Jeff Fearnside

The New Chapbook

PLEASE SCROLL DOWN the page to read my news updates for each year going back to 2006, when I first created this webpage:

2011

Dec. 16, 2011: The past few weeks have really seen the ol’ literary ball rolling… I’ve had two more short stories accepted for publication, both by Fjords Review for their upcoming Spring 2012 issue: “Znamenskaya Russkaya Pravoslavnaya Tserkov (The Holy Sign Russian Orthodox Church)” and “The Cat People.” You can learn more about Fjords here; it’s an impressive journal, and I’m pleased my stories have found a good home there.

Dec. 7, 2011: I’m very pleased to report that my creative nonfiction essay “Ships in the Desert,” which appeared in New Madrid earlier this year, has been nominated by that journal for a Pushcart Prize, a prestigious distinction. This from their website: “The Pushcart Prize - Best of the Small Presses series, published every year since 1976, is the most honored literary project in America.” This is my second Pushcart nomination. I thank the entire staff of New Madrid, who were a pleasure to work with and produced an outstanding issue; I hope I’m selected for inclusion in the Pushcart anthology not only for myself but to recognize their excellent work as well.

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Nov. 22, 2011: I learned today that my short story “Ball and Chain” has been accepted by Little Patuxent Review for their Winter 2012 Social Justice issue!

Also, now that the contracts have been signed, I can report that my essay “Itam,” which was named Honorable Mention in the 2009 Tara L. Masih Intercultural Essay Prize contest, will be reprinted in a new anthology, The Chalk Circle: Intercultural Prizewinning Essays, to be published by Wyatt-MacKenzie Publishing, Inc. in 2012. Tara Masih is editor of this project. You may visit her website here.

Sept. 28, 2011: I recently learned that my essay “Place as Self” has been accepted for publication by ISLE: Interdisciplinary Studies in Literature and Environment. This attractive peer-reviewed journal, part of the Oxford Journals group, is the official journal of the Association for the Study of Literature and Environment. It seeks to explore the relation between human beings and the natural world, an area of great interest to me.

Also recently, “The Right Road,” an excerpt from my novel-in-progress, won 2nd Place in the 2010 Long Story Contest, International (judged by Allison Alsup). Run by White Eagle Coffee Store Press and now in its 18th year, this contest is widely considered the premier competition for long stories (8,000–14,000 words).

July 18, 2011: We're live! I've entirely revamped my website. Many thanks to LaDonna Eastman for her work on this. I hope you will find it more attractive and easier to navigate than before.

Jan. 24, 2011: Presententation of “Travel Writing: Taking the High Road, the Low Road, a Busy Urban Street, or a Trackless Desert Trace and Finding Our Way Back Home” to the Professional Writers of Prescott on Wednesday, Jan. 26, at 7 p.m. in the Founders Suite of the Prescott Public Library.

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2010
Dec. 28, 2010: The end of the year is nearly here, and I have several items of good news to catch up on from the past three months: Most recently—on the solstice, in fact—my sonnet “Meditation” was accepted by Assisi: An Online Journal of Arts & Letters, to appear in their next issue, due to be posted in January 2011. Check it out; it’s a soul-nourishing journal.

In November, my chapbook of 10 poems, Lake: And Other Poems of Love in a Foreign Land, won the Standing Rock Cultural Arts 2010 Open Poetry Chapbook Competition! I’ve been working with editor Tina Puckett on final production details, and her professionalism and enthusiasm have been outstanding. This should be a classy product from what seems to be a classy organization. The chapbook is scheduled for release in February 2011.

In October, the title story of my short-story manuscript was accepted by The Pinch, an attractive and long-running journal based out of the University of Memphis. The galleys have been proofed, and everything looks great! This is due in their Spring 2011 print issue.

Finally, in September, the longest (50 manuscript pages) and most in-depth essay I’ve yet written, “Ships in the Desert,” was accepted by New Madrid for a special theme issue on water. This is another attractive journal, run by Murray State University’s low-residency MFA Program. My work with their managing editor Jacque Day has also been superlative, and my essay will be accompanied by five striking black-and-white photographs by German photographer Kristian Walter. The galleys have been proofed; this is due in their upcoming Winter 2011 print issue.

May 13, 2010: I’m catching up on some older news here, but it’s very good news indeed: my short-story manuscript Making Love While Levitating Three Feet in the Air was named a finalist [Top 7] in the New Rivers Press MVP Competition! This is a long-running (since 1981) and distinguished competition from a terrific university press, and obviously I’m thrilled with this honor.

April 14, 2010: My short story “Maps and Compasses” was recently named a finalist in the Summer Literary Seminars 2010 Unified Literary Contest in Fiction! The honor includes a partial scholarship to attend one of their highly regarded writing workshops, either in the beautiful city of Montreal, Canada, or the exotic country of Kenya in Africa. (Oooh, I would LOVE to attend one of these! Let’s see if we can make it happen…)

Jan. 16, 2010: I’m highly pleased to announce that my work has been recognized twice in the 2009 Soul-Making Literary Competition sponsored by National League of American Pen Women, Nob Hill, San Francisco Bay Area Branch.

My short story “A Husband and Wife Are One Satan” won the Mary Mackey Short Story Prize, while my essay “Itam” was an Honorable Mention for the Tara L. Masih Intercultural Essay Prize.

Writers from 25 U.S. states, the District of Columbia, and British Columbia, Canada, placed (1st, 2nd, or 3rd) or were named honorable mention in the 12 categories of this national/international contest.

As a winner, I’ve been invited to read Sunday, March 21, 2010 at 1:00 p.m. in the Koret Auditorium, San Francisco Main Library, Civic Center.

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2009
Sept. 9, 2009: I’ve just had a story from my manuscript Making Love While Levitating Three Feet in the Air accepted by a beautiful and well-respected independent journal out of Wisconsin, Rosebud, which will publish “Little Murders” in its Winter 2009 issue, due out in December. Additionally, my short story “Clean,” also from Making Love, was recently accepted by Controlled Burn, to appear in Spring 2010.

Aug. 6, 2009: I’ve returned—and recovered!—from a three-week trip to Kazakhstan and have some news to catch up on:
While overseas I had another of my Central Asian short stories accepted for publication. “Learning to Fly at the End of an Empire” will appear in either the Fall 2009 or Spring 2010 issue of Bayou Magazine. Also, my fiction chapbook Three Tales of Love, Sex, and Magic was recently named a finalist in Spire Press’s 2009 Special Prose Chapbook Contest. The winner and full list of finalists may be found on the Spire Press website.

Finally, Alligator Juniper, the literary journal I work for as managing editor, has won the AWP Director’s Prize in Content for Undergraduate Literary Magazines! I can’t take credit for this—it was for last year’s issue, before I joined the staff—but I’m pleased to be part of a journal with such a strong track record: this is the third time in 13 years of publishing that Alligator Juniper has won this prestigious award. You can find a full press release on it here.

June 18, 2009: Two more of my short stories have been accepted for publication, by Potomac Review and Crab Orchard Review, both due out this fall. That means three out of my five linked tales set in Central Asia have been picked up. As soon as the remaining two are accepted, I’ll begin shopping around this mini-collection as a chapbook.

Also, nine of the 13 stories in my first full-length collection have now been published, and I’ve recently completed a nonfiction manuscript as well, a carefully edited selection of my journals and letters (with a few poems sprinkled in) from my time overseas. Both manuscripts are making the rounds as I write this. Any takers?

May 1, 2009: I’m pleased to announce that within the past couple of weeks I’ve had poems accepted by If Poetry Journal and The Los Angeles Review, short stories accepted by Cantaraville and Arroyo Literary Review, and a personal essay published by Etude: New Voices in Literary Nonfiction. I’ll post more on this later, as I hope everyone will support these fine journals.

I also read at Prescott College’s Earth Day extravaganza on 22 April and again with my wonderful and talented colleagues at the
college’s Arts & Letters showcase on 25 April.

Ah, spring is here, and new life and movement is in the air…

[Later note: If Poetry Journal apparently folded before publishing my poem. The good news is that it's still available!]

Jan. 20, 2009: My short story “She Was a Winter,” part of the short-story collection that I’m currently shopping around, has been accepted by Eureka Literary Magazine out of Eureka College in Illinois. My story will appear in the Spring 2009 issue.

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2008
Nov. 18, 2008: I’ve had two prose poems published by Protestpoems.org, an online journal devoted entirely to poetry that tackles human rights issues. It’s an important project, and I’m happy to play a small part in it.

Sept. 27, 2008: I’ll be giving a reading as part of the Prescott Area Arts & Humanities Council’s 4th Annual Fall Arts Festival and Studio Tour. The reading will feature myself, K. L. Cook—author of Last Call (University of Nebraska Press, 2004) and The Girl from Charnelle (William Morrow, 2006; Harper Perennial, 2007)—and Prescott College students and alumni. It runs from 3-5 p.m. at Prescott College’s Granite Performing Arts Center, 218 N. Granite St.

July 2, 2008: I’ve accepted the position of managing editor of the literary journal Alligator Juniper at Prescott College in Arizona, beginning in August 2008. As part of my duties, I’ll also teach three sections of writing workshop this upcoming academic year. Alligator Juniper is an excellent journal—it won the AWP Prize for undergraduate literary magazines (content) in 2001 and 2004—and I look forward to maintaining and hopefully moving forward this tradition. Just being part of Prescott College excites me. The college’s tagline is, “For the Liberal Arts and the Environment,” and its location in the lively and beautiful mountain town of Prescott, nearly a mile (5,354 feet) above sea level, is perfect for both.

Also, my interview with Wendell Berry is out in the current (July) issue of The Sun. If you can get your hands on a copy, I highly recommend this; it’s a fantastic and thought-provoking journal. If you can’t, they’ve posted the interview on their website, which is also worth checking out.

April 10, 2008: I co-conducted “Solitude and Story: A Contemplative Writing Workshop” with Dianne Aprile at the Bernheim Arboretum and Research Forest from 17-18 May 2008.

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2007
Oct. 8, 2007: My interview with author Wendell Berry has been accepted by The Sun, to appear sometime in early 2008. My review of Peter Chilson’s novella and short-story collection Disturbance-Loving Species (New York: Mariner Books, 2007) is scheduled to appear in Washington State Magazine, also in early 2008.

May 25, 2007: I’ve was hired as a Visiting Assistant Professor in Creative Writing at Western Kentucky University for the academic year 2007-8. Courses I will teach include ENG 200 (Introduction to Literature), ENG 203 (Creative Writing, which includes units on creative nonfiction, fiction, and poetry), and ENG 303 (Fiction Writing). I’m very pleased to remain at WKU for another year in this expanded role.

Feb. 27, 2007: I’ll be giving a Faculty Reading here at Western Kentucky University, along with my colleagues Sandra Wales (Ph.D., West Virginia University) and Rick Thompson (MFA, University of Montana), beginning at 7 p.m. in 125 Cherry Hall.

Feb. 21, 2007: What an incredible 13 months it’s been! Five acceptances for my writing, two national writing contest awards, and now two writing fellowships. I just learned that I’ve been selected for a Dorothy Norton Clay Fellowship at the Mary Anderson Center for the Arts in Mount St. Francis, Indiana. Founded in 1989 by the Mount St. Francis Friary, the center awards only two Clay fellowships per year. The ten-night writing residency, which includes a $200 stipend, is to be completed by 31 July 2007.

Feb. 20, 2007: I’ll be reading in Owensboro, Kentucky as part of the Third Tuesday Coffeehouse series sponsored by Brescia University, along with two of my colleagues at Western Kentucky University—Tom Hunley and Nancy Roberts—and Mari Beth Stanley. There will also be an Open Mic and an on-the-spot audience writing competition. It all runs from 7:00 to 9:30 p.m. in Woodward’s at the RiverPark Center, and it’s free. For more information, call (270) 686-4203 or e-mail david[dot]bartholomy[at]brescia[dot]edu.

Jan. 30, 2007: A good start to the new year: my short story “The Great Silver Cactus of Driggs, Idaho” has been accepted by Lake Effect, a journal out of Penn State-Erie that the NewPages Guide to Literary Magazines states is “Definitely worth checking out.”
[Later note: this story was nominated by Lake Effect in 2008 for a Pushcart Prize!]

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2006
Dec. 12, 2006: My short story “Accomplices to a Tradition,” one of a series set in Kazakhstan, has been accepted by Rosebud Magazine—a highly regarded journal described by one reviewer as “Somewhere between the old Collier's and The New Yorker”—to appear in issue #38 in April 2007.

Oct. 30, 2006: I received an acceptance from the Blue Earth Review, the official literary journal of Minnesota State University—Mankato, for my poem “Little River Almanac.” Look for it in their upcoming Spring 2007 issue.

Aug. 28, 2006: I began my first day of classes as an English and Creative Writing instructor at Western Kentucky University in Bowling Green, Kentucky. My contract is for one academic year.

Aug. 16, 2006: I will be making my second appearance at The Jazz Factory in Louisville for their “Jazz and the Spoken Word” series. Please click on the link above for more information about and directions to this great jazz club.

Aug. 15, 2006: My Bernheim writing fellowship officially concludes.

Aug. 9, 2006: In conjunction with the Full “Red” Moon Night Hike, I will give a public reading at Bernheim Arboretum and Research Forest. The reading is free of charge and does not require registration. It will begin at 8 p.m.; please bring yourself, your loved ones, and an interest in literature. The hike will begin at 8:30 p.m. and requires advance payment and registration. For more information, please visit Bernheim’s website. For directions, click here.

Aug. 8, 2006: My website goes live! www.jeff-fearnside.com

July 23, 2006: Interview with author Wendell Berry at his Kentucky hillside farm.

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