ISSUE 5 - The SmartApocalypse
Editor’s Note – Nearly 800 poems, short stories, nonfiction, and photography/artwork came in for this uniquely-themed issue. To say we had to turn down a quantity of good material would be superfluous. Poems that were close. Stories that had us nearly convinced but for one or two small things, or simply, when it came down to it, we had to choose between this, that, or the other. We took more than our intended “10 maximum.” We took 13. Most are short and fast, my personal preference for online reading, and since this is our first fully online issue, it seemed the practical way to go. Not to mention that any longer piece of work must be stellar paragraph after paragraph to keep today’s reading audience reading: it is the age of short attention spans.
Some of the authors represented here are newer to publication, many are quite accomplished, and some are impressively published. Our cover artist is a scientist. See how beautiful and broad, this thing called creativity?
Thank you for reading. Feel free to email me with your thoughts, your favorite story of the collection, a theme you’d like to see pursued in the future. I’d love to hear from you! contact @ portyonderpress.com.
Cover Art by Arthur Doweyko – “Remember Me” is an oil painting which we’ve chosen as co-winner of our Editor’s Choice Award not only because of its stunning appropriateness to this issue, but because often our artists and photographers are overlooked. See enlarged image here.
Fiction – “Outside the Fire” by Daniel Link is a near-perfect post-apocalyptic story with a feel similar to McCarthy’s The Road. Short, engaging, and realistic, as we love them here at EIR. Co-winner of Eastern Iowa Review’s Issue 5 Editor’s Choice Award. Wednesday: It's easier to hear them at night. Read the story.
Poetry – “after the war” by Heidi A. Howell is a surreal look at what someone might feel on the verge of the end, or perhaps after it has all come down. 1. not remembering she thinks it. Read the poem.
Fiction – “Out of Gas” by Joan Connor takes us on a journey when most of the world is scrambling to find a safe place. There are needs. Items are missing. We remember the Bible verses. That was the year we all headed south. Read the story.
Poetry – “Poem of an Almost Apocalypse” by Meredith Stewart Kirkwood. Who will the wise be when the end comes? The wise grew quiet. Read the poem.
Fiction – “Against Life” by Frank Brown Cloud. It’s only a scratch, but what does that mean when the world has become a place where everything is dangerous and our immune systems have been compromised for so long? At the end of each work day, paper goes in the incinerator. Page by page, the world becomes a safer place. Read the story.
Fiction – “Petrichor” by K Dulai. So we have to move the bodies. So many of them. I had no reason to hate the dead. Read the story.
Fiction – “The End of the World. Not.” by William Diamond. After three months, Gideon was disappointed in the end of the world. Read the story. William's story has been nominated for a 2018 Pushcart Prize by EIR.
Poetry – “The Leavings of Flame” by Jennifer Ruth Jackson begins: We dreamed of flying, before the world ended, before we licked cracked lips with tongues of ash and our beaches became glass, so shiny from our blowtorch bombs … Read the poem.
Fiction – “A Tight Ship” by Daryl Scroggins tells of one woman’s “sullen AI,” as one of our reader’s put it. Mrs. Morrison was too busy to die. Read the story.
Poetry – “Scream” by Alexandra Ledford is a cryptic prose poem befitting the darkness of an apocalypse. In the awful heat that bakes the flesh of the ground into dry red dirt that is et by panting wild dogs, in the awful setting sun the street lights wink on an awful warning. Read the poem.
Fiction – “The Dispatch” by Jonathan Perry. At the last moment, on a last day, we have something we want to tell someone, and we decide it’s worth the risk. When I awoke on the Last Day, my father was boarding up the windows. Read the story.
Poetry – “The Sea Maidens” by Barbara Daniels. The stress of such a time, yet the sea maidens … A man wakes, one side all bruises, blood on a dirty carpet. Read the poem.
Fiction – “Cariboohoo” by Larry Lefkowitz. Dystopian Alaska and a couple deciding what to do about it. That was the headline in the newspaper, not the most felicitous perhaps but par for whoever’s job it was to put catchy headlines for news items in the Alaska Times…. Read the story.
Some of the authors represented here are newer to publication, many are quite accomplished, and some are impressively published. Our cover artist is a scientist. See how beautiful and broad, this thing called creativity?
Thank you for reading. Feel free to email me with your thoughts, your favorite story of the collection, a theme you’d like to see pursued in the future. I’d love to hear from you! contact @ portyonderpress.com.
Cover Art by Arthur Doweyko – “Remember Me” is an oil painting which we’ve chosen as co-winner of our Editor’s Choice Award not only because of its stunning appropriateness to this issue, but because often our artists and photographers are overlooked. See enlarged image here.
Fiction – “Outside the Fire” by Daniel Link is a near-perfect post-apocalyptic story with a feel similar to McCarthy’s The Road. Short, engaging, and realistic, as we love them here at EIR. Co-winner of Eastern Iowa Review’s Issue 5 Editor’s Choice Award. Wednesday: It's easier to hear them at night. Read the story.
Poetry – “after the war” by Heidi A. Howell is a surreal look at what someone might feel on the verge of the end, or perhaps after it has all come down. 1. not remembering she thinks it. Read the poem.
Fiction – “Out of Gas” by Joan Connor takes us on a journey when most of the world is scrambling to find a safe place. There are needs. Items are missing. We remember the Bible verses. That was the year we all headed south. Read the story.
Poetry – “Poem of an Almost Apocalypse” by Meredith Stewart Kirkwood. Who will the wise be when the end comes? The wise grew quiet. Read the poem.
Fiction – “Against Life” by Frank Brown Cloud. It’s only a scratch, but what does that mean when the world has become a place where everything is dangerous and our immune systems have been compromised for so long? At the end of each work day, paper goes in the incinerator. Page by page, the world becomes a safer place. Read the story.
Fiction – “Petrichor” by K Dulai. So we have to move the bodies. So many of them. I had no reason to hate the dead. Read the story.
Fiction – “The End of the World. Not.” by William Diamond. After three months, Gideon was disappointed in the end of the world. Read the story. William's story has been nominated for a 2018 Pushcart Prize by EIR.
Poetry – “The Leavings of Flame” by Jennifer Ruth Jackson begins: We dreamed of flying, before the world ended, before we licked cracked lips with tongues of ash and our beaches became glass, so shiny from our blowtorch bombs … Read the poem.
Fiction – “A Tight Ship” by Daryl Scroggins tells of one woman’s “sullen AI,” as one of our reader’s put it. Mrs. Morrison was too busy to die. Read the story.
Poetry – “Scream” by Alexandra Ledford is a cryptic prose poem befitting the darkness of an apocalypse. In the awful heat that bakes the flesh of the ground into dry red dirt that is et by panting wild dogs, in the awful setting sun the street lights wink on an awful warning. Read the poem.
Fiction – “The Dispatch” by Jonathan Perry. At the last moment, on a last day, we have something we want to tell someone, and we decide it’s worth the risk. When I awoke on the Last Day, my father was boarding up the windows. Read the story.
Poetry – “The Sea Maidens” by Barbara Daniels. The stress of such a time, yet the sea maidens … A man wakes, one side all bruises, blood on a dirty carpet. Read the poem.
Fiction – “Cariboohoo” by Larry Lefkowitz. Dystopian Alaska and a couple deciding what to do about it. That was the headline in the newspaper, not the most felicitous perhaps but par for whoever’s job it was to put catchy headlines for news items in the Alaska Times…. Read the story.
Terms of Publication
By submitting your work to the Eastern Iowa Review, you agree, should your work be accepted, to grant the Eastern Iowa Review exclusive print and electronic rights to your work until the time of print publication and/or online publication, as well as a non-exclusive right to maintain a copy of the published work in the literary journal archives indefinitely, online included; this includes the right to republish your work in anthology form without further remuneration, if any, to you. Any subsequent publication should include the credit “originally published in the Eastern Iowa Review.”
“Exclusive print and electronic rights” means that you agree not to re-publish your work elsewhere in print or online until the time of print publication, or in the case of online-only issues, until official online release. “Publish” means any public display of your work, and includes your personal website and posting to message boards. You are welcome to link to the page featuring your work instead, if sample excerpts or the complete work is featured online. Once the issue your work appears either online or in print, you are free to republish it. We have the right to display your work, in part or the whole, for promotional purposes online, in flyers, in anthology form, etc., in perpetuity. This includes on various online sales channels, in perpetuity.
Effective 2014, you also grant the Eastern Iowa Review the perpetual right to post an audio version (podcast) of your work on this or another site using our choice of reader.
You retain all other rights, including the right to re-publish the work in electronic or non-electronic form once the print or online issue has been released.
Letters to the editor(s) from any party may be published in whole or in part here or elsewhere on line. Names and other identifying information will be withheld unless the author’s express permission is obtained. We welcome letters to the editor. Send to: [email protected].
By submitting your work to the Eastern Iowa Review, you agree, should your work be accepted, to grant the Eastern Iowa Review exclusive print and electronic rights to your work until the time of print publication and/or online publication, as well as a non-exclusive right to maintain a copy of the published work in the literary journal archives indefinitely, online included; this includes the right to republish your work in anthology form without further remuneration, if any, to you. Any subsequent publication should include the credit “originally published in the Eastern Iowa Review.”
“Exclusive print and electronic rights” means that you agree not to re-publish your work elsewhere in print or online until the time of print publication, or in the case of online-only issues, until official online release. “Publish” means any public display of your work, and includes your personal website and posting to message boards. You are welcome to link to the page featuring your work instead, if sample excerpts or the complete work is featured online. Once the issue your work appears either online or in print, you are free to republish it. We have the right to display your work, in part or the whole, for promotional purposes online, in flyers, in anthology form, etc., in perpetuity. This includes on various online sales channels, in perpetuity.
Effective 2014, you also grant the Eastern Iowa Review the perpetual right to post an audio version (podcast) of your work on this or another site using our choice of reader.
You retain all other rights, including the right to re-publish the work in electronic or non-electronic form once the print or online issue has been released.
Letters to the editor(s) from any party may be published in whole or in part here or elsewhere on line. Names and other identifying information will be withheld unless the author’s express permission is obtained. We welcome letters to the editor. Send to: [email protected].
While no longer a member of CLMP, we strive to achieve a similar level of ethical standards: "...to connect writers and readers by publishing exceptional writing. We believe that intent to act ethically, clarity of guidelines, and transparency of process form the foundation of an ethical contest. To that end, we agree to 1) conduct our contests as ethically as possible and to address any unethical behavior on the part of our readers, judges, or editors; 2) to provide clear and specific contest guidelines—defining conflict of interest for all parties involved; and 3) to make the mechanics of our selection process available to the public. This Code recognizes that different contest models produce different results, but that each model can be run ethically."
Further, as is often the case with CLMP journals and presses, Eastern Iowa Review uses a blind judging system to arrive at writing acceptances and contest winners. This is how we do it:
1. We accept submissions via Submittable and use its tools to ensure that all identifying information is hidden from our readers throughout the selections process.
2. We ask entrants not to include their names or contact information within the document they upload to Submittable or its title; those who neglect this requirement will be disqualified.
3. Close friends, relatives, students, and former students of the readers/judges, are excluded from a contest. If any of the selected authors fall under this category they will be disqualified, and a replacement will be chosen from among the finalists. Anyone wondering if they might be a “close friend” probably is. It seems silly to define friendship, but for our purposes, we'll call a “close friend” anyone with whom we have direct and regular correspondence (either written or verbal). And please remember that if we use an outside judge, and a written work is recognizable to the judge, it will be disqualified.
Further, as is often the case with CLMP journals and presses, Eastern Iowa Review uses a blind judging system to arrive at writing acceptances and contest winners. This is how we do it:
1. We accept submissions via Submittable and use its tools to ensure that all identifying information is hidden from our readers throughout the selections process.
2. We ask entrants not to include their names or contact information within the document they upload to Submittable or its title; those who neglect this requirement will be disqualified.
3. Close friends, relatives, students, and former students of the readers/judges, are excluded from a contest. If any of the selected authors fall under this category they will be disqualified, and a replacement will be chosen from among the finalists. Anyone wondering if they might be a “close friend” probably is. It seems silly to define friendship, but for our purposes, we'll call a “close friend” anyone with whom we have direct and regular correspondence (either written or verbal). And please remember that if we use an outside judge, and a written work is recognizable to the judge, it will be disqualified.
