We've Been Adopted!

We’d like to thank poet and professor Julie Brooks Barbour for adopting The Greensboro Review through The Council of Literary Magazines & Presses (CLMP) Lit Mag Adoption Program!

Julie will be using The Greensboro Review in her Intro to Creative Writing course at Lake Superior State University this Fall.

“Many of the students in our classes, whether they be majors or not [… ] will never have had the pleasure of holding newly written work in their hands unless it's by a beloved author,” Julie explained in an email to GR poetry editor Emily A. Benton.

“Contemporary literature is a different animal from canonized or anthologized literature,” Julie said. “Students have to approach it with a more open mind than what they read in literature classes, as there's more room for experimentation, current events, and everyday life. They need to know that literature is not written by dead white men; it's written by the living.”

Another reason Julie chose The Greensboro Review for her class is that our journal is a much cheaper option than most textbook anthologies. She also said, “I chose The Greensboro Review because I am always surprised and delighted by every poem and story I read in the journal. It is a very classic journal; I can always expect to read quality work when I open it, so I know I'm not taking a chance offering it to my students as a text.”

We couldn’t agree more!

If you’re interested in adopting The Greensboro Review or another one of your favorite literary journals for your classroom, visit the CLMP Lit Mag Adoption site here: http://clmp.org/adoption/

For general subscription info, please see our website: http://www.greensbororeview.org/about/

Join us at AWP

The Greensboro Review and The MFA Creative Writing Program at UNC Greensboro will be hosting the following events at the 2011 Annual Association of Writers & Writing Programs Conference & Bookfair in Washington, DC. Please stop by Booth 208 to say hello or consider joining us for the following events!

Jim Clark Alumni CD Signing

1:00-2:00pm Thursday, February 3

Booth 208, AWP Bookfair, Marriott Wardman Park

Jim Clark is currently the Elizabeth H. Jordan Professor of Southern Literature and Chair of the Department of English and Modern Language at Barton College, in Wilson, North Carolina, where he is Director of The Barton College Creative Writing Symposium and an editor of the literary journal Crucible.

45th Anniversary Fiction Reading by the MFA Writing Program at Greensboro

3:00-6:00 p.m. Thursday, February 3

Thurgood Marshall South Room, Marriott Wardman Park

Join us as we celebrate the 45th-anniversary of the MFA Writing Program at Greensboro with a fiction reading by Jim Clark, Michael Parker, Fred Chappell, Craig Nova, Holly Goddard Jones, and Lee Zacharias.

MFA Writing Program at Greensboro Alumni Reception

7:00-10:00 p.m. Thursday, February 3

Omni Shoreham (Room TBA - Please Check Booth 208)

Come see old friends and meet our new students. Drinks and "very light" appetizers will be served. Check in at Booth 208 on Thursday for the Room Number. Please help us spread the word!

Dan Albergotti Alumni Book Signing

12:00-1:00pm Friday, February 4

Booth 208, AWP Bookfair, Marriott Wardman Park

Dan Albergotti is the author of The Boatloads (BOA Editions, 2008), selected by Edward Hirsch as the winner of the 2007 A. Poulin, Jr. Poetry Prize. His poems have appeared in The Cincinnati Review, Shenandoah, The Southern Review, The Virginia Quarterly Review, and Pushcart Prize XXXIII: Best of the Small Presses. A graduate of the MFA program at UNC Greensboro and former poetry editor of The Greensboro Review, Albergotti currently teaches creative writing and literature courses and edits the online journal Waccamaw at Coastal Carolina University in Conway, SC.

Luke Johnson Greensboro Review Contributor Book Signing

2:00-3:00 p.m. Friday, February 4

Booth 208, AWP Bookfair, Marriott Wardman Park

Luke Johnson is the author of the poetry collection After the Ark (NYQ Books, 2011). His has appeared or is forthcoming in 32 Poems, Beloit Poetry Journal, Epoch, Greensboro Review, storySouth, and elsewhere.

Keith Lee Morris / Jillian Weise Alumni Book Signing

3:00-3:30pm Saturday, February 5

Booth 208, AWP Bookfair, Marriott Wardman Park

Keith Lee Morris is an associate professor of English and creative writing at Clemson University. His short stories have been published in Tin House, A Public Space, Southern Review, Ninth Letter, StoryQuarterly, New England Review, The Sun, and the Georgia Review, among other publications. The University of Nevada published his first two books, The Greyhound God (2003) and The Best Seats in the House (2004), and Tin House Books published his novel The Dart League King.

Jillian Weise was born in Houston, Texas in 1981. Her poetry collections are The Amputee's Guide to Sex and Translating the Body. She received fellowships from the the Fine Arts Work Center, the Fulbright Program and the University of North Carolina-Greensboro before accepting a position at Clemson.

45th Anniversary Alumni Reading by the MFA Writing Program at Greensboro

4:30-7:30 p.m. Saturday, February 5

Ambassador Ballroom, OmniShoreham Hotel

Join us as we celebrate the 45th-anniversary of the MFA Writing Program at Greensboro with an alumni reading by Kelly Cherry, Keith Lee Morris, Drew Perry, Dan Albergotti, and Jillian Weise.

Now Accepting Online Submissions

The Greensboro Review now accepts online submissions through Submishmash.

Please see the following link for guidelines:
http://greensbororeview.submishmash.com/Submit

Submissions for the Fall 2011 issue close on Feb. 15, 2011.

Call for Submissions

Is it hard to believe that it's already 2011? Not for us.

As it goes at most journals, The Greensboro Review staff has been working far in advance. We've been reading and picking the best poems and stories to publish in 2011 for the past six months.

We've already sent our Spring 2011 issue (#89) to the printer, but there's still time to get your work into one of this year's bi-annual issues. However, we can only consider submissions for publication in 2011 that are sent to us by February 15.

Our submissions guidelines can be found here: http://www.greensbororeview.org/submissions/.

And more good news for 2011: We now accept simultaneous submissions, provided that you notify us immediately if your work is accepted elsewhere.

So, get on it! We're excited to consider your polished work for our Fall 2011 issue (#90). And may it be a good year of writing and reading for all.

2010 Pushcart Nominees

We are pleased to announce our nominations for The Pushcart Prize: Best of Small Presses XXXVI. All were published in 2010.

From The Greensboro Review, Number 87, Spring 2010, we are nominating:

Short Stories:

• "Proper Breathing" by Taryn Bowe

Poems:

• "Nothing About Your Life" by Julie Funderburk
• "Etymology" by Stephen Massimilla

From The Greensboro Review, Number 88, Fall 2010, we are nominating:

Short Stories:

• "The Urban Coop" by Megan Mayhew Bergman
• "In the Gulf of Mexico" by Sierra Bellows

Poems:

• "Man vs. Nature" by Michael Derrick Hudson

Best of luck to our nominees! To order a copy of The Greensboro Review Issues 87 and/or 88 in which this work appears, see our subscription page here: http://www.greensbororeview.org/about/

Contributors Around the Web

More of our contributors made appearances around the Web this October:

Two poets from the Fall 2010 issue of The Greensboro Review had work featured on Verse Daily this past week: Michael Derrik Hudson's "Man Vs. Nature" and Annie Appleton's "When Big Falls"

Spring 2007 GR poetry contributor Kathleen Kirk guest blogged about Persistence and Patience over at her circle ezine this month.

Bonnie Zobell, who we published in Issue 49 of The Greensboro Review, has a story in the current issue of Necessary Fiction. Read it here.

Keep up with the latest Greensboro Review news by following our Twitter feed at http://twitter.com/greensbororevie

Interview with Hao Nguyen, Fiction Editor

Ever wonder what pulses through the head of a true genius? Well, I wonder about it all the time. That’s why I sat down with Hao Nguyen—fiction editor here at The Greensboro Review—and threw a few questions her way. Without further ado…

This is Hao Nweayen. Did I pronounce that right?

No. It’s okay.

[Laughing] I’m so sorry. We’re off to a bad start. Pronounce your last name.

New-yen.. It’s actually Nguyen, but I’ll say New-yen..

I’m going to start blushing. What’s one thing—

That’s good. I like to make you blush.

What’s one thing you like about being an editor?

I like reading stories. So I’m pretty happy to read a whole bunch of stories everyday. It’s my dream job to sit and read all friggin day.

When you’re reading stories, what, if anything, are you looking for?

I’m looking for a story that can transport me because if it does not transport me, I am bored. So I have to believe in that world and be fully in it. Otherwise, I get very critical very quickly.

What are your pet peeves when it comes to submissions?

Asian stereotypes. I’m just the wrong editor for that sort of thing.

Do you find that you run into them often?

We’ve only run into 3 out of four hundred so far. I also hate stock female character whose sole purpose is to be sexy for the male protagonist. Or to be elusive for the male protagonist.

So do you find that if a female character is sexy in an introductory scene, do you find yourself cold to her to begin with?

No.

To the writer?

No. It has to be… I give benefit of the doubt for the first couple pages, but after that, I’m very reluctant to read on. I hate pursuit stories.

That’s right.

Where the man pursues the woman and the woman doesn’t have any kind of character. It’s just about how hard it is to be a guy. Like those self-pitying pursuit stories.

If the story you’re reading were a person, what would your relationship to he/she be?

Interviewer. Like for a job interview.

Ok. That’s much better than my answer.

Your answer was fine! Yeah but, you know, I’m cordial enough,

You’re asking questions where the story’s going from the get-go?

No, for the first couple pages, I’m willing to let them take me on a ride, but if there’s no ride present and I’m still sitting in my chair then that’s when I won’t turn the page. But I like—yeah—I feel like an interviewer where I’m judging and looking around but if they win me over, I want to be their buddy. Then I’m like that sidekick. Like “Let me be your friend”. If I don’t like the story, then I’m like that mean girl at a party that won’t talk to you… you know, yeah. No, maybe mean girl at the party isn’t the right thing. No, I’m the loan officer that’s politely telling you, “No friggin way”. Your credentials or your credit report that is your story does not pass. No offense. Sorry, next please.

Lastly, If you could have a super power, what would it be?

I think I want to be—you know the invisible girl in the fantastic four? She has the lamest powers, but then in one of these comic series, she could make force fields in people’s minds and thereby explode their heads.

Oh?

But yeah, she could be both invisible and create force fields so like--

That’s pretty morbid.

Yeah. But I mean she’s protecting too because of the force fields. Right?

Okay. And when did you realize you wanted to explode people’s brains by using force fields?

When I started working with Benjamin Klinkner. I was like, you know what would solve this work situation? Force field brain blowing power.

It would come in handy?

It would come in extremely handy.

You were actually lurking around the office this morning as opposed to “banking” and you were trying to figure out where to put the force field in my brain?

Ben, little do you know, I already plotted out—

So it’s just a matter of expanding—

The amygdala, the center of fear. I would stress it first.

All right, then.

Contributor News & Notes

Greensboro Review Issue 50 contributor Brad Watson answered questions this week about his writing practices, his favorite books, and his dogs over at the Fictionaut blog.

Poet Kent Shaw, whose work was published in our Fall 2007 issue, had the Poem of the Week for Sept. 28, 2010 over at The Missouri Review. Read his poem, "Why you can't build a city fast enough," here.

The Memphis Flyer ran an interesting story about Greensboro Review contributor Bobby C. Rogers and his debut poetry collection Paper Anniversary, which was winner of 2009 Agnes Lynch Starrett Poetry Prize. His work most recently appeared in Issue 88 of The Greensboro Review.

Earlier this month, poet, novelist, and short fiction writer Ron Rash won the Frank O'Connor award for his fourth short story collection, Burning Bright. The Greensboro Review first published Rash's fiction in Issue 64. Read about the Frank O'Connor award and Rash's other achievements here.

And finally--although quite belatedly on our part but still worthy of a note here nonetheless--Greensboro Review contributor Cathy Smith Bowers was named the 2010 North Carolina Poet Laureate. We first published her poetry way back in Issue 26. Read all about how Cathy Smith Bowers's writing career has grown since then at the N.C. Arts Council Poet Laureate page.

Interview with Ben Klinkner, Fiction Editor

Ben is my esteemed fiction co-editor.  I asked Ben some questions that I thought might be useful to writers or anyone that’s curious about Mr. Klinkner.  We found some seats in the grad student lounge (carefully avoiding the one with the suspiciously large seat stains) and commenced with the interrogation.

Tell me one thing you like about being an editor.

I like the moments when I realize three or four pages into a story that it’s actually a good one and I have something that my lovely coworker and I might actually be working on—as opposed to something that’s going into the pile we’re not going to use.  The good stories are definitely more rare than the bad ones. 

When you’re reading, what, if anything, are you looking for?

First and foremost, I’m looking for technical ability because I feel like all too often we see things that reflect unpracticed writing.  Technical ability and coherence and coherent structure are probably things I’m looking for first. 

So you ignore the pretty stamps?

No, pretty stamps are first.  Then all the other stuff.

Where Everyone Knows Your Pen Name

Yesterday, Bob-the-Mailman stopped by, as he usually does on slow afternoons. He took a seat in an empty swivel chair, picked up a spare copy of The Writer's Chronicle from another editor's desk, and promptly asked me how my life was going as a professional poet.

At first, I was a little taken-aback by that title. Professional poet? Is he talking to me?

But I guess when you're paid to read poetry all day, and known to be writing poetry when you're not reading it, that could make you--me--a professional poet.

Granted, I'm still wearing my grad student hat in addition to my duties at The Greensboro Review, but my paycheck is attached to this editorial job. And then it dawned on me: A job for reading poetry!? How lucky!

Moreover, how cool is it that my mailman is interested in my career as a poet, so much so as to casually ask me about it? I don't think my parents even understand what I do. But Bob--well, Bob's keeping me in check.

In an article that appears this week over at the online magazine The Millions, Greensboro Review Editor Jim Clark describes the writing community that has supported and surrounded this literary journal for 40-some-odd years:

There’s people out there who sit on their porches and talk about books, and drink together, and peck away in their rooms.

Indeed, we live in a place where writers are part of the community, and where, as journalist Bill Morris puts it in his article:

There’s a sense here that if your writing is not always avidly read by your neighbors, at least its making is regarded with genuine respect by them.

That's neighbors like Bob, people whom I'm certainly thankful to be around. And what better place to send your poetry for publication than where poets are welcome?

You can read more about Greensboro's literary community in Morris's The Millions article here.

And poets, when you're looking for places to send your work, remember how friendly things are down here. Our next submissions deadline is February 15.

Woo! Yeah! We're "the Best"!

Hearty congrats go out to contributors Travis Klunick and Elizabeth Gonzalez, both of whose work was selected for the The Best American Nonrequired Reading 2010 anthology, which hits bookstores this week. Klunick's and Gonzalez's fiction pieces first appeared in The Greensboro Review issue No. 85 (Spring 2009). If you a pick up a copy of the anthology, look for these star stories in the Table of Contents:

• "Yeguas y Caballos" by Travis Klunick from The Greensboro Review

• "Half Beat" by Elizabeth Gonzalez from The Greensboro Review

From the Best American Series website: "[This is a]n eclectic volume introduced by David Sedaris and compiled by Dave Eggers and students of his San Francisco writing center, who don't leave a stone unturned in their search for nonrequired gems."

View the full Best American Nonrequired Reading 2010 Table of Contents here.

On Short Shorts

Ben (my esteemed co-editor for fiction) and I get a lot of shorter stories.  Anything below 10-12 pages counts as short to us.  Around here, we call them short-shorts or flash fiction.  When I hold those very thin envelopes, I have a moment of both dread and anticipation.  The Greensboro Review does not traditionally publish very short pieces, but it’s a new year with new editors and newness is the name of the game.   The problem with finding the right ones to publish, however, is that there’s only so much room in each issue and we, of course, want the very best selection for readers.  Short-shorts are facing stiff competition from longer stories that have the luxury of time and space to emotionally devastate and delight the reader.   This is not unlike the impact difference between short stories and novels.

Length alone doesn’t accomplish that perfect mix of intrigue, truth, and emotion, but it certainly gives the writer more flexibility.  Our most frequent reaction to the reasonably well-written short-short is, “But I wish there was more.”  More story, more emotion, more meaning, more impact.  More of everything.  A short-short faces the risk of seeming incomplete and anemic—as if it were a rough outline of a longer and better story.  Sometimes we get this sense because the story moves to emotional high points so fast that it reads as overblown.  Other times the story’s dearth of emotion makes it more of an anecdote and leaves little impression.

Short-shorts are not easier versions of short stories (a mistake I used to make when daunted by the empty page).  As John L’Heureux puts it, “The short-short story is an exercise in virtuosity that tightens the circle of mystery surrounding what we know.”  This was on the back cover of Sudden Fiction: American Short-Short Stories.  I love the way he says this though I probably don’t understand it in full.  The first part, the idea of the short-short as a virtuoso’s playground, however, rings absolutely true.  Any misstep in a short-short is amplified just because there’s not much around it.  One false line of dialogue is ignorable in a longer piece, forgettable in a novel, but blaring and horrible in anything very short.  In this way, short-shorts are closer to poetry than not.  Everything counts.  And then, for The Greensboro Review, it has to be just as good as any of the longer short stories.  So standards are high.  They might even be ridiculous.

Now that I’ve terrified or angered anyone who writes very short pieces, some hope:  I’m just one person with my own biases.  It’s possible that I’m flat out wrong.  Here are three examples of shorter pieces I admire:

• “Fallen Nellie” by Brad Watson.  Appears in Aliens in the Prime of Their Lives: Stories.  (Preview in Google Books.)
•  “Day Ah Dallas Mare Toes” by Luna Calderon.  Appears in Sudden Fiction Latino.  (Preview in Google Books.)
•  “Sunday in the Park” by Bel Kaufman.  Appears in Sudden Fiction: American Short-Short Stories.

What short-shorts have you enjoyed recently?

Thanks, Verse Daily!

Verse Daily has selected another gem from The Greensboro Review for its daily dose of good poetry. Check out Stephen Massimilla's "Etymology" from Issue 87 featured there today.

A sampling of other poems from the GR archives that appear on Verse Daily:

• "Earth-Eater! Earth-Eater!" by Byron A. Kanoti
• "Big Moon Over the Neighborhood" by by David Bruzina
• "Notes from a Journey" by David Krump
• "October" by Laura Van Prooyen
• "Spaghetti Western" by Tom Haushalter
• "Monument" by Natasha Trethewey
• "Real Live Boy" by Sarah Lindsay
• "An Artist Like Any Other" by Stephen Dobyns
  

First things first

Before we get into the behind-the-scenes, cutthroat world of The Greensboro Review, we've got something else at the top of our agenda:

YOUR WRITING!

We can't do our best work without your best work. So write it, print it, seal it, slap a stamp on it, and mail it to us by Sept. 15.

We're especially interested in submissions for our annual Robert Watson Contest, which holds a prize of $1,000 for the winners. More details here: http://www.greensbororeview.org/contests/

Only 3 days left, people. Get on it. We've got sharpened letter openers and we know how to use them.