Sixteen Rivers Press wishes you a very happy new year, and we hope to do our part to fill your year with poetry. In this edition of our newsletter, you’ll learn about upcoming book releases, readings, submission deadlines, and all things Sixteen Rivers, ending with a poem by Gerald Fleming from his 2005 book Swimmer Climbing onto Shore.
The deadline for our 2013 manuscript open submission is approaching fast. All submitted manuscripts must be postmarked by February 1, 2013 [Please note that our deadline has been extended to March 1]. Winners will be notified by July 1, 2013, and the winning books will be published in spring 2015. Please see our complete submission guidelines here.
Sixteen Rivers Press is excited to announce that our two newest books will be released on April 2, 1013. They are The Choreographer by Gerald Fleming, and At Ease in the Borrowed World by Barbara S. Brauer. Readings will be held in Marin County, the East Bay, and Modesto, so keep an eye on the Reading and Events page of our website and our Facebook page for reading dates.
Sixteen Rivers is also thrilled to announce the release this fall of Miriam Bird Greenberg’s chapbook, All Night in the New Country. This chapbook is the winner of our second chapbook contest for poets under forty. Greenberg, a former Stegner fellow who was recently awarded an NEA grant, will be reading from her book in September. We’ll share more information as the date gets closer.
And speaking of our chapbook contest for poets under forty, Judy Halebsky’s book Space/Time/Gap/Interval has gone into its second printing! If you haven’t read this wonderful book, you can read some of Judy’s poems here.
Also this year, Sixteen Rivers will release its first bilingual book, I Know, by French author Ito Nago, translated by the author and Sixteen Rivers poet Lynne Knight. Published in France by Cheyne Éditeur as Je sais, this book is in its sixth printing there. Readings from I Know will be given by Lynne and the author in the fall.
In 2014, we look forward to a collection from Beverly Burch, winner of our 2012 manuscript contest, and to a second book of poetry from Murray Silverstein, author of Any Old Wolf, published by Sixteen Rivers in 2007.
Carolyn Miller (Light, Moving, 2009, and After Cocteau, 2002) will lead Taking Flight: A Writing Workshop in France this summer, June 1–8, 2013. Join a small group of participants producing new work in prose and/or poetry in the Lot Valley, about 45 minutes from Cahors. The site is Mas de Garrigue, a fifteenth-century hunting lodge and fortified farmhouse that has been converted to a four-star B&B. This workshop is for both beginning and experienced writers. For more information on the content, schedule, and cost of the workshop, e-mail Carolyn at cmiller355@sbcglobal.net. For information on accommodations, please go to www.masdegarrigue.com and the Mas’s Facebook page.
And for those of you who have been concerned about our website, all is now well! We no longer appear to be selling drugs through Canadian pharmacies on the side. Thank you for your patience as we traveled the very long path toward rectifying this Internet hacking issue. You can find our now easily located website at https://sixteenrivers.org/.
And now a poem from Swimmer Climbing onto Shore by Gerald Fleming:
Elegy
When the shift key sprang into flower
he knew he’d stared wordless too long
& took his keyboard to the garden and buried it.
He went penless for a year: traveled.
Leaned on the metal railings of cheap motels,
breathing with his ears the sound
of young men/too much beer/
hawking from the depths of their guts,
swallowing. He swallowed too, no matter
where he was: Burma, Biak, Kalimantan,
Burkina Faso—penless, bookless,
intentionally mapless,
& thought often of that keyboard buried
like crocus, its big corm ready in spring
to send whole swords of words through soil
then bloom past the grass, higher
than the iris, spray those verbs
into the blue light—this fruit of his labor
which later, as dried flowers, intricate, radiant,
he’d tack upside-down on the walls,
have no need ever for electricity.
Mark, you never made it home.
Dave’s at your place, your wife
is water in his hands
and the rain’s leached away the letters
of those silicon bones.
Don’t look down.