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The Spring/Summer Issue
We celebrate our six year anniversary with a serious, contemplative issue that speaks of survival—the struggles we face, the relentless will to carry on and both the simple and complex things of the day that redeem, giving it all meaning. We've said before that we never plan themes for our issues, that they arise of their own volition. And so it seems the tradition carries on with this edition that seemed to know what it needed to be. All our contributors, by virtue of their craft, share deeply with us, confiding and expressing fragments of their innermost selves. For all of you whom we've gotten to know well over the years, there has been a mutual exchange of triumphs and sorrows, accomplishment and loss, illness and healing. We always found the words in our correspondence, even when it seemed that we otherwise didn't know what to say about what we felt or what had happened. For this, for that trust and friendship, for that risk we all take in opening a door and letting someone in, for all we discover and give in the beauty of language, we each receive something greater than we had planned.
With all of you and the way that we affect the lives of one another and every reader who is moved by what we produce together, we have become more than a magazine. In our community, our art is not just we do—it's largely who we are, how we think, how we observe, how we feel with a heightened intensity because our art demands that we ingest the world this way. Understanding this, we are kindred spirits finding our way along paths less traveled by, independent but never alone. And so, continuing on, in the words of poet Ellen Bass, "...I do the thing humans have always done / in the camp’s yellow light. I tell another story."
In this issue, we discern truth from illusion and contemplate the role of perception with the sharp, inquisitive insight of award-winning, NYT best-selling author Mona Simpson. From revealing everyday heroes to voicing injustices to showing the courage it takes to face the odds, our fiction and non-fiction sections grapple with the dark to turn it to light. Our poetry section reaches within to show us places and revelations we needed to know. A poignant, haunting photograph serves as the prompt in our new Writers' Challenge; your job, is to tell its secrets. For our book review, we delve into the pages of Like a Beggar, the latest from Ellen Bass—a tome that takes you in like a beloved family member, delivers the hard, unvarnished truth and then tenderly tends to your wounds. We have responses to our Pay It Forward Initiative in a special feature meant to inspire further awareness of the needs of those around us in 2014. Our Writers' Craft Box presents a never-before-shared anecdote from one of Amazon's self-publishing success story authors and a different take on freedom in journaling. Let go and dive into the waves of this provocative issue.
On our interview page, we pay a price to investigate beneath the surface and identify illusion, while examining the inherent quest for permanence. There is a thirst for truth and change even as there remains a desire for preservation. There is a search to define ‘home’, to know how we are shaped by place and the reflection or perception of a state of life seen intimately through four walls. We grow along this road of exploration, leaving with what we came for and more. We just might come full circle, to return to our beginnings and, in the words of Eliot, "know the place for the first time."
We readers follow an illuminating thread through the richly thoughtful works of best-selling author Mona Simpson in the spirit of a clever scavenger hunt. Simpson is the author of six works of fiction including: Anywhere But Here (adapted in the film version with Susan Sarandon and Natalie Portman), The Lost Father, A Regular Guy, Off Keck Road (a Pen Faulkner finalist), My Hollywood and Casework. She has been the recipient of a Whiting Prize, a Guggenheim, a grant from the NEA, a Hodder Fellowship from Princeton University, a Lila Wallace Readers Digest Prize, a Chicago Tribune Heartland Prize, and a Literature Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. She is on the faculty at UCLA and also teaches at Bard College.
Highlights:
The autumn/winter issue will be released September 22nd. 9/22, 1/22 and 5/22 will be our publication schedule going forward with reminders and updates sent out accordingly. Please let us know if you have any questions and we will be happy to answer them for you.
We have a Writers' Craft Box which is a section dedicated to giving writers hints, tools, essays, features on the craft and advice. Think of it as an arts and crafts box full of colors and inspiration...or an old toy chest discovered in the attic on a rainy day... In this edition, we are pleased to have a unique, thought-provoking perspective on self-publishing from an author Amazon deemed one of their success stories. This piece, sharing an anecdote told here first, touches upon the inevitable contemplation of self vs. traditional publishing and the fundamental purpose of putting forth the best possible product for readers, regardless of its vehicle of delivery. Martin Crosbie's self-publishing journey has been chronicled in Publisher’s Weekly, Forbes online, and Canada’s The Globe and Mail newspaper. Martin’s debut novel, My Temporary Life, has been downloaded over one hundred and fifty thousand times and became an Amazon top ten overall bestseller.
We also have an inspiring, permission-to-create-without-apology piece on journaling from writer/architect Robert Boucheron. "It is a place to say what cannot be said." His academic degrees are from Harvard, a B. A. in English, and Yale, a M. Arch. His stories, essays and book reviews appear in Atticus Review, Bangalore Review, Cossack Review, Digital Americana, North Dakota Quarterly, Outside In Literary & Travel, Poydras Review, and other magazines.
See the new Writers' Challenge where we try something different and unlock the wonder of another medium for inspiration. From this haunting photograph, you are to develop a piece about the circumstances that led to the captured image. We encourage the unexpected. Entries in fiction, poetry and non-fiction are welcome.
The Write Place At the Write Time Pay It Forward Initiative~ First inspired by an anonymous Facebook post in February, we developed our own version of a Pay It Forward initiative to spread the love in 2014 that coincides with our magazine's community-oriented, humanitarian approach. Over the past five and a half years, we've gotten to know so many of you and had the pleasure of seeing what great people we have here. The purpose of this initiative was to inspire us all to remember to go out of our way to brighten someone's life, make things easier for a loved one or a stranger, renew faith in kindness and let that warmth spread. It's something so simple yet capable of profound results.
We asked to receive stories of kind gestures (whether in the traditional 'pay it forward' fashion where the receiver is then invited to participate or whether it was one gesture from one person to another) and offered that the first five people who contacted us about this with 'Pay It Forward' in the subject line would receive something from us in turn (be it a book, gift certificate, free creative writing consult/coaching, etc...).
Check out our featured stories and let this be only a spark. Find your way of paying it forward. How will you make your difference?
Outside of the issue, we have our upcoming Twitter storytelling event, Twitter Tales. We will start with the first post and then, without restraining the genre or premise, are going to have participants take turns continuing the story with their own flair. The use of social media in storytelling (poetry and prose) is a popular trend in the literary world right now. We've assembled a great group of emerging and established authors, skilled storytellers and professionals. What we like about it is the creative challenge of boiling down our inspiration to few words (Mark Twain, far ahead of the times, knew the importance of practicing this skill) as well as the instant community connection to bring writers together from great distances to enjoy something where the amusement will come in learning the direction the story takes with so many varied talents contributing to it. We will assemble and share the final product.
We have an Archives page where readers and writers can trace our artistic journey from the beginning and re-read the wisdom of writers such as Janet Fitch, Alice Hoffman, Dennis Lehane, Joanne Harris, Frances Mayes, Arthur Golden, Jodi Picoult and many, many more!
We have a re-vamped Feedback form which we encourage you to use. We also have a Scrapbook page celebrating six years as a publication with words from our contributors. *In the span of 2013, we were read in 65 countries! See also our comprehensive "Search" feature: type in keywords to search the entire site, including all of the archives.
Please send in all new announcements to appear in the next issue by August 15th for the Announcements page. As always, we love to celebrate and support our contributing artists and writers as they accomplish great things on their creative paths and we also like to give news of our publication to our readership. We encourage all contributing writers and artists to tell us of their news so that we can use this page as a forum to help promote their endeavors and showcase the amazing diversity of activity that takes place in our online community.
We have a presence on Facebook via our fan page which offers insights, quotes, tools, resources and updates. Visit Facebook.com and stop by The-Write-Place-At-the-Write-Time-literary-journal page. Follow our Twitter account through @WriteplcWritetm.
Inscribing Industry is our blog devoted to the business aspects of writing, featuring exercises, articles and interviews. Be on the lookout for a review of Frances Mayes's memoir, Under Magnolia, on June 2nd. We'd first interviewed Mayes for our two year anniversary issue in the summer of 2010 and this year we have the pleasure of once again becoming ensconced in her unforgettably descriptive prose. Click on the newly installed Inscribing Industry tab to go there directly or visit: http://inscribingindustry.blogspot.com and become a follower!
We are a triannual publication (published three times a year) and an official member of the CLMP (Council of Literary Magazines and Presses) listed on the Poets & Writers site (www.pw.org) under literary magazines. Clicking on our listing describes our publication, past issues, and our editorial focus. We are also listed on Newpages.com, EWR, Duotrope Digest, Agentquery.com, P&E and The Review Review. To read more about our philosophies and approach, you can read the interview of our Editor-in-Chief in The Review Review:
http://www.thereviewreview.net/interviews/there-blending-cultures-generations-and-countries
Our next issue will be our autumn/winter issue due out September 22nd. The submissions deadline for the issue is August 15th; we will however consider extensions until September 1st if notified ahead of time by writers we've worked with in the past. Please check the submissions guidelines page before submitting and if you have any questions, please write to:
questions (at) thewriteplaceatthewritetime.org
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