Happy Saturday! Catch up with this week’s literary news with TMR’s Weekend Reading.
The Writing World
At the New York Times, the winners of the 2016 Whiting Award discuss their recent windfall in the context of their writing careers.
Help Jellyfish Highway Press, a publisher committed to book prizes for women, writers of color, and queer/trans writers, reach their next print goal.
Ottessa Moshfegh is the recipient of the 2016 PEN/Hemingway award for debut fiction for her novel Eileen. Moshfegh’s essay “How to Shit” appeared in The Masters Review last fall.
Industry
Indie comics publisher Oni Press announced five of the ten titles they selected from their open-submissions call last year.
Hachette Book Group has officially acquired Perseus Books, and Lena Dunham will now have her own “Lenny” imprint at Random House.
Powell’s Books of Portland, Oregon was featured in the Guardian’s “Interview with a Bookstore.”
Submissions
The Passages North spring fiction contest closes on April 15, 2016. Submit up to 10,000 words for a chance at $1,000. (Their current issue has our own, Megan Giddings!)
This Week at The Masters Review
Yesterday we published new fiction by Bonnie Jo Stufflebeam, “The Split.” We also shared “Our 5 Favorite Things from #AWP16,” including the Lulu Awards, a reading from Hugo House, and Claudia Rankine’s keynote address.
Good morning! Here’s some literary love to get your weekend off right.
News
The VIDA Count is slowly beginning to see a shift toward gender parity in publishing. They’re also taking a more intersectional look at the writing world in their own surveys.
We love an anthology! A new one from Tachyon, Invaders: 22 Tales from the Outer Limits of Literature, looks especially great and includes stories from Junot Díaz, George Saunders, and TMR contributor Julia Elliott.
The two finalists for the Scholastic Art & Writing Awards, the nation’s longest-running recognition program for high-school and middle-school writers, were both freshmen from Oregon (home state of The Masters Review). We’re very proud.
Craft
Fantasy author J.S. Morin shares twenty questions authors must ask themselves when world building.
Kelly Kerney, author of Hard Red Spring, discusses why writing historical fiction can be so fraught at Publishers Weekly.
Submissions
Dzanc Books announced an inaugural fiction prize. The winner will receive a $10,000 book advance and will be published in Fall 2017.
Weekend Reads
Fiction: “Retrieval” by Tea Obreht, author of The Tiger’s Wife.
This Week at The Masters Review
We’ve been busy at the AWP Conference in Los Angeles—meeting TMR contributors, swapping stories, and discovering new lit journals. But before we left, we shared two posts for new and emerging writers at AWP: One on how to navigate your first conference and another with handpicked panels for emerging writers.
The Masters Review is excited to announce a new online feature—Weekend Reading, a weekly round-up of literary links to catch up on Saturday morning. Plus, we’ll have all the news from The Masters Review in digest form.
Weekend Reading
The Masters Digest
Struggling through the early hours of your Monday? Here are seven literary links to help you escape the start of your week.
The American Short(er) Fiction Contest has extended its deadline. You now have until February 15th to submit up to 1000 words for a chance at publication and $1000. This year’s contest is judged by Amelia Gray, so hurry!
Paul Lisicky discusses The Promise of Flawed Characters — How Flannery O’Connor Pulls Her Subjects Apart To Make Them Stronger. He writes in The Atlantic: “It’s so easy to see O’Connor’s stories as little punishment machines that intend to flatten the characters until they behave as they’re supposed to.”
Patrick DeWitt reminds us why we love his writing. He doesn’t publish many short stories, but here’s one at Electric Literature you’re bound to enjoy, titled, “The Bastard”. DeWitt at his best.
Another writer we love’s home is up for sale. Maya Angelou’s famous Harlem brownstone is on the market.
Looking for some writing advice. Here’s one from the archives. Ray Bradbury gives 12 pieces of writing advice to young authors: “Examine ‘quality’ short stories. He suggests Roald Dahl, Guy de Maupassant, and the lesser-known Nigel Kneale and John Collier. Anything in the New Yorker today doesn’t make his cut, since he finds that their stories have ‘no metaphor’.”
For more great reading lists, check out our own, 16 Books We’re Looking Forward To This Year.
Don’t forget Valentine’s Day is just two weeks away. Looking for literary inspiration? Here’s one of a different sort. Check out Flavorwire’s Most Memorable Literary Love Affairs.
