV-AIDS, prison, freedom, celebration, grief, happiness, border crossings,
marriage, birth, the environment, loss, love, trans-nationalism, migration,
gender, race, class, and any other topics or issues that interest African women
globally.

Unpublished poems are preferred. The original poems can also be in any African
language if the poet will provide a translation into English. If the original is
accepted, it will be published alongside the translation. If a translator is
used, the author should indicate how credit should be acknowledged. Maximum
number of submissions per person is three (3) poems.

For consideration, submissions should reach us before or on December 31, 2010.
Please send submissions by email to: Anthonia Kalu (kalu.5@osu.edu); Folabo
Ajayi-Soyinka (omofola@ku.edu); Juliana Nfah-Abbenyi (jmphd@ncsu.edu)

For submissions via snail mail, please mail your submissions to:
Anthonia Kalu, PhD
Professor
Department of African American and African Studies
486 University Hall 230 North Oval Mall
The Ohio State University
Columbus, OH 43210-1319

Folabo Ajayi-Soyinka, PhD
213 Bailey Hall,
1440 Jayhawk Blvd.,
University of Kansas,
Lawrence, KS 66045.

Juliana Makuchi Nfah-Abbenyi, PhD
Professor
Department of English
212 Tompkins Hall
North CarolinaState University
Raleigh, NC 27695-8105

SALVADOR

Posted by Malin Fezehai

I went to Salvador in March of 2008 with the only intention to escape winter. I was sitting in my apartment in Brooklyn and just decided that I had enough and it was time to go. A couple of days later I found myself on a plane heading for Brazil. Going to Salvador was something that was always in the back of my head. Usually when I go to on trips by myself I get a bit nervous, but going to Brazil was something I did with great ease.

These images are about everything and nothing. On the one hand I am not trying to tell a specific story, the viewers are free to interpret these images, as they feel fit. For me on the other hand they are about a relationship, a personal crossroad and a city. My focus was on the everyday and the visceral colors of the city. I photographed my friends, strangers and situations I encountered while wandering the streets. Salvador helped me to reconnect to the feeling of being content and however fleeting that may be on film, it’s something I try to hold on to.

This post hasn't been tagged.

Onaedo, The Blacksmith's Daughter By Ngozi Achebe

Written By: Nicole Parker-Jones—Onaedo, The Blacksmith's Daughter is the debut novel from writer Ngozi Achebe (she is the niece of famous author Chinua Achebe).

Ngozi's interest in 15th and 16th century history was the catalyst for writing Onaedo, The Blacksmith's Daughter which tells the story of two women separated by four hundred years but linked by history. Maxine is a modern American woman who is half white and half African and trying to connect with her Nigerian father. When Maxine comes across a set of diaries written by a slave in the 16th century, she learns of Onaedo's story who is a young woman from the 16th century. Onaedo's story revolves around her finding herself in the middle of events that were set in motion in a country far away from her small town in Igboland in West Africa during the terrifying age of Portuguese discovery.

Ngozi's debut novel is a compelling story about the endurance of the human spirit that will pull at your heart strings—in other words, it's not one to be missed.

Bernardine Evaristo

Daljit Nagra

Ten - The Complete Works Showcase

Friday 17 September, 7pm - 8.30pm
The Tabernacle
Powis Square, London, W11 2AY
Tickets £7

Join our hosts Bernardine Evaristo and Daljit Nagra at this spectacular showcase event to celebrate The Complete Works. This was an ambitious two-year project to support talented Black and Asian poets in their professional development and development of their craft. Devised and coordinated by Spread the Word, in collaboration with Bernardine Evaristo we are delighted that this event also marks the publication of “Ten” an anthology of the poets' work by Bloodaxe Books.

The Poets

Roger Robinson is a Trinidadian poet and playwright who has lived in London for 20 years. He has performed worldwide and is an experienced workshop leader and lecturer on poetry. He was also chosen by Decibel as one of 50 writers who have influenced the Black-British writing canon over the past 50 years. He has received commissions from the Theatre Royal Stratford East, The National Trust, London Open House and the National Portrait Gallery. He has toured extensively with the British Council and his new book Suckle was published in July 2009 by Waterways Press and won the Peoples Book Prize in 2009.

Born in London, Denise Saul is a poet, fiction writer and visual artist of Guyanese and Ethiopian ancestry. Her White Narcissi collection was the Poetry Book Society's featured pamphlet in the winter of 2007. She is a former recipient of the George Viner Trust award for journalism.

Seni Seneviratne was born in Leeds in 1951 to an English mother and Sri Lankan father. She has been writing poetry since her early teens and was first published in 1989. She won second prize in the Margot Jane Memorial Poetry Prize, Onlywomen Press. She has given readings and performances in Vancouver, Cape Town, and around England and her collection Wild Cinammon and Winter Skin was published in 2007 by Peepal Tree Press.

Malika Booker is a British poet of Guyanese and Grenadian parentage whose work spans literature, education and cross-arts. She has appeared world-wide both independently and with the British Council. She was Hampton Court Palace writer in residence in 2004, a commissioned writer for Croydon Museum, the Welcome Trust as well as an Arts Council Fellow at the India International Centre in Delhi. She is an experienced creative writing course leader and has run courses for various organisations including The Arvon Foundation, National Theatre and the Young Vic. Her collection Breadfruit was published by flippedeye in 2007 and recommended by the Poetry Book Society.

Mir Mahfuz Ali is a Bangladeshi poet who came to the UK as a refugee. His poetry has been published in Ambit, London Magazine, Poetry London and various anthologies in the UK and US. He was short-listed for the New Writing Ventures prize in 2007. He was recently featured on Newsnight Review during Refugee Week.

Shazea Quraishi is a translator and a writer of poetry, short fiction and children’s books. Her poems have been published in anthologies and in magazines in the UK and the US, including most recently Modern Poetry in Translation. Shazea is currently working on a long poem sequence based on the life of courtesans in India in 300 BC, and a children’s picture book.

Karen McCarthy Woolf was born in London to English and Jamaican parents and writes poetry, drama and short fiction. She was writer in residence at the Museum of Garden History and literature development agency Spread the Word. Her chapbook The Worshipful Company of Pomegranate Slicers was selected as a New Statesman Book of the Year in 2006. Current commissions include Open Notebooks - a project exploring the writer's process and creativity for Spread the Word.

Rowyda Amin was born in Canada to parents of Saudi Arabian and Irish origin. She has lived in Riyadh and is now based in London. In 2009, she was awarded the Wasafiri New Writing Prize for poetry. Her poems have appeared in Magma, Wasafiri, Notes from the Underground, Rising, Calabash, The Frogmore Papers, and the anthologies Coin Opera (Sidekick Books,2009) and Exposure (Cinnamon Press,2010). Rowyda’s debut pamphlet will be published as part of the Pilot series of new poets under thirty.

Janet Kofi Tsekpo has been published in Wasafiri and featured in the anthology Bittersweet which she co-edited with Karen McCarthy. She currently runs a national professional development programme for the cultural sector.

Born in Uganda, Nick Makoha fled the country with his mother during the Idi Amin dictatorship. He has lived in Kenya, Saudi Arabia and currently resides in London. He has presented his work at many international events and toured for the British Council in Finland, Czech Republic, the US and the Netherlands. His pamphlet, The Lost Collection of an Invisible Man, was published by Flipped Eye in 2005 and he has been widely published in journals and anthologies. He has recently completed a project with the Tate Modern. His one man show, ‘My Father and Other Superheros’ was showcased at Stratford Theatre East.

Carry On Tradition

Monday Aug 23, 2010 – By Britni Danielle

On the cusp of the millennium, several books by young Black women ushered in a fresh perspective on Black womanhood. Writers like Joan Morgan, Lisa Jones, Dream Hampton, Tricia Rose, Rebecca Walker, and others, represented a new brand of post-civil rights, hip hop-influenced feminism that spoke to young women in ways in which older Black and White female writers could not.  The f-word was no longer a stance reserved for White women who wanted to get even with men. It was no longer the struggle in which our foremothers fought for inclusion. This new brand of feminism was relatable. It understood that we liked to look cute, have fun, discuss serious issues, and loved our brothas, despite their inherent privilege.

I remember reading When Chickenheads Come Home to Roost when it debuted and thinking that Joan Morgan was speaking FOR me. I loved hip hop, hard. It was my first crush, the soundtrack to my youth, it inspired my passion for writing, but I always felt some kind of way about the ease in which women were relegated to the sidelines. With the exception of a few dope women (Latifah, MC Lyte, Salt-n-Pepa, Lauryn), women were almost always seen as sidepieces and groupies.

But I kept listening. Even though I danced to its beats, would argue about who was the best emcee, and would defend hip hop like it was my big brother, I always felt uneasy about its willingness to label other women (because clearly, they couldn’t be talking about ME, right?) bitches and hoes. Joan Morgan’s in-your-face exploration of women maturing in the age of hip hop articulated my own contradictory feelings about a culture I loved, but didn’t always love me.

This new brand of feminism understood that the struggle of women wasn’t about hating men. It wasn’t about writing them off and branding them as enemies. Our feminism—as beneficiaries of many movements of equality—was about claiming our voice, articulating our worth, and fighting our own, modern, battles.

In the introduction of Chickenheads, Morgan challenged herself and her peers to stop complaining about what needed to be changed and just take action and change it. She laid down the gauntlet when she warned that, “relying on older heads to redefine the struggle to encompass our generation’s issues is not only lazy but dangerous.”

*Record scratch*

I think we just got called out, too.

Rereading Chickenheads a decade after it first burst on the scene made me nostalgic. I missed the feeling I used to get from listening to my big brother rap about more than just bitches and Bentleys. And I missed the innovative conversations that Black women were having through their writing. Since Morgan’s Chickenheads, Lisa Jones’ Bulletproof Diva, and Rebecca Walker’s To Be Real, few books (only Tracy Sharply-Whiting’s Pimps Up, Hoes Down, Tricia Rose’s Longing To Tell, and Gwendolyn D. Pough’s Home Girls Make Some Noise comes to mind) have been published that explored feminism and Black womanhood through our eyes.

The relative silence lead me to ask . . . where are our sisters’ voices?

I ran this question through my mind and realized that conversations were, in fact, being had. However, instead of the call and response happening on the printed page under the control of corporate publishing houses, we were taking our voices directly to the people, using the internet to carve out our own definitions of who we are and what we want as women.

Who got next?

Since the internet blew up, women have taken to their computers to express themselves and further the discourse regarding race, gender and class. Several have followed the tradition of our third-wave feminist big sisters and fearlessly jumped head-first into the (sometimes very thorny) waters.

So whom should you be checking for? Here are some sistas who aren’t afraid to put it all out there and intelligently critic the world in which we live.

• Helena Andrews: Helena is a journalist, blogger, and author of the clever essay collection, Bitch is the New Black. As a blogger for The Root and Politics Daily, she critiques pop culture and sheds light on what’s it’s like to be a young, Black, successful woman in Washington D.C. Think Carrie Bradshaw meets Joan Clayton. All heart and wit and awesomeness.

• Renina Jarmon: The tagline of Renina’s blog, New Model Minority, says it all: “Thugs + Feminists + Boom Bap.” Renina is a doctoral candidate whose work focuses on the ways in which gender, race, and power are at work in our culture. Never scared of controversial topics, she consistently challenges conventional notions about Black women. Renina is comfortable in any sphere, whether it’s talking hip hop or breaking down the work of philosopher Albert Camus. Reminiscent of Joan Morgan’s work, Renina has taken the baton from our big sisters and run with it.

• Racialicious: Racialicious explores the intersections of race and pop culture. Blog editor Latoya Peterson and company cover everything from current hot topics (such as Dr. Laura’s “Nigger” problem), to discussions of TV shows, commercials, and other media sources that feature minorities. The aim of Racialicious is to hold the media accountable for questionable images of people of color. This collective blog is an amazing source for intelligent critiques and discussions regarding how we are viewed in the public realm.

• Jamilah Lemieux: You may know Jamilah by her sassy alias, Sister Toldja. Jamilah, the self-described “hip hop Denise Huxtable,” writes about love, race, and new-wave feminism on her blog, The Beautiful Struggler. Never one to shy away from a taboo topic, Toldja gained national acclaim for her open letter to Tyler Perry, which earned her an appearance on NPR’s All Things Considered. Jamilah’s blog is equal parts dating diary, pop culture critique, and feminist manifesto.

• The Crunk Feminist Collective: The name alone should have your fingers Googling. This group of women (and men!) confront sexism head on in a blog that aims to build camaraderie among feminists of the hip hop generation whether they’re straight or gay, male or female, and, or, anywhere in between. Like the others, this blog critiques pop culture, politics, and music through the lense of modern Black feminism. This collective is not only crunk, they’re amazingly brilliant.

When one door closes, Black women break through walls. Although the conversation may have been silenced in print, we are taking control of our voices, sharing perspectives and building communities online.  When we are running the show, no one is able to put us in a box or control how we define ourselves. Say word.

Who are the women you’re checking for?

Africa/ Latin America: Intro to Third Cinema

FSFF has up an abridged version of Michael Chanan's 1983 documentary New Cinema of Latin America, re-edited into a priceless intro to Third Cinema: that cinema of the marginalized people of the Third World that took the conditions of underdevelopment as a rhetorical strategy and first principle rather than weakness.

Recall Ethiopian Third Cinema scholar, Teshome H. Gabriel, who passed away recently, had in his early work laid the bridge between the social realism of early African cinema and the manifesto driven Third Cinema of Glauber Rochas, Miguel Littin, Octavio Getino, Fernado Solanas and others (blogged here).

Below, Solanas and Getino's 1968 Third Cinema masterpiece Hora de los Hornos - The Hour of Furnaces, complete with English subs.