Endowed in perpetuity by the Glenna Luschei Fund for Excellence

Prairie Schooner News

Glenna Luschei to Launch New Book at Quilt Museum

Glenna Luschei

Poet and literary philanthropist Glenna Luschei will launch her new book of poetry, The Sky Is Shooting Blue Arrows (University of New Mexico Press) at an event hosted by Prairie Schooner, the University of Nebraska-Lincoln’s international literary journal.

The event will take place on October 27 at 7:00 p.m. at the International Quilt Study Center & Museum and is free and open to the public. The reception will celebrate the publication of The Sky Is Shooting Blue Arrows. Luschei will read from her new book and sign copies (available to purchase courtesy of the University of Nebraska bookstore) afterward.

“Glenna Luschei has for over fifteen years now been an ardent and very loyal, dedicated alumna and benefactor for her alma mater, the University of Nebraska,” says Susan Norby, Senior Director of Development at the University of Nebraska Foundation. “She has demonstrated visionary charitable support, particularly for literature and poetry, and the university is forever indebted to her and inspired by her.”

Luschei has written over twenty-five books, ranging from books of poetry to artist books and translations. She is also the founder and publisher of Solo Press, which publishes the poetry journals Café Solo, Solo, Solo Café, and Solo Novo. She is the recipient of a National Endowments for the Arts Fellowship, a D.H. Lawrence Fellowship in New Mexico, and an Honorary Doctorate of Literature from St. Andrew’s Presbyterian College in Laurinburg, North Carolina. In 2000, she was named Poet Laureate of San Luis Obispo City and County. She served as a panelist for the National Endowment for the Arts for four years. She is also a UNL alum.

“Glenna Luschei is very special to this university and especially to Prairie Schooner and the English department.  Frankly, it is thanks to her generosity and philanthropy that Prairie Schooner has been able to advance with confidence for the past decade or so through her generous gift to the journal,” says Kwame Dawes, the magazine’s Glenna Luschei Editor-in-Chief.  “She gives to the university, and she has been a great example of giving for years and years, even when she herself was working hard to make ends meet.  She recently donated funds to establish the Glenna Luschei African Poetry Book Prize, and her support and enthusiasm make her a very special friend of ours.  On top of all that, she is a brilliant poet, and her new book is one we celebrate for its insight, humanity, and craft.”

In 2001, Luschei endowed Prairie Schooner in perpetuity through the University of Nebraska Foundation. She also supports a number of Prairie Schooner’s activities, including the Glenna Luschei Prairie Schooner Awards, and, in partnership with the African Poetry Book Fund, the Glenna Luschei Prize for African Poetry.

Luschei’s most recent books include Leaving It All Behind (Presa Press, 2011), Witch Dance (Presa Press, 2010), and Salt Lick (West End Press, 2009). Among her artist books is Enigmas, a translation of poems by Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz.

For more details about this event, visit http://prairieschooner.unl.edu.

2014 Summer Nonfiction Contest Winner Announced

Aurvi Sharma

Prairie Schooner is pleased to announce that Aurvi Sharma is the winner of the 2014 Summer Creative Nonfiction Contest, for her essay “Eleven Stories of Water and Stone.” She will receive $250 and publication in the Spring 2015 issue of Prairie Schooner.

Aurvi Sharma’s writing has appeared or is forthcoming in Fourth Genre, Everyday Genius and Remedy. In 2012, she was awarded the Sarai Non-Fiction Fellowship, during which she travelled to riverside ruins across north India. Sharma was the recipient of the 2014 Wasafiri New Writing Prize (“Life Writing”). She lives in New York.

Judith Ortiz Cofer, the judge of this year’s prize, said of Sharma’s essay, “This essay is best described in the author’s own phrase: ‘trying to hold water in a fist.’ Each of the sections is a powerfully focused revelation of how the most basic of elements, the basis of survival—water—determines the life in an Indian community. But it is not mere social history; it is also about how individual lives and relationships are affected by either the presence of water or its scarcity. It is a poem and a history lesson."

Emily Geminder’s essay “Coming To: A Lexicology of Fainting” is the runner-up of this year’s contest. Geminder is a Durwood Fellow at the University of Missouri-Kansas City. She has worked as a journalist and editor in New York and Phnom Penh. Her writing has appeared in the New York Observer, the Cambodia Daily, and elsewhere.

Emiliy Geminder

Last year’s winner was Melissa Febos, whose essay “Call My Name” appeared in the Spring 2014 issue of Prairie Schooner. To learn more about Prairie Schooner, the latest issues, and how to subscribe, visit http://prairieschooner.unl.edu.

Sillerman First Book Prize for African Poets - Submissions Open September 15

Starting September 15, the African Poetry Book Fund is accepting submissions for the Sillerman First Book Prize for African Poets. There is no fee to enter, and winners receive $1,000 US and publication through the University of Nebraska Press and Amalion Press in Senegal. The contest is open to African writers who have not yet published a book-length poetry collection. (An African writer is taken as someone who was born in Africa, who is a national or resident of an African country, or whose parents are African.) Click here for full contest details and to enter your manuscript starting September 15.

Past winners of the Sillerman First Book Prize include 2014 winner Ladan Osman (pictured below) and 2013 winner Clifton Gachagua, whose collection Madman at Kilifi (above) was released as part of this year's African Poetry Book series.

ladan_osman

FUSION 9 - Libations, With Poems, Art, and Essays from Ghana

Just as a libation can be poured using various potable liquids and mixtures, so this collection of poems goes to serve one purpose. The collection is in itself, a libation.

Libations is the theme of our latest FUSION, a collaboration with Ghana and the ninth edition of our FUSION series. Each FUSION features poems from both the Prairie Schooner archives and a different country around the world, along with essays and visual art all centered on a different theme. (Check out past FUSIONs with Hong Kong, Iran, Australia, and others here.)

FUSION 9 with Ghana features work by poets L.S. Mensah, Dannabang Kuwabong, Ellen Gilchrist, and Arthur Smith, and visual artists Bernard Akoi-Jackson and Ray Taddeucci. The screenshot above comes from Akoi-Jackson's 2012 video, The Cleansing.

APBF to Open Five African Poetry Libraries in September

The African Poetry Book Fund and Prairie Schooner are launching five poetry reading libraries in the Gambia, Botswana, Ghana, Kenya, and Uganda scheduled to open this September. Each library will house contemporary poetry books and journals available to poets and lovers of poetry in these five countries and beyond. Each library contains room for over 1,500 titles, offers resources for those interested in publishing their poems, and will serve as a hub for poets to meet and collaborate while remaining open to all.

“Too many poets working in Africa today have limited access to contemporary poetry,” said APBF Series Editor Kwame Dawes, “partly because of poor distribution by international publishers within Africa and partly because of the cost of books. We felt it would be a great idea to establish small poetry libraries in as many places as possible.”

All five libraries have been established through partnerships with writing organizations, arts organizations, existing libraries, and influential individuals in the arts from each of the five launch countries, and all have received start-up donations of books collected and sent to them by the APBF. Some of the initial mailing—just over four hundred books and journals to each site—consists of poetry collections donated by select literary journals from across the country, with a focus on new authors and contemporary collections from around the world.

Sites for the new poetry libraries include the Gaborone Public Library (pictured above) in Gaborone, Botswana, while the Uganda poetry library in Kampala (pictured below) has been made possible by the Ugandan Arts Trust.

More information about the African Poetry Library Initiative can be found on the APBF Poetry Library website.

Summer 2014 Issue Now Available

The Summer 2014 issue of Prairie Schooner, with poetry and prose by Robert Gibb, Jenine Capó Crucet, Floyd Skloot, Jesse Lee Kercheval, and others, is now available and has been mailed out to subscribers. Click here to see samples from the current issue and for a full list of contributors, or click here to subscribe.

This issue's cover features Zacatecas 1, an archival pigment print photograph by visual artist Francisco Soutou, whose work has been exhibited in Venezuela, Egypt, Japan, Russia, and elsewhere around the world. More of Soutou's photos, paintings, and prints are available on his website, http://www.franciscosouto.com.

Summer Creative Nonfiction Contest - Deadline August 1

This is the final week to submit to Prairie Schooner’s annual Summer Creative Nonfiction contest, which is accepting entries until August 1, 2014. Winners receive $250 and publication in the Spring 2015 issue. The entry fee is only $18.00 US, which includes a one-year subscription to the print journal—a $10 savings off the regular rate! Writers may submit multiple entries, but must pay a separate fee for each submission.

We are only considering electronic submissions for our Summer Creative Nonfiction Contest. Click here for full guidelines and to submit via Submittable.

Last year’s contest winner was Melissa Febos (pictured above) for her essay “Call My Name,” appearing in our Spring 2014 issue. Melissa also sat down for an interview with Assistant Nonfiction Editor Sarah Fawn Montgomery, which you can read on the Prairie Schooner blog.

2014 Prairie Schooner Book Prize winners announced: $6,000 awarded

Prairie Schooner at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln has announced the winners for its annual awards for books of short fiction and poetry. The winners were chosen from more than 1,100 submissions from around the world.

Jennifer Perrine

The winner of the Prairie Schooner Book Prize in Poetry for 2014 is Jennifer Perrine for her manuscript, No Confession, No Mass. She will receive a $3,000 prize and publication by the University of Nebraska Press. Perrine is also the author of In the Human Zoo (University of Utah Press, 2011), recipient of the 2010 Agha Shahid Ali Poetry Prize, and The Body Is No Machine (New Issues, 2007), winner of the 2008 Devil’s Kitchen Reading Award in Poetry. Jennifer teaches courses in creative writing and social justice and directs the Women’s and Gender Studies program at Drake University in Des Moines, Iowa.

Bryn Chancellor

The Prairie Schooner Book Prize in Fiction for 2014 goes to Bryn Chancellor for her manuscript, When Are You Coming Home?. She will receive a $3,000 prize and publication by the University of Nebraska Press. Chancellor’s short fiction has appeared in Gulf Coast, Blackbird, Colorado Review, Crazyhorse, Phoebe, and elsewhere. In 2014, she was selected as the Poets & Writers Maureen Egen Writers Exchange winner in fiction, and she received a Literary Arts Fellowship from the Alabama State Council on the Arts. Previous honors include a fellowship and a project grant from the Arizona Commission on the Arts and scholarships from the Bread Loaf and Sewanee Writers’ Conferences. A graduate of Vanderbilt University's MFA program, she is an assistant professor at the University of Montevallo in Alabama. She is married to the artist Timothy Winkler. 

The competition, in its twelfth year, runs Jan. 15 to March 15 annually. Submission details and a list of past winners are available online at http://prairieschooner.unl.edu/?q=book-prize/past-winners.

Founded in 1927, Prairie Schooner is a national literary quarterly published with the support of the English Department at UNL. It publishes fiction, poetry, essays and reviews by beginning, mid-career, and established writers.

 

Welcome to Managing Editor Ashley Strosnider, and Farewell to Marianne Kunkel

Prairie Schooner has named its new managing editor, Ashley Strosnider, whose experience includes editing positions at Drunken Boat, Pithead Chapel, and the University of South Carolina’s Yemassee journal.

Ashley’s hiring came after a nationwide search led by Editor-in-Chief Kwame Dawes. She grew up in Kentucky and received an MFA in poetry from the University of South Carolina, where she was a James Dickey fellow. Her publishing experience ranges from small presses to independent publishing to literary journals, and her poetry and fiction have appeared in Fifth Wednesday, Nashville Review, Bayou, Potomac Review, Word Riot, and Smokelong Quarterly. A full list of her publications is available on her website.

As an editor, Strosnider believes firmly in Prairie Schooner’s ability to connect writers and readers. “My admiration for Prairie Schooner is longstanding and deep,” she said when asked what brought her to the journal. “The university literary journal embodies a large-scale investment in the transfer of ideas.”

Ashley's arrival is paired with the departure of Marianne Kunkel, who finishes out her three-year period as managing editor of Prairie Schooner as she prepares for her new position as Assistant Professor of Creative Writing and Publishing at Missouri Western State University. In addition to teaching literature and creative writing, Kunkel will oversee the college’s literary journal, The Mochila Review.

Marianne began work as a reader for Prairie Schooner and was hired as managing editor in November 2011 after the departure of previous editor James Engelhardt. Originally from Alabama, she holds an MFA from the University of Florida, and this spring received her PhD in poetry from UNL with a specialization in women’s and gender studies. Her chapbook, The Laughing Game, was published in 2012 by Finishing Line Press, and her work has appeared in Columbia Poetry Review, Hayden’s Ferry Review, Poet Lore, Rattle, and River Styx.

“Marianne will do exceptionally well where she is going,” Dawes said in farewell, “but I will miss her greatly.”

Announcing the First Annual Glenna Luschei Prize for African Poetry

They say once Africa bites you, you never recover.

Poet and literary philanthropist Glenna Luschei has bestowed a generous award through the African Poetry Book Fund to fund a new prize for a collection by an African poet. Starting this year, the Glenna Luschei Prize for African Poetry will be the first prize to recognize already published works of African poetry, with the winner receiving $5,000 and commendation at a ceremony in a major US city.

To be eligible for the Glenna Luschei Prize, a collection must have been published in 2013 by a recognized press, and the author must be of African nationality, African residency, or African parentage. Each prize will be judged by an internationally renowned poet, with the first prize to be judged by Nigerian writer and poet Chris Abani. Nominations for works published in 2013 are open from May 1 to July 1, 2014, with a winner to be announced in October 2014. Click here for full guidelines and to nominate collections for the Glenna Luschei Prize, or e-mail questions to psbookprize@unl.edu.

In addition to her work in literary philanthropy, Glenna Luschei founded Solo Press in 1966 and has published the poetry magazines Café Solo, Solo, Solo Café, and Solo Novo. Her latest volume of poetry, Leaving It All Behind, was published by Presa Press in 2011.

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