Issue 6
"Route 158" by Nigel Ford
EDITOR'S NOTE
What a full and beautiful issue! Out of nearly 700 lyric essays, prose poems, and hybrid works, the following 20 authors each of prose poetry & nonfiction were chosen. Many thanks to Nigel Ford for cover art reflecting both the uniqueness and beauty of the lyric essay / prose poetry forms.
CONTRIBUTORS
COVER ART
Nigel Ford - "Route 158"
PROSE POETRY
Doug Bolling - "Winter and After"
Marilyn Boyle - "Wisteria"
Jeni De La O - "scurry scarab beetle poets"
William Doreski - "Summiting on Thanksgiving Day"
Meg Freer - "Key Changes"
Charity Gingerich - "Artifacts"
Jane Hawley - "A Self Portrait of the Writer as Minerva Hamilton Hoyt"
Jesse Holth - 3 poems ["Piñon Crackles" Honorable Mention 2018 Christine Prose Poetry Award]
Amy Karon - "Arizona Drought" [2nd place 2018 Christine Prose Poetry Award]
KS Lack - 2 poems
Mercedes Lawry - 3 poems ["Where Strength Has Wriggled In" 1st place 2018 Christine Prose Poetry Award]
Mark Luebbers & Benjamin Goluboff - "Iris Tree Chooses a Role, 1913"
Robert Miltner - "Narrow Roads North: Nine Haibun" [2nd place 2018 EIR Lyric Essay / Prose Poetry Award]
M. Ann Reed - "Hang on, little tomato"
Biman Roy - "Of Moon and Washing Machine" [Honorable Mention 2018 EIR Lyric Essay / Prose Poetry Award]
Cathryn Shea - 2 poems
Ellen Stone - 5 poems ["Your Grandpa Was a Foxhunter" Honorable Mention 2018 Christine Prose Poetry Award]
A.M. Thompson - 3 poems ["Greta, Gardening" 3rd place 2018 EIR Lyric Essay / Prose Poetry Award]
Travis Truax - 2 poems ["Driving Back" 3rd place 2018 Christine Prose Poetry Award]
Bill Yarrow - "Whoami"
LYRIC & HYBRID PROSE
Sarina Bosco - "The Latin Name for Living Things"
Virginia Boudreau - "Templates"
Rachel Chenven - "Access to Grace"
Suzanne Cody - "Knit One"
Eanlai Cronin - "Written in Stone" [1st place 2018 EIR Lyric Essay / Prose Poetry Award]
Lisa Dart - "Bamboo or just a bit of prose"
Addison Dean - "Sometimes I talk to you when you aren't around"
Sarah Grimes - "Time Stoppered"
Charles Haddox - "Foothills"
Kathie Jacobson - "Old Women"
Claire T. Jennings - "In the Hollow of a Mother"
Kevin J. Kelley - "Bask in the Color of the Table"
Keith Lesmeister - "Everything Feels Far Away"
Andrea Marcusa - "In the Hotel Pool on the Dead Sea Road; Jordan, 2008"
Jan Schmidt - "A Glint in Parchment"
Katheryn Simpson - "On Memory and Forgetting"
Leeanna Torres - "La Madrugada"
Darya Tsymbalyuk - "My trip to a village displaced after the Chernobyl disaster"
Holly Willis - "Never in the Feminine"
Robert D. Vivian - "Light Upon Lightly"
EDITOR'S NOTE
What a full and beautiful issue! Out of nearly 700 lyric essays, prose poems, and hybrid works, the following 20 authors each of prose poetry & nonfiction were chosen. Many thanks to Nigel Ford for cover art reflecting both the uniqueness and beauty of the lyric essay / prose poetry forms.
CONTRIBUTORS
COVER ART
Nigel Ford - "Route 158"
PROSE POETRY
Doug Bolling - "Winter and After"
Marilyn Boyle - "Wisteria"
Jeni De La O - "scurry scarab beetle poets"
William Doreski - "Summiting on Thanksgiving Day"
Meg Freer - "Key Changes"
Charity Gingerich - "Artifacts"
Jane Hawley - "A Self Portrait of the Writer as Minerva Hamilton Hoyt"
Jesse Holth - 3 poems ["Piñon Crackles" Honorable Mention 2018 Christine Prose Poetry Award]
Amy Karon - "Arizona Drought" [2nd place 2018 Christine Prose Poetry Award]
KS Lack - 2 poems
Mercedes Lawry - 3 poems ["Where Strength Has Wriggled In" 1st place 2018 Christine Prose Poetry Award]
Mark Luebbers & Benjamin Goluboff - "Iris Tree Chooses a Role, 1913"
Robert Miltner - "Narrow Roads North: Nine Haibun" [2nd place 2018 EIR Lyric Essay / Prose Poetry Award]
M. Ann Reed - "Hang on, little tomato"
Biman Roy - "Of Moon and Washing Machine" [Honorable Mention 2018 EIR Lyric Essay / Prose Poetry Award]
Cathryn Shea - 2 poems
Ellen Stone - 5 poems ["Your Grandpa Was a Foxhunter" Honorable Mention 2018 Christine Prose Poetry Award]
A.M. Thompson - 3 poems ["Greta, Gardening" 3rd place 2018 EIR Lyric Essay / Prose Poetry Award]
Travis Truax - 2 poems ["Driving Back" 3rd place 2018 Christine Prose Poetry Award]
Bill Yarrow - "Whoami"
LYRIC & HYBRID PROSE
Sarina Bosco - "The Latin Name for Living Things"
Virginia Boudreau - "Templates"
Rachel Chenven - "Access to Grace"
Suzanne Cody - "Knit One"
Eanlai Cronin - "Written in Stone" [1st place 2018 EIR Lyric Essay / Prose Poetry Award]
Lisa Dart - "Bamboo or just a bit of prose"
Addison Dean - "Sometimes I talk to you when you aren't around"
Sarah Grimes - "Time Stoppered"
Charles Haddox - "Foothills"
Kathie Jacobson - "Old Women"
Claire T. Jennings - "In the Hollow of a Mother"
Kevin J. Kelley - "Bask in the Color of the Table"
Keith Lesmeister - "Everything Feels Far Away"
Andrea Marcusa - "In the Hotel Pool on the Dead Sea Road; Jordan, 2008"
Jan Schmidt - "A Glint in Parchment"
Katheryn Simpson - "On Memory and Forgetting"
Leeanna Torres - "La Madrugada"
Darya Tsymbalyuk - "My trip to a village displaced after the Chernobyl disaster"
Holly Willis - "Never in the Feminine"
Robert D. Vivian - "Light Upon Lightly"
WHAT HAS BEEN SAID ABOUT THIS ISSUE
"Thank you so much publishing my piece. I have read most of the other lyric essays and I'm blown away with the quality. I am honored to be in such company."
"This issue looks simply wonderful. I admire EIR very, very much."
"I am proud to be in such good company. So much great work."
"This has been such a wonderful experience for me and I have learned so much from reading all the great work in your journal. I am truly honored to be listed in this issue."
"The issue, by the way is delightful, a true reading pleasure."
"Thank you so much publishing my piece. I have read most of the other lyric essays and I'm blown away with the quality. I am honored to be in such company."
"This issue looks simply wonderful. I admire EIR very, very much."
"I am proud to be in such good company. So much great work."
"This has been such a wonderful experience for me and I have learned so much from reading all the great work in your journal. I am truly honored to be listed in this issue."
"The issue, by the way is delightful, a true reading pleasure."
GENERAL INFORMATION (and far too much of it; hopefully it's helpful)
- Most journals and reviews want a story; we want magic in the language & fire in the flow, a show to impress over drama to incite. Please stretch your lyrical wings. Give us the beautiful, the musical, even the odd & quirky. Think Annie Dillard meets Gertrude Stein.
- Free general submissions during our reading months of October through March, unless you want to enter our lyric essay contest or The Mary Hunter Austin Book Award. Tip Jar expedited submissions: $3.50 tip jar to be read within 30 days and a decision made (except for contest entries).
- All stories must appeal to a broad audience ("family-friendly"). Do feel free to delve into the tougher subjects, only do so carefully. We are a "journal of good spaces."
- No identifying author details on submissions. We read "blind." We also edit all material submitted, if necessary, but the author will have final say as per usual.
- Please do not submit again until you hear back from us.
- We are primarily seeking lyric essays. Please NO generic nonfiction, narrative essays, standard poetry, journalistic essays, book reviews, etc. If you've not read Annie Dillard, you may not have discovered the kind of lyricism we especially love.
- Favorite authors: Annie Dillard, Anne Carson, Kathleen Dean Moore, Ellen Meloy, Gertrude Stein, Cormac McCarthy, Stephanie Dickinson, and others.
- We love nature, the world, outer space. Cultures & creatures.
- We'd rather avoid stories of illnesses, relationship problems, and harsh family dynamics as the central focus.
- We would like to see the gentle or redemptive or calm within the honest, the light of the flame within the darkness; and though the flame may burn at times, show us the blue streaks within the flame, the pink of the scars, and what the healing means to you, not how loudly you screamed at the touch.
- Reveal the new. Be witty. Be fun or meditative or experimental with language.
- Accepted contributors will be required to sign an author's agreement.
What we seek: Place-based themes, literary vitality, moral consequence, the sharply beautiful and achingly honest but without a lingering on the darkness. Your submission should be considered "crossover" work: that is, suitable for most ages, though certainly not dumbed down or soft or overtly religious.
What we hope to avoid: purple prose, genre/mainstream writing, erotica, horror, bawdy and base elements, base humor, predictability, swearing, gratuitous sexuality, preaching / conversion attempts / agenda in religious work, political works without story and literary bent, racial or sexual bias, bigotry, name-calling. Excessive and unnecessary drama for drama's sake. Darkness for darkness' sake. Find better ways to employ strong emotion in your writing.
If you're not sure about a work or a topic, please send it anyway. Though we can't absolutely promise input, in some cases we may jot a suggestion if we have to decline a piece that's close to our ideal.
Miscellaneous Facts
Simultaneous submissions are fine but please let us know immediately if you receive an acceptance before you hear back from us.
NO reprints.
Every submission must be family-friendly, that is, work without swearing, gratuitous sex and violence, and other activities that might be considered "adult." We will ask you to edit out all instances of such.
Any writer from any country in the world is welcome to submit. All submissions must be in English.
Include a short 50 word bio in the space allowed on the Submittable form.
This will be an online-only issue; accepted work will be posted online monthly through the summer.
Our final decisions will be based on work quality and current needs (though we may occasionally solicit work). We eschew favoritism in all its insidious forms.
Suitable submissions may be nominated for the Pushcart award.
Please do not ask about a free submission until 180 days have passed.
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, 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 in has been published in print, you are free to republish your work in print or online. 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 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].
Masthead
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 participation in any contest/award scenario. If an author falls under any of these categories 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 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 participation in any contest/award scenario. If an author falls under any of these categories 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 a written work is recognizable to the judge, it will be disqualified.
