It’s summer in Bloomington, the undergraduates have fled, and Editor Katie Moulton and I are doing our best to keep things lively in the office while the rest of the staff is on break.

A couple of notes from our to-do list that we want to pass on to [...]]]>

It’s summer in Bloomington, the undergraduates have fled, and Editor Katie Moulton and I are doing our best to keep things lively in the office while the rest of the staff is on break.

A couple of notes from our to-do list that we want to pass on to you:

Regular submissions are currently closed.  We will open the gates again on August 1. 

Any electronic or hard-copy submissions received between now and July 31 will be returned unread.

I know, it is sad.

But wait!  No need to despair!

We will be accepting submissions for the annual Indiana Review ½ K Prize, judged by Dinty Moore, between June 1 and August 1, 2013.

Yep.  We’re excited too!  Send us your very best 500-word previously unpublished pieces. Prose? Poetry? Prosetry? There are no rules, man! Well, except for these: 

You may submit 3 pieces per entry and you may also submit multiple entries. At $20 per entry, that’s a pretty sweet deal.  If you are submitting online, make sure to pay the entry fee after you have submitted your pieces. Note: You can pay now, but you won’t be able to submit until June 1.

When submitting online make sure to designate your entry as a submission to the 1/2 K Prize.  If you are paying the old-fashioned way please make checks out to Indiana University.

Full submission guidelines can be found here.

Stay tuned to the blog for more updates and summer shenanigans!

That was poet Marty McConnell performing “The World’s Guide to Beginning,” and informing the rapt crowd of exactly what was happening to them. McConnell, along with writers Jamaal May and L. Annette Binder, traveled to Bloomington to perform [...]]]>

touch is not reversible. one
cannot be un-touched. are you
uncomfortable? good. then it’s begun.

Marty McConnell

That was poet Marty McConnell performing “The World’s Guide to Beginning,” and informing the rapt crowd of exactly what was happening to them. McConnell, along with writers Jamaal May and L. Annette Binder, traveled to Bloomington to perform at Indiana Review‘s third annual Blue Light Reading and gave our community a weekend to remember.

Read more after the jump!

Annette Binder read “Lay My Head,” a riveting and subtle tale which she said was rejected by literary journals 77 times before it was accepted. The story appears in her first collection, Rise, winner of the 2011 Mary McCarthy Prize.

L. Annette Binder

Jamaal May’s powerful set included poems from his collection Hum, forthcoming from Alice James Books. Watch the contrapuntal “I Do Have A Seam” here.

Jamaal May

McConnell further collapsed any perceived distance between “page” and “stage” poems, performing and reading works from her new book, wine for a shotgun.

The readers during the Q&A

We want to send a million thank you’s again to our featured readers, to Canvas and Union Board, to CAHI, and the Neal Marshall Black Culture Center for all of their support. A wonderful weekend that would never have been possible without you!

See you next year!

 Name: Tess Callero. Well technically Theresa but I like to forget that my mom decided that was a good idea.

While the Editors are away at AWP, the interns have free reign of the office. And since we’re here answering emails and generally keeping the place from burning down, we thought we’d introduce ourselves.

 Name: Tess Callero. Well technically Theresa but I like to forget that my mom decided that was a good idea.

  Position at IR: Prize Intern

  Major: Marketing and English

Where ya from? The greatest town north of Chicago–Arlington Heights, IL.

Genre of writing: Short Fiction 

Favorite living author: Can I say J.K. Rowling? Because I want to say J.K. Rowling. #HarryPotter4evr

Favorite guilty pleasure: Real Housewives of Beverly Hills. Or The Bachelor. I have a soft spot for reality television and yes, I am ashamed. 

Oreos: cookie or cream? Cookies AND Cream (like the ice cream).

Why IR ?

I love that IR treats all authors the same. It doesn’t matter if you have been published or if this is your first submission, each piece of work is treated equally. Plus, it’s probably the best place to work on campus.

  Name: Lauren Conkling

Position at IR: Publicity & Web Intern

Major: English with a focus in creative writing; French minor

Where ya from? Newburgh, IN

Genre of writing : Fiction

Favorite living author: It’s really hard for me to pick just one, but Orson Scott Card is near the top.

Favorite guilty pleasure: Watching BBC Sherlock

Oreos: cookie or cream? Cream, I suppose…?

Why IR?

I took a class here at IU called Literary Editing and Publishing, and we spent class time talking with various presses and journals (on Skype or phone), as well as several of the current editors on staff at IR. I thought being an intern at IR sounded like a great experience!

 Name:Amber Hendricks

 Position at IR: Contracts Intern.

 Major:English. With a side of Sociology.

 Where ya from? Nowhere. And everywhere. I’m an army brat.

Genre of writing: Fiction. Playwriting. My poetry still whines to this day.

Favorite living author: Stephanie Vaughn.

Favorite guilty pleasure: Pretty Little Liars. I’m sorry. I am.

Oreos, cookie or cream?  You must have both. You must drown Oreos in milk long enough that they fuse together and become one.

Why IR?

Indiana Review has published amazing, eccentric pieces that have influenced my own work immensely. I expected to learn a lot from editors and writers who share my taste in unconventional work, and I have. Basically: I worship them.

   Name: Katie Swintz

 Position at IR: Subscriptions Intern

 Major: English & Comparative Literature, possibly a minor in Linguistics

Where ya from? Indianapolis, more specifically the west side, more specifically the east side of Avon. But no one knows where that is, so- Indianapolis.

Genre of writing: I am not “technically speaking” a creative writer. More like an irregular, aspirational, dabbler in fiction.

Favorite living author: I read a lot of dead people because I’ve spent the last few years playing catch up with the classics, but I like Rushdie and Isabelle Allende.

Favorite guilty pleasure: Cake Boss

Oreos: cookie or cream? I come from a Double-Stuffed family.

Why IR?

I spent most of a semester fangirling over IR in a class taught by one of the previous editors before I applied. I liked the atmosphere, I loved the writing, and it sounded like something I wanted to be a part of. The whole thing has just been awesome.

This has been Katie’s convoluted way of helping to settle an ongoing Oreo debate.

I love AWP. The book-fair. The celebrity poets. The parties. The dancing. The panel at 9:00 am you managed to wake up for because your favorite novelist is speaking. All of it. One giant ball of love. AND IT OPENS IN LESS THAN 48 HOURS. Here are some [...]]]> This is me right now:

I love AWP. The book-fair. The celebrity poets. The parties. The dancing. The panel at 9:00 am you managed to wake up for because your favorite novelist is speaking. All of it. One giant ball of love. AND IT OPENS IN LESS THAN 48 HOURS. Here are some last-minute things you should know:

Indiana Review is at Table i1. That’s right next to the cafe/bar. That may have influenced our purchasing decisions regarding the free swag we’ve got for you.

If you’re an IR contributor, please be sure to stop by our table. That’s Table i1. We’d like to take your picture. Because your words are beautiful and you’re beautiful. Please be sure to wear green and put as much product in your hair as you can*.

If you’ve never been to Boston before, take some time to explore the city. Our friends at Ploughshares have put together a comprehensive series of posts detailing where you should go. We trust them.

We’re not quite sure where our friends at Sycamore Review will be at the book-fair, but we do know they’re going to do a kissing booth**. The password for a smooch is “frogman.”

…more after the jump!

Poet and former contributor Eduardo C. Corral has threatened to flip our table over. Feel free to encourage him not to (or, to!) and help protect us.

The official conference Twitter hashtag is #AWP13. We would like you to use it so we can stalk you.

You should really stop by our table. That’s Table i1. Right next to the bar.

Doug, our web editor (that’s me!), has lots of dark hair and will probably be wearing blue glasses. He’d like you to say hi to him specifically, wherever you spot him, so he can feel famous.

Don’t eat anything funny before your flight.

Check out this Tumblr that’s got all the tips you need to not die during the conference.

…and a few more from associate poetry editor Kien Lam:

Nothing can stop you from having fun if you decide you only want to do fun things. Leave if it’s not fun.

Just buy the book on Thursday or Friday or whatever. It’s only going to be a couple bucks cheaper on Sunday and it might be sold out and who wants to run errands on the last day?

If you go to a reading and start thinking about food or something else, go get food or do something else.

Visit Indiana Review, home of the most attractive editorial staff in the country, and possibly the universe, but we’re modest so we won’t go so far as to make the latter claim. Our table is Table i1. Right next to the bar.

…and I think that’s everything, but who knows because I’M SO EXCITED.

*Actually, just wear what you’re wearing. That’s what we’ll be wearing!

**This has not been confirmed by their editors, but we encourage you to try.

We go.

We freefall down the rabbit hole. We squish like funhouse mirrors in hotel lobbies and conference room floors, and we shrink to pinpricks in grand ballrooms. We rubberneck and get cowed and chicken out. We chase the fat cats. We heed advice from caterpillars. We drink and grow big; we drink [...]]]>

We go.

We freefall down the rabbit hole. We squish like funhouse mirrors in hotel lobbies and conference room floors, and we shrink to pinpricks in grand ballrooms. We rubberneck and get cowed and chicken out. We chase the fat cats. We heed advice from caterpillars. We drink and grow big; we drink and grow small. We shake and shimmy and scrimp, scribble and scrabble. We talk and we talk about writing, but for three lost days at the mad tea-party, we do not write.

So why do we do it? AWP: What is it good for?

We can’t answer for all ten thousand writers, editors, publishers, students, teachers, and lovers of literature who will attend (and the thought of trying makes us dizzy), so we’ll tell you what we look forward to at AWP:

Sharing ideas. We spend the whole year obsessing over Indiana Review, figuring out how to keep this gorgeous endeavor surging ahead. AWP is our big chance to chat in-person with other editors and discuss the dirty details of publishing a journal—what works, what doesn’t, what’s next. This year, Editor Jennifer Luebbers is taking part in a panel on motivating a volunteer staff (Thursday, R269), while our Associate Editor is canvassing for new ideas for web content and online models.

Meeting YOU! Our editorial staff will be at the IR book fair table—Plaza Level i1!—and you should come talk to us. We love to meet our wonderful contributors and put faces to the stories and poems we’ve cherished for so long. We also love to meet readers and potential readers, and we’re there to answer any questions you have about IR. Literature, for us, lives and breathes (and drinks and laughs and occasionally passes out), and we relish the chance to take our vibrant community off the page and screen.

Speaking of the book fair. . . It’s terrifying. There are so many books and exhibits jockeying for your attention that last year some of us wound up sprinting down the aisles avoiding all eye contact—and worse, grabbing swag and dashing. This year, we plan to stroll slowly, taking time to say hello, so that when we inevitably feel overwhelmed by too many options and too few dollars in our pockets—we’ll stay grounded with smiling faces.

Swag! Obviously, we love free stuff. But we also love giving it away and representing the “prestigious journal with good vibes” thing we have going. We have secret swag, including previews of our Summer 2013 issue, so come and get it!

Journals! IR will be selling our latest issue, featuring the infamous Frog-man, as well as select back issues at special AWP rates. We’re hoping to capitalize on other publications’ conference deals and discover some exciting new journals in the process.

Hero worship—Just a bit. We live in Indiana. While we get to work with phenomenal writers and professors every day, many authors we admire don’t pass through Bloomington very often. This year, our Associate Editor’s can’t-miss list includes George Saunders and Anne Carson (both on Saturday). For many of us, inspiration is found in the work of writers we love, and hearing them read and discuss that work is an opportunity too good to pass up.

AWP, at its best, is about inspiration—bringing writers together to remind us of our shared passion, the reason we toil away day-to-day in relative isolation—and why we hurry back to that solitude after the madness.

Why do you go to AWP? Tell us in the Comments section!

It’s late February, which means that those of you not entirely preoccupied with polishing your poesy for our Poetry Prize (poets like alliteration, right?) are probably thinking more and more about heading to Boston for AWP, which is coming up in…holy crap, it’s next week! And I haven’t even picked out my tuxedo [...]]]>

It’s late February, which means that those of you not entirely preoccupied with polishing your poesy for our Poetry Prize (poets like alliteration, right?) are probably thinking more and more about heading to Boston for AWP, which is coming up in…holy crap, it’s next week! And I haven’t even picked out my tuxedo yet.

Besides the boozing and schmoozing (do poets still like rhyme?), one of the best parts about AWP is the Bookfair. I like having the opportunity to meet those of you who read IR and submit your work to us, and I also like meeting the editors of others journals I’m fond of. But I especially like that the journals at the Bookfair sell their back issues for low, low prices that help to somewhat offset the cost of my tuxedo rental.

IR will of course be offering our own array of back issues at the Bookfair, and I thought I’d take a few minutes to give you one good reason to buy each of the back issues we’ll have at our table. So here’s a quick look at some of my favorite stories that have appeared in the pages of IR over the last few years:

33.1 (Summer 2011): “Kwanzaa-palooza” by Edward Kelsey Moore. If the title doesn’t get your attention, the first line certainly should: “Last night, I dreamed about pork chops.” Now that’s a narrator I can relate to. Added bonus, absolutely free of charge: You can check out Edward Kelsey Moore reading “Kwanzaa-palooza” as part of our Bluecast series.

33.2 (Winter 2011): “The Stolen Cloned Mammoth” by Shane Castle. This is a contemporary take on Mark Twain’s story “The Stolen White Elephant.” It’s zanier than Twain, if that’s possible, but it carries on his tradition of satirizing the more absurd aspects of American culture, in this case genetic engineering and cable news.

34.1 (Summer 2012): “Sidewinder” by L. Annette Binder. Possibly my favorite IR story from this batch of back issues, this is a quiet, haunting piece about a young boy who hides from the problems in his crumbling life by spending his days digging for “Apache tears” in the sand around his house. For those of you who happen to be in or around Bloomington at the end of March, L. Annette Binder will be reading on campus as part of our Blue Light Reading Series.

34.2 (Winter 2012): “Down” by Carmen Machado. Here’s a little something for all you flash fiction fans out there. Machado’s story begins with a tornado, ends at the bottom of an abandoned mineshaft, and includes perhaps the best lines about a video game ever to appear in IR: “Dig Dug. Dig Dug. Clipped present tense, protracted past. A thing that only ever got bigger.”

So if you’re at the AWP Bookfair next week, stop by the IR table, say hi, compliment by impeccable taste in formal wear, and, hey, maybe buy a back issue or two.

From all of us at IR, congratulations to past contributor Corey Van Landingham for winning The Ohio State University Press / The Journal award for her book, Antidote! Van Landingham won our 1/2 K Prize for her piece “When You Look Away, the World,” which appears in issue 34.1. (Speaking of contests,

From all of us at IR, congratulations to past contributor Corey Van Landingham for winning The Ohio State University Press / The Journal award for her book, Antidote! Van Landingham won our 1/2 K Prize for her piece “When You Look Away, the World,” which appears in issue 34.1. (Speaking of contests, our annual poetry contest, judged by Nikky Finney, is open until April 1st!) Following is her installment of The Next Big Thing interview series.

First of all, thanks so much to Michael and all the other wonderful folks at Indiana Review who have been so kind to me over the past couple years, and for adopting us internet orphans sans website for this interview!

What is the working title of the book?

 Antidote

Where did the idea come from for the book?

I suppose there are a couple tiers for this answer. There are Events and there are Ideas, and while I will attempt to recall them, I fear it may be like retracing an episode of Lost, where some kind of logic is being imposed on utter chaos just to make you keep watching.

I. Events

The death of my father. Breaking up with my fiancé.

II. Ideas

That there is no antidote one can take for grief or heartbreak. That there are various forms of valediction and one may never get better at saying goodbye. That guilt can feel like a disease. That love can, at times, feel like violence. That love can be cruel. That I can be cruel. That there are multitudinous selves. That sometimes these selves may confront each other. That this may be in a dark forest. That one self may be burying or choking another self. That the moon sees this, and is a jerk. That no matter how many different combinations of words one puts together, it will never make anything whole.

What genre does your book fall under?

Poetry.

What actors would you choose to play the part of your characters in a movie rendition?

All I can think of is that it would be one of those movies I’d feel like I’d have to watch for reasons artsy or hip but would have to pause every ten minutes to get another beer if I was going to finish the damn thing.

No, but really, I say this because of the lack of characters. Yes, there are various people being addressed, and yes, there are various speakers, but they all feel like they stem from a similar emotional space.

But I’ll be good and try to answer. It would be delivered in a series of monologues given in some eerie outdoor space with unidentifiable men constantly lurking in the shadows. The actresses delivering the monologues would be Jean Seberg, Michelle Williams, Felicia Day, Janeane Garofalo, and Natalie Portman’s character in Closer.

What is the one sentence synopsis of your book?

In Antidote, love equates disease, demons are inverted gods, every animal wants something sinister, valediction is a contact sport, and someone is always watching.

How long did it take you to write the first draft of the manuscript?

Most of these poems were completed in fits of writing furiously during my thesis year in the fall of 2011.

Who or what inspired you to write this book?

X-rays, rafting trips with my father, holding séances in the ravine by my house in Oregon as a young girl, microscopes, animal documentaries, dreams of homesteading, Paul Celan, feeding my father’s ashes to small fish in the Rogue River, diving into that water, PBS’s Art 21, claustrophobia, Sappho, playing with Petri dishes in my mother’s lab, missing the mountains, word hoards, listening to Bill Callahan, being the daughter of a microbiologist, being the daughter of a photographer, being a girl who was never as happy as the other girls, big and lusty Midwestern storms, bourbon, Amy Hempel, cadavers, hunting for owl pellets in the forest with my mother, Isadora Duncan, epoché, always having cold feet, listening to Julianna Barwick, the moment at the Portland Zoo when my father was so thin he resembled the giraffes or the long-legged birds and I thought he might fly off, and then later that summer when he did.

What else about your book might pique the reader’s interests?

I quoted Yeats three times by accident. Also, some of these poems are actually supposed to be funny in a vitriolic sort of way, so it’s not all doom and gloom!

Will your book be self-published or represented by an agency?

 To my utter delight and astonishment and for which I am forever grateful, Antidote was chosen by Kathy Fagan as the winner of The Ohio State University Press/The Journal award in poetry, and will be published by OSU Press in October.

The comic [...]]]> I recently came across an online comic titled “Great Literature Helps Us See Just How Lame Internet Slang Is.” The strip pokes fun at the poor grammar and strange phrasings of ‘tumblr-speak’ and the like, comparing slang with the prose of canonical writers such as Shakespeare, Robert Frost, and J.D. Salinger.

The comic illustrates what some view as a deterioration of the English language. For example, many people have been annoyed at some point by the flash fire spread of phrases like “YOLO” that take the place of meaningfully expressing the idea behind them or others’ failure to learn the difference between ‘your’ and ‘you’re.’ The comic raises valid questions: When people can so easily communicate by using popular slang and stock phrasing, why go to all the trouble of giving thoughts elegance through a fresh choice of words? What implications does this have for the world of literature?

What this view fails to take into account, perhaps, is what makes a language so useful and powerful (for literature as well as daily use): its ability to evolve to help us continue to communicate clearly and effectively. The internet, while propagating certain kinds of language, also allows English to adapt to a modern world. An article by the BBC at the end of 2012 commented on the phenomenon of fusions of other languages and English appearing due to the Internet. Hinglish (Hindi/Punjabi/Urdu/English), Spanglish (Spanish/English), and Konglish (Korean/English), among others, show that the Internet is doing more than just providing a forum for new memes. Some of these new hybrid languages, according to the article, are creating new meanings for words that already exist or shifting the way grammar uses those words. Through the Internet, English is growing steadily more flavorful.

It is easy to forget how much a language changes over the course of time. Anyone who’s tried to read Chaucer, however, quickly realizes that modern English has shifted quite a bit from its roots. So while the Internet might not be producing new Shakespeares in every forum, the English language is far from broken. The universal community of the Internet might be expanding our definitions and augmenting our vocabulary in more complex ways than we appreciate yet.

What do you think: Is the Internet having a detrimental or beneficial effect on English? Leave a comment below.

Lauren Conkling is the current Publicity Intern of Indiana Review.

All of us at Indiana Review would like to congratulate contributor Sally Wen Mao on winning the 2012 Kinereth Gensler Award from Alice James Books! Her poem, “The White-Haired Girl,” appears in issue 34.2. Here’s her installment in The Next Big Thing interview series which is currently sweeping the internet.

Thank [...]]]>

photo by Van Nguyen

All of us at Indiana Review would like to congratulate contributor Sally Wen Mao on winning the 2012 Kinereth Gensler Award from Alice James Books! Her poem, “The White-Haired Girl,” appears in issue 34.2. Here’s her installment in The Next Big Thing interview series which is currently sweeping the internet.

Thank you to Michael Mlekoday, author of the forthcoming book of poems The Dead Eat Everything, out from the Kent State University Press, for tagging me in this series called The Next Big Thing! Also a big thanks for publishing this on the Indiana Review blog, because I am an internet dummy.

What is the working title of the book?

Mad Honey Symposium.

Where did the idea come from for the book?

Poetry books usually come from entire constellations of ideas. Here are some of the most pervasive ones, for me:

1. When researching names for an angry third world feminist girl band in 2007, I stumbled upon the fact that honey badgers aim for the scrotums when attacking larger animals.

2. Honey badgers pretend to be immortal when they are not. They may have thick skin and fierce claws but they do get hurt. Poetry is feral. So is desire. The honey badger denotes a feral desire. More so, it denotes a female, vulnerable desire. The honey badger exemplifies marginalized bodies. Such is the paradox of poetry: it’s vulnerable, yet attempts to be brave. We do not know whether to call it stupid, or admirable, or both.

3. Mad honey makes people go crazy. They eat it in a state of wonder or fit of hunger or desire. They experience hallucinations after eating it. They get drunk on this honey and vomit and tremble and cry. They suffer for their desires.

What genre does your book fall under?

Poetry.

What actors would you choose to play the part of your characters in a movie rendition?

Hoo-boy. The “movie” rendition of my book would probably be a performance art piece, or an experimental silent film, or a music video for Blonde Redhead, or a collection of animated shorts. Can I name directors instead? For the first section of my book, Hayao Miyazaki would direct, and the voice actor of Totoro would play the Sputnik dog, Kudryavka. Gael Garcia Bernal would play Audubon in “Excerpts from the Dream Diary of Audubon”. In the second section of the book, Wong Kar-Wai would direct, and Takeshi Kaneshiro would play the love interest in every poem in the collection, including the venus flytrap. In the poem published by Indiana Review, Xi’er (the white-haired girl) is Maggie Cheung. In the final poem, “Drop-Kick Aria”, Chiaki Kuriyama from Battle Royale would play the girl student at the dojo.

What is the one sentence synopsis of your book?

Tiny but fanged weaklings with milky bones hurt, attempt to survive, fight, and then conquer the world with broken teeth.

How long did it take you to write the first draft of the manuscript?

About four to five years. From 2007 or 2008 until 2012, essentially.

Who or what inspired you to write this book?

Watching a honey badger’s butt stick out of a log in the Prague Zoo. Dancing in weird places such as busses or beaches or parking lots. Adventuring, hitchhiking, trespassing. Yoshitomo Nara’s drawings. Walking on highways. Indignation. Reading James Baldwin at the mall. Returning to a familiar place where you’ve forgotten the smells, and having them suffuse your senses again as if attacking you. That moment in Left Eye’s documentary when she was in the jungle, naked, and friends with the animals. Field guides to trapped animals. Turbulent airplane rides. Emergency landings.

What else about your book might pique the reader’s interests?

Xenophon, who first chronicled the existence of mad honey in Anabasis, also wrote a text, Symposium, which echoed/parodied Plato’s Symposium. Plato’s Symposium discusses love—Philia, Agape, and Eros. Xenophon’s Symposium is a drunken exchange of witticisms between Xenophon and Socrates at a banquet. A symposium in Ancient Greece was essentially a drinking party. My book is a mad honey drinking party of love.

Will your book be self-published or represented by an agency?

Mad Honey Symposium is the winner of the 2012 Kinereth Gensler Award and will be published by Alice James Books in May 2014.