Endowed in perpetuity by the Glenna Luschei Fund for Excellence

Alberta Clipper 10/27/15: “Urban Legend” by Denise Duhamel

Submitted by Prairie Schooner on Tue, 10/27/2015 - 11:56
by Holly Fleck

“It sounds like an urban legend, except it really happened.”

The infamous Axeman of New Orleans, having reigned in terror over the city from May 1918 to October 1919, killed his last victim on October 27, 1919. Mike Pepitone’s wife was surprised to find her living room turned into a blood-splattered canvas, with her husband and a ruined painting of the Virgin Mary at the foreground. Out of the corner of her eye she witnessed an ax-wielding shadow flee into the night.

"Our Essential Bonds": An Interview with Joy Castro

Submitted by Prairie Schooner on Mon, 10/26/2015 - 10:04
by Keene Short

UNL faculty member Joy Castro recently debuted her fifth book, How Winter Began, a collection of short stories. She is also the author of the novel Nearer Home and Island of Bones, a collection of essays, and is the editor for the anthrology Family Trouble. I asked her a few questions about her newest collection, her ideal audience, and her next writing project.

Contributor Spotlight on Fiona Sze-Lorrain

Submitted by Prairie Schooner on Fri, 10/23/2015 - 09:05
by Keene Short

This week, we turn the spotlight to Fiona Sze-Lorrain, whose poem “A Matter of Time” appeared in the Winter 2014 edition of Prairie Schooner. In addition, she contributed a Prairie Schooner blog post, “Women and the Global Imagination: Laudomia Bonanni and The Reprisal,” earlier this summer. In Summer 2011, Christina Cook reviewed Sze-Lorrain’s first poetry collection Water the Moon in Prairie Schooner.

So You Wanna Win a Book Prize?

Submitted by Prairie Schooner on Wed, 10/21/2015 - 13:24

In honor of the Prairie Schooner Book Prize and the Sillerman First Book Prize for African Poets (open now!) We've revived our interview series about publishing the first book. This week, Book Prize Coordinator Katie Schmid Henson talks with Prairie Schooner contributor and poet Hala Alyan about the process of writing her first manuscript, and bringing her first book, Atrium (and her second and third books) to publication.

"Inhabiting three different landscapes at once": An Interview with Laura Woollett

Submitted by Prairie Schooner on Wed, 10/21/2015 - 12:13
by Sarah Fawn Montgomery

The winner of the 2015 Summer Nonfiction contest, judged by Rigoberto González, is Laura Woollett, for her essay "Working Girl." Prairie Schooner Assistant Nonfiction Editor Sarah Fawn Montgomery asked Laura a few questions, resulting in a brief but wide-ranging discussion that touches on adolescence, brevity, Joyce Carol Oates, Vogue, The O.C., Nietzche, memory, and more. Enjoy!

Your winning essay, “Working Girl,” explores female adolescence using irony and humor to move the story beyond mere teenage angst. The piece accomplishes this task in just a few short pages. What roles did compression and brevity play in your writing process? How do they work with—or perhaps because of—the subject matter?

Coda to Interview with Kate Southwood

Submitted by Prairie Schooner on Wed, 10/14/2015 - 13:04

In which interviews never end because conversations never end. Last week, Book Prize Coordinator Katie Schmid Henson interviewed novelist Kate Southwood about the process of writing and publishing her first book, the critically acclaimed Falling to Earth. After the interview, the conversation kept going. Here's a little bit more from the generous Kate Southwood about negotiating her roles as mother and writer.

Can you say a little bit more about the periods of time when you were not-writing, but still working on the composing process? How do you balance the work of parenting with the writing work that you do?

Alberta Clipper 10/13/15: “Listening to the Paint” by Rachel Dacus

Submitted by Prairie Schooner on Tue, 10/13/2015 - 12:18
by Summer Bethune

On October 13, 2012, Gerhard Richter, a German visual artist, set an auction record price for artwork sold by a living artist with his painting Abstraktes Bild. It sold for $34 million, but that record held only until 2013 when his piece, Domplatz, Mailand sold for $37.1 million in New York. Finally, Abstraktes Bild exceeded the record again in February 2015 when it was sold again, this time for $44.52 million in London.

“With a Bit of What I'm Sure the Kids Don't Call ‘Tude’”: Q&A With Justin Taylor

Submitted by Prairie Schooner on Mon, 10/12/2015 - 12:43
by Keene Short

Justin Taylor is the author of one novel, The Gospel of Anarchy, and two short story collections, Everything Here is the Best Thing Ever, and, most recently, Flings. He recently read here at UNL from Flings, which felt fitting, since Prairie Schooner published the title story in Summer 2012. I emailed Justin a few questions about his book, and about story collections as a genre. Enjoy!

So You Want to Submit to a Literary Journal

Submitted by Prairie Schooner on Thu, 10/08/2015 - 09:49
by Keene Short

Let’s say you’re an aspiring writer. You’ve just polished up a short story, a handful of poems, a nonfiction essay. Maybe your friends have critiqued it, or you’ve just revised it after receiving a mentor’s feedback. Certainly you should send your hard-written work to a literary journal, to a dozen literary journals. But many aspiring writers let the temptation to see their names in print, to see their work published, overpower the effort they put into actually submitting it. Here is a short list of tips for newcomers to the messy business of submitting to a journal.

Briefly Noted - October 7, 2015

Submitted by Prairie Schooner on Wed, 10/07/2015 - 15:35
Quick-to-Read Reviews

Reviews in brief from the staff of Prairie Schooner and associates.

Vol. 4 Issue 4. October 7, 2015. Ed. Paul Hanson Clark.

Excavation: A Memoir by Wendy C. Ortiz | Reviewed by Alyssa Martino Trespass by Thomas Dooley | Reviewed by Anna Saikin Things We Lost in the Fire by Vuyelwa Maluleke | Reviewed by Katie Schmid

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