Second, I received my contributor’s copy of the current issue of Eclipse, which includes a great piece by Judith Slater, also a member of the UNL community. My piece, “Hypotheses (or In the Lake of the Woods) is a poem I wrote in response to the Tim O’Brien novel, a book I taught in one of my composition and rhetoric classes. The poem also appears in my poetry collection Ghost Girl. In 2008, Tim O’Brien was the writer-in-residence here. I was lucky enough to take his master workshop. It was an unforgettable experience.

Third, my contributor’s copy of the anthology hell strung and crooked from Unhook Press has also just arrived. Yeah! It includes  a great interview with Mark Doty. Speaking of the poet, I’ve read a few of his books, but my current favorite is his memoir Dog Years. It’s a wonderful book. One of the best memoirs I read last winter.

And finally, today is the first day of a new semester. I’m teaching a composition class and a poetry class. The latter is my favorite class to teach because it combines women’s studies, women’s literature, and creative writing into a class called English 253A: poetry writing: Women’s Poetry. Along with a few short essays, this term I’m teaching Anne Sexton’s Transformations, Louise Gluck’s Averno, Natasha Trethewey’s Bellocq’s Ophelia, Carole Oles’ Waking Stone, Denise Duhamel’s Kinky and Kim Addonizio and Dorianne Laux’s edited text The Poet’s Companion. It’s going to be an amazing class. I’m so excited!

In other news, there’s a mini-review of my poem “Dead Girl Brand II” in Big Muddy. The forthcoming anthology of poems on violence that I’m co-editing (with Christine Stewart-Nunez), WOMEN WRITE RESISTANCE: POETS FIGHT GENDER VIOLENCE, was awarded a grant from the South Dakota Humanities Council to cover some of the costs of permissions. I’m super excited about our anthology! It’s something Christine and I have been putting together since the fall of 2007. Finally, my chapbook GHOST GIRL just came out from Pudding House…more on that soon.

• I’ve just sent Arts & Letters the proof of my essay “Hunger.” I’m so excited to have my essay in their spring issue!
• One of my advisers, Joy Castro, wrote about my capstone oral for my comprehensive exams, which took place at the end of October.
• I’m officially ABD! Or, as Joy called it in her post, All but done. Yippee!!
• As part of my residency this past summer is: My poem “Maternal Lineage” is up on the National Park Service’s Herbert Hoover Historic Site website (a residency which was mentioned in USA Today. Wow). There’s an audio file of it too:

Maternal Lineage
http://www.nps.gov/heho/supportyourpark/upload/002_matilda_007_madeline_maternal%20lineage_2009_10_11_maternal%20lineage.mp3

• Split This Rock accepted the panel proposal I and two other fantastic poets submitted. We’re doing a panel on writing the activist body. It’s going to be super fun!
• My wonderful adviser Carole Levin has motivated me to look into fellowships. Thanks Carole!
• The amazing editors at Pudding House and Dancing Girl Press are publishing my chapbooks Ghost Girl and My Imaginary, respectfully.
• A short story I wrote has been accepted for the Fall 2009 Relief Anthology, edited by J. K. Richard. Yeah!
• And of course: my sweet A.

Also, Poemeleon‘s just released their special issue on gender, which includes three of my poems. It’s such a great issue! Check out the work by Davi Walders and Jeannie Hall Gailey.

Illuminations nominated my poem “Wife Brand” for the 2010 Pushcart Prize.

Sure makes for good news.

And, poemeleon accepted 3 of my poems from another series I’ve been working on which is forthcoming from Dancing Girl Press later this year, My Imaginary. Poemeleon has some great poems up, check out Dorianna Laux’s “Olympia” for example.

All this sure made for a good weekend.

We are thrilled to announce our first Web exclusive is up online. “Paper Planes,” by Laura Madeline Wiseman, is a story of death, dislocation, and cheese curls. This story was much loved among our staff of readers; we’re excited to share it with you.

This was the short story I had tucked and ready in a folder to read at my no name last month, but, alas a late afternoon snow storm put city buses an hour behind schedule and though I did attempt to make it by  car, the roads were slippery, snow filled, and scary.  Luckily, I’ll be reading on March 27th, so I hope to see you there.

The new ASF spring 2009 issue contains the likes of Joyce Carol Oates, Paul Yoon, Smith Henderson, Rachel B. Glaser, Amelia Gray, and Joe Wenderoth, among others. I must say, I’m a bit of a fan of Joyce Carol Oates. I first read her story “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?” in a fiction class I took at Iowa State. Of all the short stories we read, this one stuck with me–the coiling phone cord, the pull to darkness, weird lines like, “Yes, I’m your lover. You don’t know what that is but you will.”  Later when I lived in Tucson, it was a bit unnerving to learn the short story was based on murders there. Another chilling text is We Were the Mulvaneys. On the more classic side of things, I taught The Best American Essays of the Century, which she edited, in a composition class. I wonder what book of hers I should read next….

]]> http://www.lauramadelinewiseman.com/blog/2009/01/21/new-issues/feed/ 0 http://www.lauramadelinewiseman.com/blog/2009/01/08/literary-journals/ http://www.lauramadelinewiseman.com/blog/2009/01/08/literary-journals/#comments Fri, 09 Jan 2009 00:39:22 +0000 laura madeline wiseman http://www.waglerdesigns.com/lmw/blog/?p=40 I’ve been skylarking through  my literary journal stack and want to share some of the highlights. Though, I should warn you, that though I’ve read many, many of them over my little winter break, this is only a wee snippet.

In Art & Letters (spring 2008) there are two great essays on the body. Heather Seller’s “Face First” describes her experiences with prospagnosia and Laura Hope-Gill‘s “Descrescendo” tells of her slow loss of hearing. The Iowa Review spring & fall 2008 both contain graphic essays by Maggie McKnight. Last year’s  Poetry , the translation issue, is a delight.

Many of this issue�s poems and stories are equally memorable, and I was happy for the opportunity to get to know the work of writers I�d not encountered before, in particular poetry by Anne Valley-Fox Christien Gholson, and Mary McGinnis, and prose by Laura Madeline Wiseman. Wiseman�s…

You can read the whole thing here.