I just found this online poetry journal, Jacket, that promises to be, at the least, a very interesting read. All the previous issues are linked at the top of the page, archived for your perusal.  It seems that it's been around now for a while, and glancing back over the first 10 issues or so, you can see that it has come a long way.

The feature in the newest issue, Jacket 33, is a collective book review of Brenda Hillman’s Pieces of Air in the Epic, out last month in paperback. Twenty-Four authors give a short review that focuses on one of the poems in the book. I’ve never seen anything like this before, but I like it.

This post is either early or late (I found out about it a couple of weeks ago, but the event's not happening until later this fall), but former fiction editor, Tadd Adcox, has recently had his first story accepted for Quick Fiction, a journal devoted to short-shorts. He's been honing his craft of the form for several years now, so we at Sycamore wish him well for his success. Be sure to check out Quick Fiction either later this year or early in '08 for Tadd's piece.

In the mean time you can check out some of his work on his blog, Fiction-Volante, where he's been posting one short-short every weekday for a couple of months now. Besides the writing, Tadd's project is interesting because it's a demonstration of self-discipline, which I've heard makes or breaks writers after the MFA, and a blog is a good way to garner a readership before the breakout book.

Miranda July won the third annual Frank O'Connor award presented in Cork, Ireland. The award is presented to a first time author who has published a collection of short stories. The most generous award for a short story collection in the world, the award offers a prize of 35,000 euro (approx. $42,500). Writers from all over the world are eligible for the competition as long as the book is written in the English language (translations are eligible) and is a first time publication. Writers from Israel, New Zealand, and the United Kingdom were among the six authors short listed for the award. Of the thirty-four titles nominated, the United States led the pack with nine titles included in the longlist.   Past winners includ Yiyun Li (2005) and Haruki Murakami (2006).

The Munster Literature Center organizes the award in memory of Frank O'Connor and the ceremony is held in Cork, Ireland, O'Connor's hometown.

Miranda July is a filmmaker, performing artist, and writer. She grew up in Berkeley, CA.

He has a new book, The Age of Turbulence, which is partially a memoir about the making of an economist and partially a handful of Greenspan's own thoughts and predictions about where our global economy is and is going. There's a favorable review of the book in the NY Times. Also, Greenspan has a good interview on the Charlie Rose Show this week.

The bestselling fantasy novelist died earlier this week, leaving the twelfth installment of his Wheel of Time series incomplete. A good write-up is in the UK Telegraph

By Mary Godwin, Contributing Blogger

Since signing on to blog a bit with others at the Sycamore Review, I've been paying more attention to poetry. Of course, poetry isn't the only or even the main focus of Sycamore Review, but it seems to be what has happened to me as I paid more attention to literature online.

I was lost for a few delicious hours the other day in recorded poetry readings read by the authors themselves at The Poetry Archive. Here I watched and listened to Patricia Beers, Anne Sexton, Dylan Thomas, and Spike Milligan (this last, at first, only because his name was so inviting). Even poets Tennyson, Yeats, and Browning can be heard reciting their own works, though the recordings bear witness to the passing of time as you might expect. Poke around in "historic recordings" to discover a favorite of your own.

Taking an otherly turn, I came across works I found to be called "animated poetry" and fell down a particularly wonderful rabbit hole with Billy Collins (44th U.S. Poet Laureate) and the series of his poems available on YouTube. Picking a favorite among these just won't work, but "Sweet Talk," "Forgetfulness," and at the top of my list, "The Best Cigarette" found more than one viewing with me.

From comments left on one of the Collins poems, I wandered on my way to this amazing bit of fun, work the writer called "graphic poetry." It starts slow, but give it a chance: "Harder, Better, Faster, and Stronger."

By Jess Mehr, Non-Fiction Editor

I'm reading Charles Baxter's The Feast of Love on Fiction Editor Jon Sealy's recommendation, only to discover that there is a movie version of the book coming out on September 28th. It stars Morgan Freeman and Greg Kinnear (as Bradley). It's directed by Robert Benton, who won an Oscar for Kramer vrs. Kramer. I hope Charlie Baxter got a dump-truck full of money for it. Check out our upcoming anniversary issue for a review of Baxter's new collection of craft essays.

http://www.feastoflovefilm.com/

The Guardian has a story about the tension between short stories and novels (ie that novels are more publishable) here. What interests me comes near the end of the article, where the author suggests, "I come out of an Irish tradition. Most great Irish novels are short stories assembled on an organising principle. Historically, so are most successful books - 1001 Arabian Nights, the Bible, Canterbury Tales, the Odyssey, Divine Comedy, Decameron, Trainspotting."

I'm very excited to see that Stephen King, editing Best American Stories 2007, and Carl Hiaasen, editing Best American Mystery Stories 2007, have both picked a William Gay story for their anthologies. Originally published in Tin House last year (Issue 26), "Where Will You Go When Your Skin Cannot Contain You?" is about a guy--the "Jeepster"--addicted to crystal meth and whose girlfriend has recently been murdered. William Gay isn't for everyone, I guess (his stories are in the southern gothic vein), but I think he's my favorite story writer working right now. He's relatively new on the scene (maybe ten years?), and hasn't published as many stories as bigger names have, but I haven't read one of his stories I didn't like. I'll even dare to say that his collection, I Hate to See That Evening Sun Go Down, might be the south's finest book of stories since A Good Man Is Hard to Find. His secret--beyond pitch-perfect sentence rhythms, interesting characters, and a mature voice--is plot. He simply tells a good story. I wish him a hearty congratulations for these awards.

Update: I found an interview with him here. He has some interesting things to say, especially since instead of going to college and then a writing program, he worked construction for twenty years. Of workshop stories, he says, "It's more professional than the way I started out. But it doesn't seem as vital."

That's right folks! You read correctly. I was certain that after his debacle with the memoir, he would never publish again. Apparently, Harper Collins has purchased his novel entitled, Bright Shining Morning to be published in the summer of 2008 (as reported by thebookstandard).

Jonathan Burnham, senior vice president and publisher of HarperCollins said of Frey:

"James Frey is an immensely talented writer who has written a truly extraordinary and original novel, one of great breadth and ambition...We are excited to have him on board and to be publishing it."

I guess credibility doesn't matter anymore? I have nothing against Frey, really, I wish him the best, but I do believe in the contract between writer and reader...I guess we'll see how the book does when it's published.

In this New York Times article, David Oshinsky writes about the various manuscripts rejected by Alfred A. Knopf.  The rejection files run from the 1940's to the 70's, and include, among many others:

Jorge Luis Borges (“utterly untranslatable”), Isaac Bashevis Singer (“It’s Poland and the rich Jews again”), Anaïs Nin (“There is no commercial advantage in acquiring her, and, in my opinion, no artistic”), Sylvia Plath (“There certainly isn’t enough genuine talent for us to take notice”) and Jack Kerouac (“His frenetic and scrambling prose perfectly express the feverish travels of the Beat Generation. But is that enough? I don’t think so”).

Oh, add Anne Frank to that.  And Nabokov.  And George Orwell.  See?  Now aren't we all feeling a little bit better about our own, tiny rejection slips that we stuff so quickly away to the backs of our desk drawers?  At least if you get rejected, you'll know you're in good company. 

There is no website that excites me more than is this online poetry journal, MiPOesias.  I get all tingly whenever it's updated.  New issues, often featuring invited editors, come out several times a year; and they're always filled with exciting new poetry from both well-known and obscure/emerging writers.  At first glance, I notice that the September 2007 edition features new poems by Campbell McGrath and Keith & Rosmarie Waldrop.  If you don't know who they are, you should probably start acquainting yourself now.

Check out some of the archived issues, too.  Everything is posted up free to view by anyone with an internet connection.  They now give you the option to buy it through lulu.com (a print-on-demand service I mentioned in an earlier post), if you feel like holding something in your hands.

My favorite issue so far: Gabriel Gudding's issue, The Strange Call, edited with the theme of "strange poems" in mind.  It certainly lived up to that.

By Mary Godwin, Contributing Blogger 

The European Graduate School introduces itself online as "facilitating creative breakthroughs and theoretical paradigm shifts" and bringing graduate students together with "the visionaries and philosophers of the media world who inspire learning about art, philosophy, communications, film, literature, internet, web and cyberspace studies from a cross-disciplinary perspective."

The excitement for Sycamore readers can be found in the sharing that the EGS is willing to do online: video lectures available for viewing include such notable writers as Slavoj Zizek on "Happiness," Jean Baudrillard on the "Finalities of Change," Victor J. Vitanza on "Being in Relation," Paul Miller aka DJ Spooky on "21st Century Aesthetics," and Shelley Jackson on "Trans-Literary Styles" - these representing only an appetizer in light of the many other and notable lectures posted there.

Go HERE to check out the 1999-2003 lectures available onsite with EGS, and browse the list below for other viewing opportunities that EGS has made available through YouTube:

Jacques Derrida at the EGS, 2004 - Part 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11

Jean Baudrillard at the EGS, 2002 - Part 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8

Jean Baudrillard at the EGS, 2004

Slavoj Žižek - Rules, Race, and Mel Gibson, 2006 - Part 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8

Judith Butler at the EGS, 2006 - Part 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

Lectures from authors and filmmakers: Atom Egoyan, Peter Greenaway, John Waters and Julian Barnes.