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.
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.
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.
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?
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?
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.
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!
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.
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
Submitted by Prairie Schooner on Wed, 10/07/2015 - 14:00
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 novelist Kate Southwood about the process of writing her manuscript, acquiring an agent, and bringing her first novel to publication.
August is Women in Translation month and we wanted to celebrate by sharing a selection of brilliant authors from all over the world whose work we've published. Enjoy!
When asked about poetry, Ted Kooser, former Poet Laureate of the United States, responds, “One important objective for me is to write clearly and accessibly.”
