Pushcart Nominations!

All of us at Phoebe are thrilled to announce our 2008 Puschcart Prize nominations:

Fiction
Danielle Evans - "Harvest"
M. D. Baumgartner - "Like Gods of the Sun"

&

Poetry
Eleanor Graves - "Your Boarders"
Angus Bennett - "On Whether the River Will Break"
Reba Elliot - "Child Not Made"
Julie Marie Wade - "Law of Parsimony"

Best of luck to all of these writers, and thanks for contributing your wonderful work to Phoebe.

Layout

So Nat and Ethan are still working on bringing the pages of the issue together and we're still waiting to hear from a few more contributors about edits and bios and things like that.

But in the meantime, I found this guest post by Joshua Ferris over at Maud Newton's blog; she's posting writers' recipes.


Joshua Ferris' grilled cheese sandwich


One thing I don't like about grilled cheese: I sometimes burn the roof of my mouth because I lack patience.

The Paris Review

The newest issue of The Paris Review includes work from recent Phoebe contributor Danielle Evans. Her story appeared in our Spring 2006 issue. We'd like to congratulate her on the publication (the editors there call it her national fiction debut), and of course we're happy that she mentioned us in her bio in the contributors' notes section.

NBA 07 Finalists

The National Book Award Finalists are posted and Joshua Ferris is among them.

Phoebe/So to Speak Publication Celebration!

Phoebe will be joining So to Speak and GMU's graduate reading series, the Candid Yak, for a fall kick-off party next weekend...

Jonathan Lyons in the next Gargoyle

We just heard word from Jonathan Lyons that his latest story will appear in the next issue of Gargoyle, due out summer of '08. Lyons' story "The Good Life" ran in the Spring 2007 issue of Phoebe, so we're really happy to report his newest success.

The Headmaster Ritual and New Stories From The South 2007

Taylor Antrim, a past winner of our Winter Fiction Contest, just released his first novel, The Headmaster Ritual, in June. I meant to point this out earlier, but frankly, I got busy with other things. Anyhow, I haven't been able to find any reviews of the book yet, but I did find a sort of glowing profile/review thingy in The New York Observer by Sara Vilkomerson.

The profile begins with groups of words that say things like "Even for someone as painfully—ridiculously—attractive as author Taylor Antrim, the process of picture-taking can still be painful" and "He may have felt uncomfortable, but Mr. Antrim looked downright Gatsby-like" and "Patrician-boned Mr. Antrim." Anyhow, I thought that was funny.

And then, as the article goes on, Sara sort of relaxes the language a bit and lets Taylor do a lot more talking on his own. We hear about the book, about his prep school background, about his jobs, etc, and I think that's when the article gets more interesting.

Forbes has excerpted the novel here.

In related news, Joshua Ferris' story "Ghost Town Choir" from Prairie Schooner was selected by Edward P. Jones for inclusion in the upcoming volume of New Stories from the South. This may be old news, since Dan Wickett posted the information in February, but I figured I'd highlight it again.

7/15 Celebrating the Poetry Chapbook

Recent Phoebe contributor (and GMU MFA alum) Melissa Tuckey reads in DC on July 15, as part of a chapbook release event at Busboys and Poets. Check it out...

Sunday Kind of Love: Celebrating the Poetry Chapbook
With E. Louise Beach, Michael Gushue, Alan King, and Melissa Tuckey
Sunday, July 15, 4-6 pm
Followed by an open mic
Hosted by Sarah Browning of DC Poets Against the War and Regie Cabico of Sol & Soul.

Busboys & Poets
14th & V Streets, NW
Washington, DC
U Street/Cardozo on the Metro green line
Wheelchair accessible
Free and open to the public
For more info: 202-387-POET, womenarts2 (at) aol (dot) com
www.busboysandpoets.com

1/2 of Kurtis Davidson Places 2nd in Glimmertrain Contest

Good news for Kurtis Davidson and Phoebe, since we're publishing his/their story, "The Second Coming of Afro-Christ," in our Fall 2007 issue. I'm not quite sure how to talk about this, since, well, Kurtis Davidson is actually two people writing as one (Kurt Ayau and Davis Rachels: "Because two heads is better than any other number of heads"). I won't even pretend to understand: imagine the confusion at author readings, etc. Anyhow, go to his/their website .

Here's the official news and link:

The editors of Glimmertrain honored Kurt Ayau, who placed 2nd with the story "Outsourcing" in the winter 2006/2007 Very Short Fiction Contest.

We're happy.

New York Times Book Review

Read James Poniewozik's review of Then We Came To The End, recent first novel of Phoebe contributor Joshua Ferris.

"Then We Came to the End, it turns out, is neither small nor angry, but expansive, great-hearted and acidly funny."

Go to the NYT for more.

Search Out These Authors and Read Their Work

Word came to us about two of our recent contributors and how they're doing out there.

Pretty well I'd say.

Ryan Bartelmay's story, "All This Flatness," recently won the Boulevard Short Fiction Contest for Emerging Writers and appeared in the Spring 2006 issue of that journal.

And Joshua Ferris' debut novel, Then We Came to the End, published by Little, Brown & Co., is now in bookstores. If you can't get away from the computer for some reason, then you can find it here or here. Also, Mark Sarvas, contented defiler of prose and host of The Elegant Variation, has blogged about his own experience with the novel: how he briefly overcame his prejudice against MFA grads to discover his favorite book of the year. Visit his site for the story, and the first chapter of Ferris' novel, which Mark has nicely excerpted.

As for our other contributors, please send us hints and tips at phoebe@gmu.edu as to what you're up to, awards you've won, publications, etc. We'd be happy to brag for you. Simply write "blog" in the subject line.