Blood Orange Review Blog

Pushcart Prize Nominations

2012-01-04T13:00:00.000-08:00

Blood Orange Review is proud to announce our 2011 nominations for the Pushcart Prize:

Brit Blalock, "Epigraph for This Poem"
Jessica Karbowiak, "Second Scraping"
Deanna Larsen, "What Rape Is Like"
Paula Marafino Bernett, “G Is for Grief”
Brittany Perham, "Poem for the Beloved's Lover"
Kelley E. Shinn, "Taking Heart"

Good luck, everyone!

Notable new book by Paul Lindholdt

2011-07-27T06:18:00.000-07:00

If you are interested in environmental literature, H.K. Hummel recently reviewed Paul Lindholdt's new collection of essays, In Earshot of Water: Notes from the Columbia Plateau on her blog, Practice and Craft. In this work, Lindholdt takes on weighty issues like industrial contamination, superfund clean-up sites and hydroelectric dams with piercing insight and wry humor. His style is philosophical and empathetic, reverent and entertaining. Go to Practice and Craft to read a full review.

In Earshot of Water: Notes from the Columbia Plateau by Paul Lindholdt was published by University of Iowa Press in March 2011.

The summer 2011 issue of Blood Orange Review is here!

2011-07-09T16:46:00.000-07:00

We are pleased to announce that the newest online issue of Blood Orange Review is now available.

The newest issue of Blood Orange Review includes new writing by Brit Blalock, Jacqueline Doyle, Leonard Gontarek, Danielle Hanson, Deanna Larsen, and Claudia Serea. The issue showcases Paul McMillan's richly surreal artwork and audio recordings of poetry by Cecelia Hagen and Colette Tennant. This summer issue pops with illuminating moments that startle and humor in turn. Take a look!

Blood Orange Review 6.1 is here!

2011-04-06T22:19:00.000-07:00

We’re pleased to announce the new issue of Blood Orange Review, featuring poetry by Siobhan Casey, Brittany Perham, Roger Bernard Smith, Jeffrey Taylor with a recorded poem by Jacqueline Lyons. Also in this issue, read fiction by Kelley E. Shinn and Scott R. Tucker. The photography of Sheila Smart creates the visual centerpiece for this new issue.

From the Editor's Notes by Bryan Fry:

Here we are readers, at our unusual meeting ground, the editor’s notes, which means we editors have completed yet another issue of our journal and have officially entered our sixth year of publication. Welcome!

I would like to celebrate by congratulating our interns who have dedicated a part of their busy lives over the last year to help us sift through hundreds of submissions. We could not be more happy with their professionalism and their enthusiasm for our journal. [Continue]

Interns on the Scene

2011-02-08T10:20:00.000-08:00

We hope you had a chance to meet our interns at this year’s AWP conference in Washington, DC. If you were unable to attend the conference, feel free to read the intern blogs below, which highlight some of the events.

See you next year in Chicago!

Maddie Reports from AWP (part 2)

2011-02-07T10:17:00.000-08:00

Our first night experiencing D.C. ran much later than predicted, and the six of us awoke in a sleep-deprived stupor. After shuffling to grab our badges and winter sweaters we stumbled out into the cold, once again looking for coffee. We returned in much higher spirits, each checking our schedules in order to pick out the readings that looked most intriguing.

I settled finally on an early reading about the necessity for accurate environmental writing, a wonderful piece that discussed how the idea of the “nature writer” has shifted from Thoreau and Burroughs, taking on a more journalistic identity. Each member of the panel (including the editor of Ecotone) discussed the need for responsible environmental writers who were dedicated to the current issues of society, while still respecting to the art that is inherent in good literature. Having a particular love of reading and writing nonfiction, as well as a strong devotion to the natural world, I was extremely impressed by this discussion. It was by far my favorite of the day.

Another memorable part of the day was the book fair. We interns had struck up an unofficial competition to see who could collect the most buttons and bookmarks, and so we took it upon ourselves to scour every last inch of the fair. Getting to see all of the other journals was overwhelming to say the least, but it was also exciting and informative. We lingered a little longer at all of our favorites; River Teeth, Black Warrior, Tin House, and Mod Cloth were among the tables that caught our attention. I was most intrigued by the visual rhetoric and design methods employed by all the other journals, and took extensive notes about which colors and fonts looked best together. By the end, there was a pretty even spread between my three columns of “looks great”, “could work”, and “definitely not”.

All in all, not a bad way to end the day. Tomorrow we are going to tour a bit of D.C. and see more than just the hotel. It will be nice to get away from the constant, high energy pulse of AWP for a few hours, before returning for the final readings.

Deven Reports from AWP

2011-02-06T20:07:00.001-08:00

The AWP conference has been an overwhelming adventure thus far, especially with the line-up of authors. One of the readings I attended on Thursday featured Sandra Cisneros and the Iowa Writer’s Workshop panel. The group read from their upcoming book, “We Wanted to be Writers”, and debated the pros and cons of academic workshops versus independent study. At the end of the reading, I met with Cisneros and had her sign a copy “The House on Mango Street”.

On Friday I attended a reading by Carol Joyce Oats. She spoke of the untimely death of her beloved husband due to pneumonia and read from her latest book, “A Widow’ Memoir”. As a volunteer for hospice, I’ve worked with death, the dying, and the families that they leave behind. Oats’ words were emotional yet simple; beautiful yet comical. She read directly from her book, added anecdotal information, and provided wisdom and advice for those coping with loss. I have read countless pieces about death and loss and this reading was truly heart-felt, and as Oats put it—“a widow’s handbook”. Being the literary geek that I am, I also had Oats sign my copy of “The Coalminer’s Daughter”.

Sarah Reports from AWP

2011-02-06T10:06:00.000-08:00

AWP was a complete whirlwind. We danced, laughed, attended panels, and met some amazing writers. On Thursday I checked out a panel about Jewish American Fiction. I won’t lie, the title drew me in: “Beyond Bagels and Lox.” You just can’t get more Jewish than that.

Writers Erika Dreifus, Andrew Furman, Kevin Haworth, Margot Singer, Anna Solomon discussed the challenges, freedoms, and trends in Jewish American fiction. The scene for Jewish writers is rapidly evolving from the earlier literature of assimilation. New books in the genre explore Jewish experiences from before the Holocaust, both in America and beyond it. They challenge mainstream readers to do the work to understand the vast Jewish experience and culture. Kevin Haworth described graffiti in Israel that he says describes the essence of new Jewish fiction in America. Written on a wall were the words, “Am Yisrael Chai” (The People of Israel Are Alive) and below it, a new tag read, “No shit.”

Maddie Reports from AWP

2011-02-05T17:59:00.000-08:00

Our descent into Washington D.C. was overwhelming and luminescent, the Washington Monument and Lincoln Memorial glowing like beacons across the Potomac. We had an equally illuminating trip to our hotel, thanks to our taxi driver turned tour guide, and managed to somehow settle into a deep sleep. The next day we woke bright and early to register for the conference and drink some much-needed coffee. The two-block trek to get to Starbucks was somewhat troubling to this Pacific Northwesterner, who is used to having at least three coffee shops per city block. Annoyance aside, I was able to return caffeinated and happy, and our bright maze of a hotel was a welcoming sight against the biting cold. We interns split off toward the various discussions and readings that we had chosen, and all at once AWP had begun.

My first panel was a discussion on human rights from the perspective of several Iranian American women writers. They were brilliant individuals, each with one Iranian parent, and each with a uniquely personal story. The rich emotion of their fiction, memoirs, and poetry was truly moving. I attended several more readings inspired by this first one, most of which were focused on human rights and current environmental or political issues.

I also attended the SpeakPeace exhibit put on by the Wick Poetry Center. The WPC presented several Vietnamese and Iraqi children’s paintings which depicted visions of peace and war. The Center also compiled a series of poems responding to each painting. Students, veterans, and writers from across America participated. As a PowerPoint presentation displayed the artwork, a group of children and writers performed a dramatic reading of these inspiring poems. By the end there were few dry eyes left in the room. Still, I left the reading chatting with strangers about hope for the future, rather than despair for the past.

Blood Orange in DC: February 2-5

2011-02-02T19:10:00.000-08:00

Blood Orange Review is excited to be returning to AWP, held this year in Washington, DC.

Editor Bryan Fry will be on-site with our six editorial interns (Caitlin, Deven, Maddie, Sarah, Simmone, and Zach) who will be attending panels and inviting writers to submit their work.

If you're a past contributor to Blood Orange Review and will be attending the conference, please let us know. We'd love to schedule a time to meet up with you and get a recording of your work. Send an email Bryan at bryanfry@bloodorangereview.com to schedule a time to record.

We'd also like to thank Washington State University for their support of our editorial internship program and for making it possible for the interns to participate in this wonderful professional development opportunity.

Blood Orange Review 5.3 is here!

2010-12-08T15:09:00.000-08:00

We’re pleased to announce the new issue of Blood Orange Review.

Featuring poetry by Candace Black, John McKernan, James Tyner with audio poetry by Amy Ash and Mandy Malloy. Also in this issue, read fiction by Lindsay Merbaum, Paige Riehl, and Gregory J. Wolos and nonfiction by Emily Adler and Tom Molanphy. The photography of Marius G. Sipa creates the visual centerpiece for this new issue.

From the Editor’s Notes
H.K. Hummel

The sky looks like it portends snow, and the maples are bare of all the brilliant fall colors they had just weeks ago. This morning, a woodpecker was busily drilling the tree in our yard, and like the woodpecker, I feel the urgent need to tidy up the winter supplies.

As I’ve been reviewing the proofs for this issue and doing the last bits of tidying work before we publish, I’ve been moved by the stories found in these pages, and the authentic glimpses of humanity that they reveal. When such pieces as each of these come across our editorial desks, we set down our coffee, rub our bleary eyes, and happily nod in turns. [read more]

See below for our nominations for the Pushcart Prize!

2010 Pushcart Nominations

2010-12-05T16:51:00.000-08:00

We are happy to announce our 2010 Pushcart nominations:

Emily Adler, “Summer of Our Unemployment”

Scot Erin Briggs, “Target Practice”

Rosalyn Cowart, “At Breakfast I Asked About the Burning of Bones”

Marcia Trahan, “Bloodletting”

We wish the best of luck to all of the nominees!

Meet BOR at the Hemingway Fair

2010-10-05T13:50:00.000-07:00

Stop by our table at the bookfair and meet Blood Orange Review editor Bryan Fry at the Hemingway & Idaho Festival in Moscow, Idaho on Tuesday, October 5. Details below:

Local Authors Read, Live Jazz, & Book Fair
Eastside Marketplace
1420 S. Blaine St. 8:30 p.m. - to Late
After the film, join us at Eastside Marketplace for a festival reading celebrating the 20th Anniversary of FUGUE, the creative writing program’s prize-winning literary journal. Readers include Kim Barnes, Robert Wrigley, Joy Passanante, Kevin Goodan, and Brandon Schrand.

*Stay after for a drink at Mix, appetizers, live jazz, and the festival book fair.

Good news about past contributors

2010-09-09T17:25:00.000-07:00

We've received so many notes with good news about past contributors, we wanted to share some of it with you. Congratulations everyone!

Leah Browning's chapbook, Picking Cherries in the Española Valley, was published by Dancing Girl Press in early 2010. The poems "Spring, and the Clocks Go Back," and "Under Construction," were first published in issue 1.4.

Douglas Bruton recently won the HISSAC and Biscuit Short Story Prize for his short story, "Darius and the Bloody Big Fish." To read more of Bruton’s work, go to issue 3.3.

Charles Jensen published his full-length collection of poems through Lethe Press. The collection, The First Risk, confronts murder, myth, the nature of love, and the confusion of loss. You can read a selection of Jensen’s poems from his award-winning chapbook Living Things in issue 1.3.

Montgomery Maxton published This Beautiful Bizarre from Moon Ice Press. His editor said, “Montgomery Maxton writes classical poetry with a photographer’s eye.” Montgomery Maxton was published in issue 1.2.

Diane Simmons won the Ohio State University Press prize for her collection of short stories, Little America. You can read her work in issue 4.2.

Jayne Lyn Stahl was recently published by NYQ Books. Aram Saroyan says Riding with Destiny “embraces a literary heritage from Rimbaud to Ginsberg, from Yeats to Bob Dylan, and makes a street-wise, sexy music all her own.” Her work focuses on the art of poetry and how to “dance the dance of life.” You can read her work in issue 1.1.

Colette Tennant's first book of poetry, Commotion of Wings, is now available from Main Street Rag. Tennant says of her own writing that, “I hear music, and the music I hear is not a solo. It’s meant to be shared—usually as poems, sometimes as songs.” Tennant’s poems “Praise” and “Signs” first appeared in issue 4.3.

Our reading period is now open!

2010-09-08T18:57:00.000-07:00

We're taking submissions again through our online submission manager. Please take a look at our guidelines and keep us busy!

Blood Orange Review 5.2 is here!

2010-08-01T12:30:00.000-07:00

The 21st online issue of Blood Orange Review has arrived!
The Summer 2010 issue of Blood Orange Review (5.2) includes fresh writing by Mark Beaver, Shimmy Boyle, Scot Erin Briggs, Whitney Dibo, John D. Fry, Aseem Kaul, Jacqueline Lyons, and Jonathan Starke with audio poetry by Arlene Ang and Brently Johnson. Illustrator Scott Gray creates the visual centerpiece for this new issue. Take a look!

Blood Orange Review 5.1 is here!

2010-06-06T21:27:00.000-07:00

We’re pleased to announce the new issue of Blood Orange Review.

Featuring the multimedia art installations of Karri A. Dieken, audio poetry by Kimberly Burwick, and fresh writing from Amy Ash, Ilse Bendorf, Rosalyn Cowart, Jeannie Galeazzi, Allan Peterson, Tania Pryputniewicz, and Marcia Trahan.

AWP Conference 2010

2010-04-07T21:58:00.000-07:00

The AWP Conference 2010 kicks off tomorrow morning and the Blood Orange Review editors have gathered in Denver to enjoy the event. If you are in Denver for the conference too, you can find us at table O15 in the AWP book fair. Come visit with Blood Orange Review staff, browse our limited edition letterpress broadsides for sale, and re-energize with some orange slice candy if your energy is flagging.

2010-03-01T08:00:00.000-08:00

Blood Orange Review would like to congratulate Todd Heldt for the publication of his full-length collection of poetry, Card Tricks for the Starving, through Ghost Road Press. Heldt’s poem, “Gather Us” appeared in Blood Orange Review in Volume 2.5.

Congratulations to Sean Patrick Hill

2010-02-21T09:30:00.000-08:00

We would like to congratulate Sean Patrick Hill, whose poem "Love Terns" was first published in Volume 4.1. His first book of poetry, The Imagined Field, is being published by Paper Kite Press, and will be available in February. You can read more about the book and Hill's other works on his blog.

Blood Orange Review Partners with Washington State University

2010-02-19T20:07:00.000-08:00

We are pleased to announce that a selection of exceptional students from the Washington State University English Department have joined the Blood Orange Review team as editorial interns. In order to qualify for this internship, candidates were required to go through a rigorous editing and interview process. We selected the top five of these candidates.

(From left to right: Grace Carlson, Deven Tokuno, Maddie Starkovich, Caitlin Woelfel, and Simmone Quesnell)

The interns will spend the semester reading submissions and writing blogs, and meeting once a week with WSU instructor and co-editor, Bryan Fry to discuss possible pieces for upcoming issues. The Washington State University English department has been a strong supporter of Blood Orange Review and we are grateful for this opportunity to work with WSU students.

We’d like to thank our interns for their hard work and commitment to publishing high quality writing!

Photo by Debbie Lee, WSU English Professor

Blood Orange Review 4.4 is here!

2010-02-01T08:25:00.000-08:00

We're pleased to announce the new issue of Blood Orange Review.

Featuring artwork by Craig Billow, the Western Australian showcase with audio poetry, and an announcement of our 2010 nominees for the Pushcart Prize.

This issue includes work by:

Seth Borgen
Bridget Hardy
Mandy Malloy
Diane Seuss
David Susman
Eric Vithalani

Editor’s Note
Blood Orange Review 4.4

This issue came together in a quietly spectacular way. As we put together the proofs, frost was icing the lawns of Salem, Oregon. Men were climbing ladders and hanging Christmas lights from the rooftops. As we edited the issue, we listened to the recordings of the Western Australian poems and communicated with the poets through email. Their voices and work radiated warmth in the chilly Pacific Northwest day. [continued]

Good News from Blood Orange Poet

2010-01-15T10:43:00.000-08:00

Congratulations to Sally Albiso for publishing her chapbook through Camber Press and for receiving the Fourth Annual Camber Press Poetry Chapbook Award.

Albio’s book, entitled Newsworthy, was selected by poet Steve Orlen who writes: “From a man obsessed with female mannequins to twins fighting for survival in an incubator, Albiso brings us a range of humanity — absurd, touching, and everything in between — and delivers them in tightly crafted poems.” To read more of Orlen’s praise or to purchase Albiso’s book, please visit Camber Press here.

You can also read some of Albiso’s chapbook poems by visiting the first issue of Blood Orange Review: 1.1.

Blood Orange Review 4.3 is here!

2009-11-18T12:14:00.000-08:00

We're pleased to announce the new issue of Blood Orange Review.

Featuring photography by Jim Lind, audio poetry, and an interview with award-winning poet Brian Turner.

This issue includes work by:

Jackie Bartley
Kimberly Burwick
Cecelia Hagen
Addie Hopes
Sister Hilda Kleiman
Caroline Klocksiem
Sara E. Lamers
Colette Tennant
Brian Turner
Sarah Zale

Editor’s Note -- The Big Picture

Blood Orange Review 4.3

I don’t remember which we accepted first for this new issue, Addie Hopes’ prose piece “Not a Love Story” or Sara E. Lamers’ poem “Proof:A Love Story.” But I do remember what it feltlike: grabbing two pieces from a just opened jigsaw puzzle and having them snap effortlesslytogether ... [continued]

Blood Orange Writer Receives Pushcart Mention

2009-11-14T16:55:00.000-08:00

Congrats to Brandon R. Schrand, whose essay “On Failure” received an honorable mention in the 2010 Pushcart Prize anthology. Read his essay here.

Since 1976, the Pushcart Prize anthology has been published from an 8' x 8' backyard shack on Long Island, NJ. This honored literary project collects the best of the year’s writing from small presses and literary journals. We are pleased to have one of our writers, published from equally humble origins—a laptop on an editor’s kitchen table—recognized by this prestigious press.

Each year Blood Orange Review nominates writers from the previous year’s issue for anthologies and prizes, such as the Pushcart. It’s our way of continuing to support those who believe in us enough to send their best work our way.

Honoring Our Veterans

2009-11-11T15:42:00.000-08:00

In honor of Veterans Day, Blood Orange Review is posting an excerpt of an interview with poet Brian Turner, author of Here, Bullet and US Army veteran who served in Iraq and Bosnia-Herzegovina. The newest issue of Blood Orange Review, coming out in mid-November, will feature the full interview with the award-winning poet.

* * *

HKH: At a panel you participated in at the 2009 AWP conference, I was moved by what you had to say about our responsibility towards returning veterans. Can you tell me more about what you see our citizens' responsibility is to our veterans?

BT: For the health of our large and complicated tribe, America, we must not bury the living among us. Ignoring the walking wounded who return from war, marked and altered by what we cannot see (as well as those whose physical wounds are evident)—this is not the answer. Ignoring them only helps the next generation gain an inheritance they would be healthier without. How do I say this? We, as a nation, are like a small pond. If the water is troubled for one, it is troubled for all—whether we are aware of it, or not. And if we are not aware of this dynamic, what does that say about us as well, as a nation, as a people? How great are a people who can wage a war and care little, if any, for those they wage it against? How great are a people who can wage a war and care little, if any, for those who wage it for us?

* * *

Check back in mid-November for the full interview: http://www.bloodorangereview.com.

See our listing on NewPages!

2009-10-11T20:30:00.000-07:00

NewPages.com is one of our favorite online resources, so we're thrilled to have a listing on the site so that more readers and writers can find us. Take a look at our description and while you're there browse through other print and online journal listings as well.

Blood Orange Review
Blood Orange Review publishes fiction, poetry, and nonfiction in an online quarterly. Established in 2006, the review is committed to cultivating an audience for exciting literary voices and promoting its writers.
[Read more about Blood Orange Review]

Review of "Suitcase" from recent issue

2009-08-26T15:53:00.001-07:00

Here's an excerpt from a review of Diane Simmons' "Suitcase," published in the most recent volume of Blood Orange Review. Click on the link below to go to the full review.

Her finely-realized fiction piece, "Suitcase," is an incisive look at the hazy dawn of a young girl's maturity and simultaneous capture of the slow fade of an earlier idealistic era.

Read Diane's work in its entirety here.

Blood Orange in the News!

2009-08-14T06:33:00.000-07:00

Orange with envy
Writers and artists nationwide vie to have works published in the online-only literary journal Blood Orange Review
By Barbara Curtin • Statesman Journal
August 14, 2009

Poets and artists nationwide vie for a chance to appear in the Blood Orange Review, a literary journal published from Salem. The latest issue came out last weekend, but you won't find it in local bookstores. It's published online only at http://www.bloodorangereview.com/. Internet publication made it possible to create the journal on a shoestring budget four years ago, said co-editor Stephanie Lenox of Salem. The online-only format continues to be an asset during tough times. [Read the entire article]

Blood Orange Review 4.2 is here!

2009-08-09T13:38:00.001-07:00

We're so excited to announce our new issue of Blood Orange Review!

Featuring artwork by Leonard A. Heid, audio poetry, and translations from Romanian poet Floarea Ţuţuianu.

This issue includes work by:

Tabitha Dial
Bonnie McClellan
Colin Pope
Diane Simmons
David Thacker
Donna D. Vitucci
Lafayette Wattles

Editor’s Note--The Familiar Blip
Blood Orange Review 4.2

Last week at the local Goodwill, I found an old AIWA stereo that plays compact discs and cassette tapes. It was equipped with a speaker and a red and black wire that one would have to manually attach the speaker to the outlet in the back of the stereo. The speaker box was large, the size of a small filing cabinet, but probably weighed less than three pounds. I inspected the tag where someone had scribbled ten dollars in a blue sharpie. I inquired from one of the workers if the stereo worked. She smiled strangely—insultingly—and said yes. I smiled back, thinking sold. [continued]

Nominations for Best New Poets 2009

2009-05-06T23:04:00.000-07:00

Blood Orange Review is pleased to announce its nominations for Best New Poets 2009. For those of you who are unaware, Best New Poets is an anthology that selects 50 poems from literary magazines and writing programs each year. Jeb Livingood, series editor, approached our table at this year’s AWP conference, though this was not our first introduction to BNP. Our very own Stephanie Lenox published her poem, “Making Love to Leopard Man”, in the 2006 series.

Our Nominations:

Sarah Layden—“Something in the Way”

Jacqueline Powers—“Continuum Mechanics”

We appreciate publications that focus on emerging writers and hope you will keep an eye out for this year’s selection which BNP will announce sometime after June 1. By the way, every year features a guest editor and the GE this year is the fun, intriguing, and perhaps infamous poet Kim Addonizio.

Sweet Sixteen

2009-04-01T21:10:00.000-07:00

We're pleased to announce the arrival of the 16th issue of Blood Orange Review!

It's nice, clean and ready for a new day!

Featuring artwork by:
Charles Borges Accardi

Writing by:

Bridget Bell
Jon Boisvert
Leah Browning
Scott Gould
Sean Patrick Hill
Jalina Mhyana
Adam Pellegrini
Richard Schiffman

And audio poems by:

Anne Haines
Sarah Layden

Happy ♥ Day!

2009-02-14T04:00:00.000-08:00

The next issue of Blood Orange Review will be coming out at the end of the month. In the meantime, please enjoy this Valentine from poet Sean Patrick Hill, who will appear in the forthcoming issue. (Sign up here to be first in line to get an email when the new issue is available.)

Love Terns
to Erynn

There is no love like theirs.
They couple, I’m told,
for life.

They build no nest
but balance eggs in palms,
on fronds and bare branches.

When trade winds come
roaring off the ocean,
there is no greater exposure,

and terns have no choice,
either they know
or hope

the branch will hold.
I can’t pretend to know
on what such brooding turns.

Theirs is the deepest love.
They must prevail.
The wind will never end.

About the poet: Sean Patrick Hill is a freelance writer in Portland, Oregon. He earned his MA in Writing from Portland State University, where he won the Burnham Graduate Award. He received a grant from Regional Arts and Culture Council and residencies from Montana Artists Refuge, Fishtrap, and the Oregon State University Trillium Project. His poems appear or are forthcoming in Exquisite Corpse, elimae, diode, In Posse Review, Willow Springs, RealPoetik, New York Quarterly, Copper Nickel, Juked, Sawbuck, Redactions, and Quarter After Eight. He also is a blogger for Fringe Magazine. His blog site is theimaginedfield.blogspot.com.

About the poem: "Long story short: I wrote the poem after watching the same PBS special about the Seychelle Islands and the "Love Terns" there over the course of a few years. Spent seven hours or so writing the poem for my wife. A friend told me to enter it in this "Love Letter" contest held by the millionaire Henry Zimand in honor of his wife, Anda, who died fairly young of cancer. I was a finalist, and Henry flew Erynn and I to NYC on Valentine's Day, put us up in a Central Park Hotel, and gave us $500. This was during the nor'easter that dumped 27 inches of snow in one night. We met the actress Jane Seymour who stood next to me and read my poem on television (apparently, national). Then we got a carriage ride through Central Park. Not only that, but we realized we were the grand prize winners, and thus Henry flew my wife and I to Europe and put us up for 5 nights in Monte Carlo, on a hotel on the Mediterranean, plus $1000. We asked if he could fly us into London and out of Madrid, and hence we had our honeymoon. We still have quite a time considering our luck."

Table 728 in Chicago

2009-02-10T20:39:00.000-08:00

Come visit the Blood Orange Review table at AWP in Chicago, February 11 - 14. All the editors will be there.

Stop by and say "hi" and pick up our snazzy new postcards to send to a friend. The new issue will be out by the end of the month, so keep your eyes peeled!

Blood Orange Review 3.4 is here

2008-11-24T17:53:00.001-08:00

Editor’s Note--Stung
Blood Orange Review 3.4

In a story from this new issue, “Once the Queen Is Gone” by Jeremy Griffin, one character chooses to study biochemistry, specifically the pheromones of honeybees, after being attacked by a hive that results in a week’s stay in the hospital. In the same story, the main character arrives on the doorstep of a former lover to “tell her things about love and fulfillment and mistakes and forgiveness,” or, on second thought, maybe just to see what might happen. Drawn to what has stung them, both characters find themselves pinned between what they separately want and fear.

The poems of Jeff Hanson reveal a person seeking to remake himself, and in one instance, getting what he wants only to find he can’t handle it. In “The Artist’s Father” by Brently Johnson, a father watches his son and weighs, self-consciously, whether it’s the moment itself or the preservation of that moment through language that matters more. “Avalanche” by Gregory Lawless offers a speaker tumbling through life after life hoping eventually to get it right. Poem after poem, story after story, the voices in this issue waver then begin, ever so slightly, to tip.

Jim Fagiolo’s unnervingly beautiful landscapes appear as monumental still lifes. Look at “Ruby Lake” or “Portage Glacier” which serves as the doorway to our new issue; so clear and reflective, the water seems to point to the impossibility of it staying that way. If you found yourself on a dock like the one in “Blue Lake,” how could you not throw a stone out and ruin all that stillness?

I’m drawn to the way the work here pulls the reader into that frozen moment through words or images. We’re along for the ride as the subjects, for better or worse, try to make something happen. It feels right that they don’t always know what they want or where they’re going or why they do the things they do. Rattled or wounded, the subjects take us out of our own uncertainty and give us the uncertainty of someone else to ponder for a while. Thank you, literature and art; it’s exactly what we need right now.

Stephanie Lenox, editor
Blood Orange Review

PS – In this issue, the editors have selected several works to be nominated for a Pushcart Prize. We’re thankful for the work in this issue and in all the ones we’ve published, which after stinging us once, continues to draw us toward it.

September Issue of Blood Orange Review

2008-09-21T10:05:00.001-07:00

Editor’s Note -- Soft Light
Blood Orange Review 3.3

I used to live a couple of blocks from Raymond Carver’s former home. In the evenings, I’d walk past on the dark street and peer in through the warm light of the undressed windows to see walls of bookshelves in an empty living room. I always half expected to glance in and see him sitting in a worn chair, reading in the soft light. Somehow, it was comforting to think that at one point, he sat right there, in a little house at the intersection of two anonymous streets. He and I shared the same view of the sometimes turbulent and sometimes pacific Strait of Juan de Fuca .

When the cacophony of human life becomes hushed and I am granted the chance to observe discreetly, I become mesmerized with the tender, tragic theater before me. When I stride anonymously along the unlit sidewalks and look into windows at the sheeted birdcages and abandoned dining rooms, I can imagine the lives of the people that had just slipped invisibly out of sight. I love them, the ghosts that haunt my nighttime meanderings. This is the way literature blends in with my day and blurs at the edges. It is the way I carry other writers and their creations with me.

The writing and artwork in the current issue of Blood Orange Review has captivated me in much the same way. Douglas Bruton’s short piece, “A Pebble from the River for Annie” shows a character during a crisis moment that will re-shape the very essence of her being for the rest of her life; the young girl will haunt me as much as Dickens’ Miss Havisham. Laura Ring’s poem, “Grimes Grave” is one that must be read out loud to feel the muscle and grist and hear the scrape of metal on stone.

The issue is compact and powerful, but it isn’t all seriousness or tragedy; Brandon R. Schrand and Calvin Mills offer two humorous contemplations on the ways two writers confront failure. And Jane Linders’ photography (Mike Ross’ Big Rig Jig is show above) is quirky and marvelous.

The September 2008 issue of Blood Orange Review has come together in the midst of intense political, economic, and social anxiety, and I think that it is palpable in the issue. It feels like a strong vibration in the air, perhaps something like oboe music drifting in from the neighbor’s backyard.

Heather K. Hummel, editor
Blood Orange Review

Where do your rejections live?

2008-09-15T07:00:00.000-07:00

Keep your eye out for the next issue of Blood Orange Review appearing online later this month. Below is an excerpt from a forthcoming essay by Calvin Mills entitled "Mathematics, Gallbladders, and Sticking Your Babies in the Mail". To be alerted to the publication of the next issue, which will include the full text of this essay and other great works by new and established writers, enter your contact information in the box to the right of this post.

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This simple mathematical approach allowed me to see my rejections not as personal attacks, but as steps forward, items checked off a list. Incidentally, this method did work for me. I landed a story before I hit 100. I still use this method from story to story. I keep sending them out, and sometimes I actually smile a bit when I get a rejection in the mail, because it means my evil plan is working.

Now that you’re considering doing the math and sending your big-eyed babes out into the wild, wild world, here are a few thoughts to help you stay sane during the process:

1. Never have just one baby in the mail. . .
2. Consider the magical power of “buffer time”. . .
3. Read rejection letters just far enough to determine they are actually rejection letters. Then stop reading. . .
4. Sometimes adversity is your friend. Don’t believe me? Make a list of 100 successful child actors. Try to find more than five who you admire now that they’re grown up. . .
5. Remember that there is always another (or a better) magazine out there. . .

Of course, after the thin, crummy advice above wears off, some small part of you is bound to feel like a failure when an editor sends a neglected baby back to your ZIP code. But don’t let that part of you be a big, important organ like your brain or your heart. Don’t even let it be your lungs—we don’t want them letting you down while you sleep. Sleep apnea is a bitch. Allow the failure to be housed in a small unimportant organ inside you—one you can live without. A tonsil or appendix would be my first choice, but many of you may already be sans these superfluous organs. Then what? Okay, I know what you’re considering, but let’s not lose our fertility over this. I was thinking more along the lines of the gallbladder, or a single kidney. Do some research, and choose your own failure hotel somewhere on a less popular street along the super-highways that are your entrails. Once you’ve designated the location, run your establishment like the old commercials for the Roach Motel, “Rejections check in—but they don’t check out!”

Calvin Mills teaches English at Peninsula College in Port Angeles, Washington. His stories and creative nonfiction essays have appeared in Short Story, WeirdTales, The Caribbean Writer, Tales from the South Vol. 1, Timber Creek Review, Southern Indiana Review, and other journals and magazines.

Excerpt from "On Failure" by Brandon R. Schrand

2008-09-12T07:00:00.000-07:00

Keep your eye out for the next issue of Blood Orange Review appearing online later this month. Below is an excerpt from a forthcoming essay by Brandon R. Schrand entitled "On Failure". To be alerted to the publication of the next issue, which will include the full text of this essay and other great works by new and established writers, enter your contact information in the box to the right of this post.

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On Failure

When you Google the words failure + literary + writer in a single search, you will be greeted with 1,970,000 returns. It’s an ominous but not surprising number. Of course not all of those returns deal explicitly with the literary writer as failure, but most do, and I think the number of returns reflects a certain inescapable truth about our business: the writing life is shaped, in one way or another, by failure. It’s one of the only careers in which you begin as a failure. Failure is the baseline, the starting point. Curious about my search results, I thought I would put the number of returns in context of other careers. This is what I learned:

A search for the words failure + librarian yields an alarming if depressing 400,000 results.

A search for failure + cryptozoologist retrieves only 73,600 results.

Googling failure + “worm farmer” yields a mere 508 returns.

And finally, you’ll be happy to know that a search for failure + “cheese attendant” will give you 0 returns.

If there is a lesson to be gleaned from my inquiry, I’m not sure what it is. However, it does strike me as peculiar, refreshing even, that to be a writer engaged in a profession that is colored by failure is another way of saying you are among friends, that there is safety in numbers, as they say. On the other hand, if you failed as a cheese attendant, you would be the first and only failure in that unsung occupation. The cheese attendant would stand alone, in other words, and that cheese attendant would be you. . . .

Brandon R. Schrand is the author of The Enders Hotel: A Memoir, the 2007 River Teeth Literary Nonfiction Prize winner and a 2008 Barnes & Noble Discover Great New Writers selection. His work has appeared or is forthcoming in The Dallas Morning News, The Utne Reader, Tin House, Shenandoah, The Missouri Review, Columbia, Colorado Review, Green Mountains Review, River Teeth, Ecotone, Isotope, and numerous other publications. He has won the Wallace Stegner Prize, the 2006 Willard R. Espy Award, the Pushcart Prize, two Pushcart Prize Special Mentions, and his essay, “The Enders Hotel,” the title piece from his memoir, was a Notable Essay in the Best American Essays 2007. A two-time grant recipient of the Charles Redd Center for Western Studies, he lives in Moscow, Idaho, with his wife and two children where he coordinates the MFA Program in Creative Writing at the University of Idaho.

Award for the Nicest Rejection

2008-09-11T07:00:00.000-07:00

From the failure files of Blood Orange Review editor Stephanie Lenox:

I have been rejected by Karen Craigo of Mid-American Review no fewer than four times. I have to say she seems like one of the nicest editors around. I've discussed this with other writers, and I'm not the only one who looks forward to her cheerful rejections.

Hey, Rejects, You're Not Alone

2008-09-10T07:00:00.000-07:00

I've been browsing the Rejection Collection, a website that bills itself as the "on-line source for misery, commiseration, and inspiration." Thanks to "Chief Rejecutive" Catherine Wald, artists and writers no longer need to suffer in silence.

Under the Read 'em and Weep category, you can find rejections from small literary journals, grants and fellowships, residencies and artists colonies, and more.

One of my favorites:

In response to a poem called "Going Under," a first person lyric that had to do with being anesthetized for surgery,the editor wrote back:"We never accept poems about drug abuse. I only hope for your sake that this isn't you!"

Reminds me of the high school sub in my English class who had a private talk with me about safe sex after reading a short story I wrote about a train. A real train.

What more can we say?

2008-09-09T08:35:00.000-07:00

From the failure files of Stephanie Lenox, editor of Blood Orange Review.

Rejecting Rejection: An editor's perspective

2008-09-08T12:38:00.000-07:00

Here Blood Orange Review editor Heather K. Hummel shares how she learned to let go of rejection slips and keep going:

I am not one of those writers who plasters her wall with rejection slips. I do not have a file overflowing with "Sorry, not for us" notes. Some time ago, I decided that habit was a really bad one for me--one that would weigh me down and wear me out. So, now, when the rejection slips arrive in the mail (and it's an almost daily occurance) I make note of it on my submissions spreadsheet and recycle it immediately. If it is a really disappointing one--say for the Wallace Stegner Fellowship, I let it sit on the counter while I cook dinner and I pout at it for all I'm worth while I chop and stir-fry. And then I recycle it.

One spring, I lived at a yoga ashram and my parents handled my mail. My dad would read the rejections outloud over the phone and then launch into a peptalk about not giving up. Every day. Having my rejection slips read out loud was miserable--and ludicrous. But somehow, it gave me a sense of humor about receiving them. Try reading your next rejection slip outloud, and then at the end add a "buck up kiddo, your are trying and that's all that counts" in a concilatory fatherly voice. I guarantee you'll laugh. Or, maybe cry and then laugh. And then it just becomes part of the process, like tilling the soil or weeding, and waiting for the squash and pumpkins to burgeon.

My Favorite Failure: One of my first rejection notes

2008-09-07T14:33:00.000-07:00

The editors of Blood Orange Review know a lot about rejection. Not only do we reject about 90% of the submissions we receive, but we receive rejections ourselves. All the time.

In the next few weeks, Heather, Bryan, and Stephanie will share some thoughts on failure and rejection in the writing life. We'll also post an excerpt from a forthcoming essay by Brandon R. Schrand entitled "On Failure", to be published in full later this month in Blood Orange Review.

To get started, Stephanie posts one of her favorite rejection letters from fellow literary journal Bellowing Ark along with some comments:

I save all my rejection slips in neatly labeled manila folders that hang in a file cabinet with tabs marked "Rejections 2000", "Rejections 2001", "Rejections 2002", etc. Some files are larger than others as my confidence over the years ebbs and flows. When rejections come in, I log them into a spreadsheet and then drop them unceremoniously into the file. The process has become so automatic that there's little emotion involved any more.

But there are a few failures I cherish more than others, and this is one of them. I had been submitting my poetry to journals for a few years, but one day in 2000, I received my first personal rejection. It was handwritten by the editor of Bellowing Ark, a still-active literary journal out of Shoreline, Washington.

Though the editor rejected my work, he wrote that my poems showed "a good deal of promise." Those few positive words kept me going. I submitted again to the same journal and received one of my first publications. I've continued the trend of being rejected first by almost every journal that has later published my poetry. The "failure files" are my proof that even when my work isn't getting picked up and published by literary journals, I'm doing the work that needs to be done.

--Stephanie

Only Connect!

2008-07-21T08:10:00.000-07:00

Last week, Heather Hummel and I had the chance to present together at the Port Townsend Writers’ Conference. We presented on “Creative Collaborations” and talked about how to make partnerships work when you’re not in the same town or time zone.

The conference provided a wonderful opportunity to reflect on our decade-long partnership and what we’ve accomplished together. While working on the presentation, Heather and I realized that we have not been in the same room for more than 24 hours in over seven years. But because of our ongoing work with Blood Orange Review, we were able to sit down and work together face-to-face as though no time had passed between us.

In more than a few presentations I attended over the week, participants expressed the desire for community. How do you find like-minded writers? How do you continue to grow as a writer if you can’t find anyone to share your words with? For Heather and I, the key to making a partnership work has been creating an environment where we can share ideas. Because in the past decade the two of us have moved over 14 times, that communal space had to be virtual. Blood Orange Review is our café and our classroom.

Some people, some very credentialed and qualified people, believe that online forums allow us to isolate ourselves further. We participate in discussion boards with people around the world but still feel lonely. We have 200 “friends” on a social networking site, but still have no one to pick us up from the airport. I agree.

However, at the conference last week, I had the pleasure of meeting three contributors from past issues of Blood Orange Review: Pat Daneman, Sayantani Dasgupta, and Emily Evans Larson. I sat in presentations with them or heard new work they’ve written, and it’s exciting to meet these writers in the flesh. What I’ve learned from working on Blood Orange Review is that the world is not as huge as I once thought it was. If anything, this forum can be a doorway and an introduction to new people and ideas, as it has been for Heather and I.

PS – The editors have some fun stuff planned for upcoming issues, including a themed edition of the Swing Shift Writers’ Series all about rejection and failure. Check it out!

Blood Orange in Port Townsend -- part 2

2008-07-20T07:30:00.000-07:00

Blood Orange Review had the opportunity to sit on a panel this week to discuss literary journals. Here are some of Stephanie’s thoughts, continued from yesterday:

In the panel on literary journals in which I participated with several others at the Port Townsend Writers’ Conference this week, Brenda Miller from the Bellingham Review discussed how she educates her staff about responding to submissions. If someone sends in writing that is clearly not ready for publication, she encourages her staff not to consider the individual an unskilled writer. With her staff, Brenda talks about the importance of seeing submitting to literary journals as part of the creative process, not just the final step in the creative process.

I really enjoyed her perspective on this because I’ve felt this myself. Submitting to journals and receiving rejections is how we calibrate our writing. It’s one method for understanding audience and making this abstract concept more tangible. Submitting is a way to see how your work stands on its own beyond the friends and teachers who are invested in our work and who know what we’re trying to do.

A rejection from a literary journal can be an educational tool. It should not be viewed as a declaration that a work is unforgivably flawed, but that it’s not ready yet for publication in that journal and may never be due to the aesthetic preferences of the editors who make the decisions. Samuel Ligon, editor of Willow Springs, says he loves it when a piece that is almost accepted but ultimately rejected by his journal is accepted into the Georgia Review or some other reputable journal. It’s encouraging that writers have options in the literary world and can find a publication that is suited to their unique creation.

Blood Orange in Port Townsend

2008-07-19T11:41:00.000-07:00

Yesterday, I had the chance to represent Blood Orange Review on a panel about literary journals at the Port Townsend Writers’ Conference . At the table were editors from Concrete Wolf Press, Crab Creek Review, Tidepools , Bellingham Review, and Willow Springs.

We each had the opportunity to introduce our journal and talk about what goes behind the scenes once a submission leaves the writer’s hands. While the other journals had online components, Blood Orange Review was the sole example of an online-only journal. I took some time to talk about the benefits of publishing online, both for writer and editor:

1) Accessibility – Not only can readers access the journal free from anywhere in the world (provided they have a keyboard and an internet connection), but contributors can develop an online presence for their work which can be distributed easily.

2) Affordability – Some writers don’t realize that most editors, even editors of glossy print journals, are not paid for their work. Blood Orange Review is a completely volunteer effort, a labor of love funded by the shallow pockets of writers just like you. Fortunately, the overhead for an online journal is minimal, and as a result an online journal is more sustainable financially. It’s also more affordable for writers to submit. No postage, no copies, no SASE.

3) Exposure – Willow Springs has a print run of about 1,400. Crab Creek Review is somewhere around 400 per issue. Not every issue sells out, so there are a lot of back copies to contend with. In an online forum, issues continue to receive exposure beyond their publication dates. Readership is not limited by geography, distribution, or subscription.

I am, of course, not suggesting that you should submit to online journals instead of print publications. I do both, and I encourage you to do likewise. I love being able to hold a print journal in my hands and put in on my bookshelf. But I also love being able to easily forward a link of my online work to anyone who might be interested.

As for Blood Orange Review, here are a couple points to consider when submitting to us:

1) We’re selective – We reject about 90% of submissions we receive. We’ve published high-schoolers, and we’ve published established writers who have published multiple books. We’re opening to all literary work that shows concern for language and is artfully constructed. However, our decisions on what to publish are extremely subjective.

2) We promote writers – When we accept a work for publication, we’ll ask the writer for “fan club” contacts, a list of emails to which we’ll send a one-time announcement upon publication. We recognize that writers are not always good at self-promotion, so we take on some of the chore. And once you publish with us, we continue to support our writers by presenting opportunities to submit to themed issues and posting notices of awards and other publications here on our blog.

3) We’re respectful – One way Blood Orange Review demonstrates its respect for writers is by responding to submissions in a timely manner. Our guidelines say we respond within 8 weeks, but often it is much faster than that. Each submission receives three reviews by the three editors on staff. When we get together to discuss submissions, we argue for the ones we like, and we take our time trying to convince the other editors that a work is worth publishing. When we say your submission “provoked discussion” in our editorial meeting, we really mean it.

Read this review by NewPages.com's Micah Zevin

2008-07-11T22:23:00.000-07:00

Blood Orange Review is a poetry, fiction, essay and art journal with a dark skin and a smooth philosophical center. Enter the orange confines of their most current issue and be exposed to crimson narratives imparting stories of characters and places told with their fascinating and sometimes tragic details...

Call for Submissions for the Blood Orange Review Swing Shift Series 2008

2008-06-29T12:08:00.000-07:00

Attention writers, it is time again for the Blood Orange Review Swing Shift Writers Series. This is your chance to use our blog as a forum for discussing the often undiscussed challenges of being a writer.

Each week for the month of August, the Blood Orange Review blog will post field reports from working writers across the country. Our theme for this year's series is "failure."

We want to hear about how writers' deal with the struggle to become published. Writing and publishing is a hard line of work. What do you do when you get writer's block? What methods or practices help you buck up and continue in this cut-throat field? What philosophies sustain you, even if the book you wrote three years ago still hasn't gotten picked up by a publisher? Do you have a whopper of a rejection letter that you want to share?

We will be accepting submissions for the Swing Shift Series during July and August 2008. Send your blog submissions (100-800 words) to submissions@bloodorangereview.com. Please attach your submission as a word document as well as embed the text directly into the email.

If you'd like to see last year's Swing Shift Series, look in this blog's archive for June 2007. We look forward to reading your responses.

Meet the Writers: Arthur Saltzman

2008-04-05T11:23:00.000-07:00

We'd like you to meet Arthur Saltzman from Blood Orange Review issue 2.3.

“What keeps me writing is the deliciously partial satisfaction of getting something shaped and something said. It is a goad and a gratification at once, on the order of Samuel Beckett’s advice to ‘fail again, fail better.’ Or if I need greater comfort when the keys seize, there’s E. L. Doctorow’s contention that writing is ‘like driving a car at night. You never see further than your headlights, but you can make the whole trip that way.'"

This is the motivation that keeps Arthur writing. We hope you take the time to read his essay entitled, Trompe L'Oreille.

Good News from Blood Orange Contributors

2008-03-26T08:04:00.000-07:00

At Blood Orange Review, we want to celebrate writers, not just for the moment they grace our virtual pages, but for their continued accomplishments. Heather and I are both writers, and we know how much rejection plays a role in the writer’s life.

So, when good things happen to our contributors, past and present, we want to spread the word. Become part of this stellar group by submitting your work or signing up to receive notification of new issues!

We’ll post several good news items each week. Keep up the good work!

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Thomas Lux chose Michelle Bitting’s (Volume 2.3) full length manuscript "Good Friday Kiss" as the winner of the inaugural C & R Press DeNovo First Book Award. It comes out in May 2008. Her chapbook Blue Laws, published last December by Finishing Line Press, was recently nominated this year for a Puschcart.

Doug Ramspect’s poetry collection, Black Tupelo Country, has been awarded the 2007 John Ciardi Prize for Poetry and will be published in the fall of 2008 by BkMk Press. We’re proud to have published his poetry in Blood Orange Review 2.2.

We wanted to share the news about Arthur Saltzman’s newest book. We were pleased to have him be a part of Blood Orange Review 2.3. Check out his short essay, and then check out this book:Solve for X, the fourth collection of creative nonfiction by Arthur Saltzman, demonstrates the writer's continuing effort to expand on the thematic range, lyrical capacities, and imaginative possibilities of the essay in a signature style marked by what Publishers Weekly deemed Saltzman's "riskily mellifluous language."

Eileen Malone was nominated for two Pushcart Prizes: one from Perigee and one from Cezanne's Carrot.

Joel James Davis, whose story appeared in Blood Orange Review Volume 2.4, has been nominated for a Pushcart by redivider for his story "jars."

Brent Fisk has won an honorable mention in Boulevard’s Emerging Poets Contest. His poetry previously appeared in Blood Orange Review Volume 2.5.

Meet the Writers

2008-03-26T07:12:00.000-07:00

What can you learn from a writer’s bio? Publication credits and degrees give a skeletal outline of a writer’s movement through the literary world. From these, you can learn about new places to read and publish and discover new resources. But credentials don’t answer the big question: how do they do it? At Blood Orange Review, we ask all our writers what keeps them moving forward, day to day, with their writing. We’ve been inspired by what they’ve said. We hope you’ll take the time to get acquainted with the writer below and an issue from our archive. Don’t skip the bios! They’re worth reading in and of themselves. We’ll be posting answers to our question throughout the month, so come back and read some more.

Meet Sarah Bonifacio from :Blood Orange Review 3.1:

“I’m not even halfway into the writing life, so I know my answer will change as I mature. Needing to believe Jorge Luis Borges’s claim that 'in this world, beauty is so common' drives me to continue writing poems the way I do, to write them persistently and with the urge to make the everyday and oft-neglected epiphanic. I dwell in surroundings plainer than I’d wish them to be. I don’t know how I’d survive without the sensitivity to respond, by poem, to the small and the sudden: the glint in a fish’s eye, muffled shards of dialogue at a street corner, those 'certain slants of light' that Dickinson spoke of. To write about such moments is to try renewing them; it’s to plead them to be beautiful, to push myself to see them as so for I must see them as so if I’m to keep living. Should poem after poem be completed without my pursuit having ended, this is so only because it is transience itself—to which all human lives are subject, that which is common to us all—that I strive to contain, in the way Odysseus grappled with Proteus. Joyce accomplished this feat in Finnegans Wake and Ulysses. I want to do the same. Only when I do would I quit writing, and be through with life too.”

Meet Ace Boggess from Blood Orange Review 1.2:

“I write poetry to take photographs. When crafting verse, I’m trying to capture an image, a scene or an idea that’s important to me at the time. My poetry books are my photo albums. Through them I can relive those parts of my past and, if I’ve done my job well, share them with others in a way that they can see what I’ve seen or know and understand what was on my mind at a particular moment in time. My notebook is the only camera I have, so if I stopped writing poems, I’d have no tether left to my past.”

Happy Two Years, Blood Orange Review!

2008-03-19T08:32:00.000-07:00

Blood Orange Review celebrates year two with the arrival of its 12th volume of poetry, prose, and artwork. Check it out: http://www.bloodorangereview.com/.

Don't just read for the literature; read for the bios. Here you will find real writers talking about what keeps them going. Check out what Rebekah Judson, one of our newest contributors, has to say about her work:

“I write because I’m addicted to the idea of translation. I’m fascinated by this cycle that occurs when I translate images or concepts into words, only for these words to be translated back into the mental imagery of the reader. I’m constantly trying to better understand this process, to become more intimately aware of the nuances, the gradations, the shades of meaning that become magnified within this sequence of transformation.”

Found this in my father-in-law's shed

2007-08-11T09:15:00.000-07:00

"Blood Makes Good Paint," says this can of lead paint I found in my father-in-law's shed.

This has absolutely nothing to do with what I'm going to say next. As a poet, my job is to make connections, but my wiring is stripped. In the past six months, our editorial staff of two has relocated a total of 2,156 miles. You know the drill: packing, job searches, finding your way through a new grocery store. Exhausting.

The one constant has been Blood Orange Review -- the fall issue will be coming out next week, amazingly on schedule. With laptops on boxes and manuscripts in traveling bags, we thank all the writers who have submitted and who have been a part of this year's issues. It's your writing that keeps us going.

Final Installation of Swing Shift Writers Series

2007-06-30T09:37:00.000-07:00

Paper Ceiling?
Sara Oliver Gordus

A creative writing professor once said that he thought I still believed that there was something mystical about the writing process. I needed to let that go, he said – the sense of thinking that writing meant throwing everything into a black box, crossing my fingers and hoping it would come out sparkling. Writing was a skill to be mastered, like welding or sausage-making. It required a thoughtful and consistent process honed over time. I liked this advice – it took a lot of pressure off of me. I didn’t need to pray I’d find a golden ticket each time I opened up Microsoft Word. I just needed to draw confidence from developing my skills, from becoming a better writer. That self-validation (wow, that sounds so self-help), has armed me as I’ve sent my stories out into the literary world, where external validation is hard to come by. I want to think of becoming a “successful” writer as more like a trip through the sausage factory. A grind (I kill me) with a measurable outcome, just as long as I remember to use the right ingredients and techniques. And despite all this mental cheerleading, in quiet moments, I fear that it might be more of a crapshoot. There are probably more talented people out there writing interesting things than there are bookstore shelves to fill or readers to find them. It is entirely possible that I could do everything “right” and still remain unknown. That’s weighty to think about.

I compare the somewhat nebulous path it takes to become a writer with a capital W to the path I would take to move up the ranks of the large publishing house I work for. I’m not saying it would be easy to one day become company president, but if I think that if that were my goal and I failed, at least, in later reflection, I would be able to pinpoint the stage where I reached my limit. The day I hurled a file folder at the CFO, say, or simply just reprioritized by life goals. Wow, that makes it sound awfully depressing– to think that I could look back on my life and know the point where I faltered. It seems much better to stick with the writing, the crapshoot, and keep on hoping, nay believing, that my next piece of work will be better than the previous one.

It’s a tough gig, this writing, no doubt. But it’s a part of me – I need it. Even if I never top a critic’s list, I’ll be content at the end of my days knowing that I was here and I left something behind – a record of having lived a thoughtful life.

Have a Heart

Molly Meneely

My first moment in the State of New York, I slipped and fell in LaGuardia Airport on the way from the gate to the baggage claim like an idiot, my forty-pound carry-on of books accelerating the descent. Miraculously, two people helped me to my feet and kindly said nothing to amplify my humiliation. But this—my first step? It foreboded doom, and on the sidewalk each day to work, I see it again and again in my head—my knee cap cracking at contact with the urinated pavement, the flail of my borrowed coat a quick flash of beige before the strides of hurryers pave across my back. My lips pressed to cold, flattened gum, I hear the thump of a stack of newspaper upon the shelf that is my rear end. “New York Times Sunday, New York Post,” hawks the woman above my flattened body.

“Have a heart” calls the troll-voiced man collecting donations each day as I leave the deli with my latte I convince myself I pay for by walking everywhere. “Help is on the way” reads the circular button above the office building elevator numbers which I’m assuming would light up if I were really in trouble. “If I were a gay prostitute, that’d be a different matter altogether” said the man in front of me on the sidewalk two nights ago, and I think, no kidding, that would really be something to write about.

Because how can I write this place, this bulb of literary, cultural, urban, American brightness? How dare I feel unique to be dazzled by the energy of it all?

But I do. I do have a heart. And it’s my heart that clenches each time I step outside, squeezing itself dry, again and again drafting that moment on the edge of something—a moment that hovers, without oxygen or sense, birthing stars in my eyes and a flicker of what the depths of things can be—all before the world begins to flow again and I can never be the same. It’s exactly why we jump out of planes or fall in love, or move here. To get back to that place. The place inside our minds that takes our breath away, that permits us to ride upon the wind like space ships or voices. The only help I know to get there, see, is to keep writing.

Zombies Are Horrible Writers: Advice from Bryan Fry and Sara Oliver Gordus

2007-06-27T18:32:00.000-07:00

Trying to Get it Right
Bryan Fry

I am a writer, husband, and father of three. So lately, when someone asks me about my profession, I tell them I’m training to be a professional juggler which draws a lot more attention than when I say I’m a writer. If I’m a writer, the conversation halts because my acquaintance has met one of our types and does not want to travel down another path of strange intellectualism. If I’m a juggler, I’ve broken the ice with a bad joke and I find it easier to slide into a comfort zone, minimizing my romantic profession and getting down to the real, matter-of-fact purpose of life: children.

Approaching eight, Gracie is the oldest member of our troupe and now that she is in second grade and finishing her first year of piano lessons, I’m relearning the art of concentration and detail. With writing, cleaning, and continuous diaper changing, it is difficult to find fifteen minutes to sit down and help with her studies and some days, when the work piles up, I break down into a trance, a real zombie-like state. If you’re a juggler like I am, this is important to avoid. Zombies are horrible writers.

Needless to say, Gracie hates homework and piano practice. After a few minutes of either, she begins to wiggle around, stare up at the ceiling, or break into guttural laughter when she hears her little brother sing, “shake yo bootay.” Of course, this is to be expected because she is young and her mind is free, but I often hear myself telling her to pay attention to detail. When she writes words wildly in her notebook, I have her erase them and start again. When she misses the second beat in a half note, I point it out.

“Try it again,” I say.

Starting over is a hard concept to grasp, and I try not to force my daughter too hard for fear she’ll end up hating school and music altogether. But more importantly, I realize I’m telling her what I’m constantly trying to tell myself. For years, I pushed writing aside because I was waiting for moments when words would begin to rain down and I’d have no other choice but sit down and pound them out. I admit I’ve felt electrifying moments when writing seemed easier. But those don’t happen very often, definitely not every day, and they don’t last long.

No. Writing is concentration. It’s starting over, erasing and trying again. If you walk into a music building, like the one my daughter practices her lessons in, you’ll hear music through the doors of the little rooms where musicians spend hours every day practicing, repeating the same three measures over and over until they get it right. Isn’t that what writers do?

I make it a point to write every day. This is difficult for a juggler, but it’s something I must do. I lock myself up in my own little room where I spend at least an hour writing and rewriting sentences. When the work isn’t going well, it makes it easier to know that I’m just practicing my own little language, twisting sentences around, replacing lame verbs, and chopping out corny devices. I know eventually I’ll get it right.

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Bryan Fry lives and writes in Pullman, Washington with his wife and three children.
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Snooze3
Sara Oliver Gordus

I set my alarm for 5:00 AM each weekday and hit the snooze button three times. Each time, I need to propel my self out of bed, stumble across the room, blindly press the snooze button, and flop back into bed. I must do this in order to gradually accept the injustice of leaving the warm cocoon of my dreams. Beep, propel, stumble, press, flop. Three times. My husband is a wonderful man.

I torture myself this way so I can write in the mornings. Does this make me a morning person? Not in the slightest. I obviously don’t wake up early naturally and it’s a struggle every single day. I strive to get up at 5:30, but sometimes it’s 6. Any time spent is better than nothing, right? I don’t know why I’m asking your approval. Of course it’s right. It’s right for me.

I stick with it until about seven when the rising sun begins to glare on my keyboard and my coffee cup is empty and cold. My mind is quieter in the morning. My inclination toward anxiety and self-criticism is still groggy and I can write fairly unencumbered by my own self-doubt. I can get my words out in a quiet, lucid space before inviting my editor brain in.

Robert Pinsky purportedly was once asked by a student how one could become a great writer and a noted one. Pinsky’s alleged response: “Three words. Ass. In. Chair.” Well, my ass is in my chair and its 6:33 in the morning. I’m drinking black tea because I was too tired to make coffee. But I’m doing what I love, right? Well, I love the outcome of my writing, but damn, the process sure is hell.

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Sara Oliver Gordus was born in California and now resides in Massachusetts, where she is an associate editor at a textbook publisher. Her fiction has previously appeared in the Jamaica Observer. She is a graduate of the University of California at Davis and Lesley University in Cambridge, Massachusetts. She celebrated her marriage last August.
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Having a Heart, Finding Contentment: Molly Meneely & Sara Oliver Gordus

2007-06-25T07:15:00.000-07:00

Help is on the Way
Molly Meneely

I have just become the greatest writer cliché. I moved to New York this month, and I would like to Make It. Too bad no one gives a rat’s ass (and that actually means something here) about the fact I consider myself a writer and have only an armful of old notebooks and a few small credits to prove it. At least I didn’t move to Los Angeles to act.

But the city is lapping me up, at least in some ways that don’t matter at all. Consider the wind, whose gusts, exuberant to the point of violence, rocket me up 7th Avenue to my epically boring day job, propelling my hair into a galactic tangle above my head. Or the broad, dawdling snowflakes that hover over intersections, luring me to take a deep inhalation of winter—only to find myself drowning in the sour molecules of the sewer, the burdened fumes that could only be subway-born, or the thick and salty cooking smell of sausages and franks (what is the difference anyway?) sizzling nearby which convince me one can eat affordably anywhere if you aren’t picky about the content of your meat products. The instantaneous bumps and brushes of shoulders, bags, and U.S. postal service push carts—my path to most anywhere has evolved into an infinite series of collisions as we all try to out-jaywalk each other in front of an accelerating cab. These physical connections lack the soft stroke of a lover I’ll surely be months without, but still seem the most exhilarating human contact—that briefcase against my ribs—it’s the city battering me, egging me on: You really like think you’ll make it out alive? I do, I do.

My first moment in the State of New York, I slipped and fell in LaGuardia Airport on the way from the gate to the baggage claim like an idiot, my forty-pound carry-on of books accelerating the descent. Miraculously, two people helped me to my feet and kindly said nothing to amplify my humiliation. But this—my first step? It foreboded doom, and on the sidewalk each day to work, I see it again and again in my head as if happening anew—my knee cap cracking at contact with the urinated pavement, the flail of my borrowed coat a quick flash of beige before the strides of hurryers pave across my back. My lips pressed to cold, flattened gum, I hear the thump of a stack of newspaper upon the shelf that is my rear end. “New York Times Sunday, New York Post,” hawks a woman above my flattened body.

“Have a heart” calls the troll-voiced man collecting donations each day as I leave the deli with my latte I convince myself I pay for by walking everywhere. “Help is on the way” reads the circular button above the office building elevator numbers which I’m assuming would light up if I were really in trouble. “If I were a gay prostitute, that’d be a different matter altogether” said the man in front of me on the sidewalk two nights ago, and I think, no kidding, that would really be something to write about.

Because how can I write this place, this bulb of literary, cultural, urban, American brightness? How dare I feel unique to be dazzled by the energy of it all?

But I do. I do have a heart. And it’s my heart that clenches each time I step outside, squeezing itself dry, again and again drafting that moment on the edge of something—a moment that hovers, without oxygen or sense, birthing stars in my eyes and a flicker of what the depths of things can be—all before the world begins to flow again and I can never be the same. It’s exactly why we jump out of planes or fall in love, or move here. To get back to that place. The place inside our minds that takes our breath away, that permits us to ride upon the wind like space ships or voices. The only help I know to get there, see, is to keep writing.

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Molly Meneely lives and writes in New York, in addition to working in editorial at an academic publisher where her time spent teaching composition at Arizona State University is actually coming in handy. She has her M.F.A. from ASU and her B.A. from Stanford. She has been published in the Blood Orange Review, SOMA Magazine, and GetOut! Phoenix and used to be a professional ballet dancer. In her free time, she smells the roses and, relatedly, gets passed by speed walkers while jogging in Central Park. *********************************************

Those Who Can’t Do
Sara Oliver Gordus

I work at a publishing company, so it’s no surprise that I work with people who love books. No, I don’t take three martini lunches with Michael Chabon or Zadie Smith (besides, I think those lunches have been replaced with two-Pinot dinners). I work with academics on college textbooks. The majority of my coworkers have degrees in English and have smart observations when our office book club meets every six weeks or so at a restaurant that we try to nebulously tie into the book’s theme. Watership Down? No doubt a vegetarian dining spot. Our discussions are at times rather insightful and I’m impressed and thankful to be around so many people who value literature.

Some of my coworkers even write and, with a few people, I have formed an informal writing group. It’s tough though. I had to ease up somewhat on my fear of blurring the line between my professional self (capable, upbeat) and my writer self (nuanced, occasionally sarcastic). I think it helped that I didn’t often work directly with those in my writing group. Generally, I don’t talk about my writing much at work. Perhaps out of fear of being a publishing company cliché – “I’m an associate editor, but what I really want to do is write!” (Insert big blinking eyes and vacant smile here). But when my writing does come up, many people say, “Oh, I used to write, I should really get back to it,” and “It’s so hard to find the time.” And that really is the crux of things; once you commit yourself to an adult, full-time job, things change. A job produces tangible benefits, namely money, but makes it harder to prioritize other goals in life, like writing. And who, but a fortunate few with means or a very unfortunate few without, doesn’t eventually succumb to the lure of a paycheck?

A writer of poignant, regret-filled travelogues once told me that a writer should pick a job he hates. That way, he won’t become too content, too lazy, and therefore he could ensure that his writing is his number one priority. I took this advice once, inadvertently, when I found myself in the unfortunate position of having a job I hated. I felt angry and resentful all the time at work. My time away from work was spent de-compressing and fretting about finding another job. I wrote a lot less. The best situation is to find a job you are content with (even if it doesn’t speak to your soul), and make sure the hours are fairly well defined so you can treat your writing time like a second job. If the people you work with like books, well, that’s a bonus.

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Sara Oliver Gordus was born in California and now resides in Massachusetts, where she is an associate editor at a textbook publisher. Her fiction has appeared in the Jamaica Observer and Blood Orange Review. She is a graduate of the University of California at Davis and Lesley University in Cambridge, Massachusetts. She celebrated her marriage this August.
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Collaboration & Creativity: Two Writers Discuss Finding the Time, Energy & Curiosity to Keep Going

2007-06-22T09:24:00.000-07:00

Curious George and Jacquie
Mary MacGowan

Regardless of how busy I am, I write poems at the average couple's lovemaking rate: 1-2 per week. I do this not through sheer force of will but mostly out of curiosity. I keep writing and/or revising, day in, day out, because I don’t know how to not write and/or revise. Really. I mean it. My curiosity would probably, literally, kill me.

If I don’t write, then I won’t know what could have happened. And maybe, if I had chosen not to write that night or that day or that moment, then maybe – if I had written at that time – then maybe I would’ve gotten the next poem “right.” Maybe I would’ve been close. Maybe I would’ve surprised myself. Who knows what I could miss.

Maybe my poems get written inside of me, and they will stay there forever unless they become words on paper. And yes, maybe it’s okay to carry around unwritten poems for the rest of my life, but if that’s the case, then I won’t get to know those poems. And they are my biological parents – I can get through life all right never having met them – hey, my adoptive parents are very nice and loving. But I’m just so curious! I just want to know what they look like, and if they look anything at all like me. I think they do. I think they look like me. But first I have to put them on paper to find out.

If I start a new poem in the evening, I print it out and take it to bed with me where I read it and make changes before I fall asleep. Then, in the morning, I plod over to my computer to type the changes. Then I email the poem to myself so I can see it while I’m at work. Then I send it to Jacquie, my soul-poetry-mate.

I’ve never met Jacquie and she hasn’t met me, either. That was a joke. Considering my previous poetic inner voice confession, you probably think Jacquie is a another delusion. But she’s not, she’s a very real person I met (online) through the MFA in Writing program at Fairleigh Dickinson University. And that is not a joke. We email each other almost every day to exchange poems and stories. We are brutally honest with each other. We challenge and edit and get stuck and solve problems. We loudly celebrate success with typographic symbols and plenty of exclamation marks. And we will probably never meet in person, because our relationship would probably promptly lose its magic.

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Mary MacGowan's bio:
“Regardless of how busy I am, I write poems at the average couple’s lovemaking rate: 1-2 per week. I do this not through sheer force of will but mostly out of curiosity: What will I write next? And how close will I come to saying it right?”
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About Wigs
Karen Hausdoerffer

Wednesday, two o’clock, and my co-teacher and I pose in front of the thrift shop mirror, trying on used wigs. Platinum blond. Ink black. Hot-pink. These are the discount wigs, tangled and balding like animal pelts. Tonight we will play “The Price is Right” with our adult, English as a Second Language students, and we want hair to compliment our bridesmaid-dress costumes. By the time we purchase our selections, it’s past three, and time to prep the rest of my lesson. I’ve missed my writing time again.

After finishing my MFA, I began teaching ESL, thinking the flexible hours would give me space to write. But my writing times often fill with lesson planning. The potential hours of preparation expand limitlessly, and the rewards for good lessons come immediately. Tonight, when our students jump out of their seats shouting numbers in English, I’ll fill with adrenaline. On writing afternoons, I work alone, sending off stories to magazines I won’t hear back from for months.

I know why I let these writing afternoons slip away; the question is, why block off the times at all? When I was a teenager, I daydreamed that my writing would help people politically. Now I understand that even when I achieve publication, my audience is small and generally like-minded. If my goal is to help people, maybe I should pour myself exclusively into this job serving immigrants.

Driving home, transformed into a platinum blond, I am not thinking about my students, though. I’m thinking about wigs: wigs as costumes; wigs for women with cancer; plastic wigs; wigs from human hair, itchy wigs in winter; hot wigs in the summer; the black wig that transformed my co-teacher’s face into a stranger’s. I begin fiddling with the first line of a story about small-town teenagers with wigs.

Why create time for writing? Ideas for the story flood me with energy, distinct from the energy of teaching. I want to see language and stories not just as practical skills for surviving in America, but as the source of this feeling of creation. And I want to live in a world where people keep making stories and poems, regardless of where the words go after they are written.

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Karen Hausdoerffer lives and writes in Gunnison, Colorado, one of the coldest towns in the country. She teaches English as a Second Language to adults, and to families with small children. She also teaches writing and Spanish at Western State College. *******************************************

Telling Stories: An ESL Teacher and Recreation Therapist Write Back

2007-06-20T08:00:00.000-07:00

Here is the Story of Itzel
Karen Hausdoerffer

Here are my students, learning English. Here is Lidia, 65 years old, from Santiago, Mexico, half an hour from the sea. Here is Julio, prep-cook at Club Med, wants to read T.S. Eliot in English. Here is Itzel, Indigenous Cora, mother of three. When she found her husband in bed with her niece, she kicked him out of the house and stayed in the U.S. Eduardo is not here; he heard a rumor that la migra was in town.

My co-teacher says, “Americans are so ignorant, and our students have incredible lives. You’re a writer—why don’t you tell their stories?”

And yet here am I, beginning another novel, with a white, middle-class, American protagonist. I have been told, “If we can’t empathize outside our own culture, even in fiction, there is no hope for human understanding.”

So why not write Itzel’s story? My first temptation is to make her a symbol of subaltern strength, this single, twenty-six-year-old woman struggling for her children against an ugly world. That would be a factual story. But a true story is never so easy. There is another piece that I would need to tell. When Itzel found her husband naked with her niece, she blamed thirteen-year-old Juliana for everything. “Men are weak,” she told me in Spanish. “We can’t expect any better of them. But Juliana was like a sister to me.” A sister pulled out of school at age twelve, sent from her home, entrusted with three preschoolers, paid only in food and lodging.

How do I tell that part of the story, embellished with detail, metaphor, epiphany? It’s an important story, and Itzel, with her two jobs and three children, does not have the time or resources to write it. But I ask myself so many questions before beginning: is there a difference between empathy and presumption? Can I trust my own motives as a writer? Could this be misread as racist? How can we judge Itzel, from a culture so different from ours? How can we not judge her, in a story about statutory rape? Is this whole endeavor invading my student’s privacy? My questions paralyze me, and I return to my white protagonist.

Eduardo is mistaken about the migra; they haven’t come to Gunnison all year. But his neighbors swear they saw the vans just this morning. Perhaps then, fear drives what stories we believe, what stories we tell, what stories we can’t bring ourselves to tell. Here is my remaining question, after all the rest grow quiet: which fears do I combat, and which fears do I let guide me?

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Karen Hausdoerffer lives and writes in Gunnison, Colorado, one of the coldest towns in the country. She teaches English as a Second Language to adults, and to families with small children. She also teaches writing and Spanish at Western State College.

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Nursing Home Stories
Mary MacGowan

I work full time at a nursing home. My title is Recreation Therapist, which means I plan and implement activities that are fun and stimulating for the residents on my unit – all of whom are at the end of life. Most people say that they couldn’t imagine doing my job, but for some reason I don’t mind it, which is probably why I do it. I’m paid crap for it, but I find my day relaxing, the benefits good and, best of all, I’ve had some awesome poems come out of it. In fact, I’ve begun a series based on nursing home experiences. The challenge is avoiding over-sentimentality, but so far I feel good about them.

My nursing home poems are often funny. I mean, come on. . . .There’s Libby, who gets angry at me as resident chorus director. She yells at me that everyone is whispering – but, of course, she is the one who is deaf. And there’s Basya, who eats a red bead and refuses to spit it out, and then eats apple pie while miraculously keeping the bead in her mouth, and then, finally, sweetly spits the bead into my hand while looking at me and tsk-tsk-ing like I am the crazy one. These images counteract the sadder ones, like a young man, Barry, who died while I sang for him – he was so thin his body was folded and folded until he was as thin as an origami peace crane.

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Mary MacGowan's bio:

“Regardless of how busy I am, I write poems at the average couple’s lovemaking rate: 1-2 per week. I do this not through sheer force of will but mostly out of curiosity: What will I write next? And how close will I come to saying it right?”

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Swingshift Series continues with Mary MacGowan and Karen Hausdoerffer

2007-06-18T09:05:00.000-07:00

Angry for Meet
by Karen Hausdoerffer

The man meets the woman at the restaurant. Ten adults lean over the sentence in
their books, parsing the English phonemes.

“Meet?” Consuelo says. “Carne? Como steak?”

I picture the man in the story meating his date, smearing prime rib across her face and bare shoulders in some perverse American custom.

“Es diferente,” Georgina tells her classmates. “Pero se pronuncia igual.”

I write the two words on tag-board strips in big letters that smell like markers. I set the cards in front of Manuel. “Which one do you eat?” Manuel picks up M-e-a-t. “Meets the woman? Or meats the woman?” He chooses M-e-e-t. I tape both words to the wall.

Everyone copies meet into notebooks and guesses at definitions. Conocerse like nice to meet you or else reunirse, like have a meeting. Even without its homonym, meet has so many definitions that it does not translate directly into a single Spanish word, let alone into Cora, the indigenous language some students speak.

What about the past tense? Like the people in the story, Georgina met her husband at a restaurant. I cut the card, removing one e and reconstructing the word, met. But why m-e-t? They want to know. Why not m-e-e-t-e-d?

“Because,” I say, “English is a crazy language.”

Unlike children, the adults in my classes begin with mastery of at least one other language. English words are three times removed from the concepts they signify. The picture of meat becomes carne before it becomes m-e-a-t. My students teach me to see English from the outside, to see its rules as startling, rather than inevitable. As a writer, I so often float my hands over a keyboard without even seeing the letters. I like this chance to hold the words in my hands, pass them around the room, pronounce them until the sounds become meaningless even to me: meet, meet, meet, meet, meet. At times, the language opens up, revealing new metaphors invisible to me as a native speaker.

Manuel says, “Meat. Restaurant. Now I am angry.”

Georgina corrects him, “Not angry. Hungry.” She annunciates, so we hear the nasal bight of the ang, and the gut-longing of the ung.

I write these words on tag-board as well and ask everyone to practice with me: clutching our stomachs, we groan “hungry”; scowling, we shout, “angry.” In the spaces between the cards and the silences between the words, I feel the closeness of the concepts along with their signifiers. Anger. Hunger. Two desires that twist in the stomach.

At times, I am angry with English, the way it confounds my students, refusing to settle into regular patters of spelling and usage. But mainly, I am hungry for it, hungry for the language I have grown up in, the language I write in, the language I have ignored, as an insider. I want to devour English, like meat. I want to encounter it, and to join with it, like meet.

Taking Dictation
Mary MacGowan

My inner poetic voice is quite a character. He bosses me around (and yes, he is a he) and he forces me to write, even when I think I don’t have the time. How does he do this, you may ask? He makes me feel miserable until I cave in. I check my emails, do the dishes, bang around the house, all the while wondering what the heck’s wrong with me? And then, finally, it happens.

So I start to write, and this is me, writing: I lean – hard – into the air in front of me, listening carefully to take a kind of dictation from the voice of this entity. Sometimes I get the words right on the first try, but usually I have to “try out” this word or that word, one line or another, and then I ask my inner voice, “Is that it? Did I get it right?” My best poems are the ones that come through the clearest, like FM radio.

And yes, I have a name for him, but I’m not going to reveal that here because it might upset him and then he’ll leave me and then I’ll be on my own and I’ll never write again. And don’t be signing me up for multiple personality therapy, I won’t go. As far as I can tell, there’s nothing wrong with hearing this inner poetic voice; in fact, in the Mary MacGowan Universe he is a national hero.

Mary MacGowan's bio: “Regardless of how busy I am, I write poems at the average couple’s lovemaking rate: 1-2 per week. I do this not through sheer force of will but mostly out of curiosity: What will I write next? And how close will I come to saying it right?”

Issue 2.3 | Now Available!

2007-06-16T07:23:00.000-07:00

Blood Orange Review 2.3 is now here. Go check it out: http://www.bloodorangereview.com/.

Loss, regret, absence: these themes play a dominant role in this issue of Blood Orange Review. I shouldn’t be surprised by this, but I am. I think the selection has less to do with editorial mindset than with a subterranean swell, a collective unconscious, the likes of which inspire David Warren, this issue’s featured artist. As an editor, it’s sometimes eerie to read the works of strangers and feel like you’re eavesdropping on part of a single conversation.

However, this issue is no morose dinner party; these writers are not in a funk. Though they might write of failed relationships, aging, and grief, they do so through the filter of humor, philosophy, religious imagery, culinary arts, nature, technology, and music. Everything they touch and everything that touches them becomes material to be converted into language and meaning.

The Swing Shift Writers Series will continue on Monday with posts from Karen Hausdoerffer and Mary MacGowan. You won't want to miss them!

Palpant Dilley on Eisenstein

2007-06-15T07:00:00.000-07:00

Film & Diction
Andrea Palpant Dilley

Russian filmmaker Sergei Eisenstein is famous for his theory of filmic montage, the idea that meaning is made through the collision of images, through juxtaposition, and is therefore dialectical in how it “talks” to an audience. He tested his theory by editing together a number of sequences with the same neutral face and then showing it to a test audience: sequence number one showed the neutral face cut next to a bowl of hot oatmeal, and the audience interpreted the scene as expressing hunger; sequence number two showed the neutral face cut next to a crying baby and the scene was interpreted as frustration, etcetera. In other words—meaning came not just from one image, but from the particular syntax of a sequence. The way things were put together changed everything.

Eisenstein’s theory of montage applies more to writing than I ever understand early on. I’ve always had this terrible propensity to over-write, as all my writer-friends can attest. The very first poem I wrote in seventh grade is almost physically painful to read, five lines about a weeping willow tree as a metaphor for suicide composed with totally excessive, over-the-top language. I loved words. Big words. Polysyllabic words. Dramatic, hand-across-the-forehead-with-woe words.

What I have learned since seventh grade, by the simple refining power of time, editing and frank feedback, is that the non-diction aspects of writing are every bit as important as what words I choose to use. The way I put words together carries meaning, the medium is message, the nonverbal nod that means more sometimes than the word “yes.” And simplicity matters: the juxtaposition of two, plain monosyllabic words can be more thrilling to read than the most ornate word, just as well-framed, juxtaposing film images mean more than the most decorated set. As such my understanding of film editing has informed my literary editing. Now when I edit something I’ve written, I read for pacing and sequence and simplicity, I stand back and stare at the dialectical tension of ideas and moods and images all galloping across the page. I have learned to look at the big picture.

My seventh grade teacher managed somehow to look at the big picture, too. She wrote at the top of my weeping willow suicide poem, with the mad kindness of a creative writing teacher, “Great job, you have a knack for writing. Keep at it.” And so I did.

Andrea Palpant Dilley on Resistance

2007-06-13T08:00:00.000-07:00

Writing as Resistance
Andrea Palpant Dilley

I have what most writers would kill for: a home office all my own, a work schedule that allows me to write for three hours every afternoon, and uninterrupted solitude. No kids. No commute. No complications. I wake up in the morning, yawn a few times, ruffle my hair, soak down some cereal, and then wander down a five-foot hallway into my office, one wall away from where I just woke up. After five hours of work as a long distance documentary producer, I wander back into the kitchen, make myself tea and mark the end of work and the start of, well, more work.

I have Virginia Woolf’s “Room of My Own” but my room lacks something: a place to depart from, a place to push against. Here’s what I mean. TS Eliot went to work in the morning, spent all day at the bank lifting and sifting slim bills of money and then went home to write. He departed from somewhere and arrived somewhere else. And maybe like the rest of us, on his way home he bitched and moaned and muttered about his boss before he sat down to write Prufrock with the indelible line, “I have measured out my life with coffee spoons” and my other favorite, “I shall wear the bottoms of my trousers rolled.” I, on the other hand, inhabit the same space for work and writing which I have discovered is quite complicating mentally. I fight morale fatigue more often. I confuse writing with work and work with writing. I get lonely spending all day in solitude.

So if I had the chance, I might trade Eliot his writing life for mine. Writing is an act of resistance, not in the civil-political sense necessarily (although certainly it can be that), but in the most simple, psychological sense of pushing up against something. It puts a healthy sense of distance between you and everything around you. Now I will leave work behind and the boss with the grating voice and I will go home to my writing. This act of departing-and-arriving creates definition. Demarcation. A space to reflect. I imagine that it feels sort of like jumping off a derailing train—you leave behind the dirty locomotive of daily labor, and you land in the dirt on your own terms and your own feet. There is freedom to it. A sense of arriving at a certain kind of wilderness. It’s up to you, now, to mark the path home.

Swing Shift Series: Andrea Palpant Dilley

2007-06-11T08:00:00.000-07:00

Writing vs. Editing
Andrea Palpant Dilley

When I was 23 I took a job at a local film company as a production assistant (PA), a starter position that involved stocking the fridge with soda pop, emptying the recycling bin by the copy machine, and buying Starbucks drinks for hot shot producers who wore tight shirts and talked on cell phones. I was a fresh college graduate with an English major and no technical know-how in the production business. My only relevant skill, my only remnant of dignity, was writing. I worked in the basement cubicle room called affectionately “the rat maze,” where once the CFO came down two flights of stairs to stand awkwardly by my desk and ask me to proof read his report. Writing had business value. I had something to leverage. So after a few years of writing and PA-ing, I worked my way into a producing position in the Nonfiction Division, where I started directing and editing documentary stories.

Director David Mamet famously said that a film happens in the edit room. It is arguably the most important part of the process, a very solitary activity that requires sitting in a dark room punching colored buttons for hours on end, not nearly as sexy a process as people outside the industry imagine it is. My editing in many ways is an almost opposite process to my writing. Writing is mostly a positive, constructive process of building up. Word. Metaphor. Plot development. Image editing is mostly a negative process of exclusion and cutting down, like sculpting. Cull. Cut. Splice. With writing I’m tethered to the internal life, laboring with memory and imagination. With editing I’m tethered to the external world, limited to what has been said and seen and shown. I can’t reimagine my characters, I can’t change the way they walk on camera the same way I can sift through verbs on paper, changing the lilt of things with a couple of key strokes.

I remember an old war veteran I interviewed for a documentary on Japanese American internment during WWII. He had been drafted to serve out of an internment camp, a formative, difficult experience which he detailed to me in an almost two-hour interview one winter day. Leaning forward toward the camera, he said to me before he said anything else, “I’ve never really talked about the war to even my family.” And then he told stories about young men trudging through dark forests in France, and it was the sort of thing I could never have written. It was meant to be told on camera. It was meant for the medium, the same way a poem is meant for the solitary white space of paper. The limits of the documentary medium made it singular and different than other mediums. The boundaries made it beautiful.

Andrea Palpant Dilley is a documentary producer and director and has completed In Time of War, an hour program on the Japanese American internment camps of WWII narrated by Patty Duke and broadcast nationally by American Public Television, as well as Sudan: The Path to Peace, a documentary on the current crisis in Sudan which premiered at the Amnesty International Film Festival in Victoria, B.C. Prior to producing Andrea worked as a freelance writer, interviewing among others NPR's Ira Glass and jazz legend Gunther Schueller. Andrea enjoys photography as a personal hobby.

Lenox & Hummel Blogs Continued

2007-06-07T23:00:00.000-07:00

My Five-Year Plan
Stephanie Lenox

My grant money will soon be depleted, so while I’m trying to savor my last weeks of free writing time, I’m also trying to look forward and find a job that will fit my financial and literary goals. Job searches require a lot of introspection, and on top of the already high degree of reflection required to write poetry, I’m just about sick of personal pronouns and action verbs. I’m embarrassed by all the versions of my resume floating out there in the hands of strangers. I have the unique opportunity to be roundly rejected on all levels on a daily basis—fu-un!

I recently read a slick magazine article about getting what you want. The inspirational writer said that you must have a vision of what life will look like when you achieve your dream. And then you must work backward from that vision to the present. It seemed like a good idea, so I tried it. My five-year plan happens to involve having my first book published and working happily in a career that involves writing. The vision is clear. I can see it. So what happens just before I achieve this dream? Someone other than myself decides I’m worthy of a book contract or a career position. As a writer (read: control freak) I have a really hard time with that.

It’s easy to get side-tracked by the rejections and absence of control that is a part of the writing life. I try to get by with what I can direct: every day that I write, I am a writer. I don’t need someone’s seal of approval to feel like I’m moving forward in that goal. And soon, hopefully, someone will have the common sense to hire me. In the meantime, I need to keep my poems and resumes out there.

Multi-Tasking
Heather K. Hummel

As a person that must eat, and likes luxuries like organic salad, I work a lot. I’ve averaged two jobs at a time since I was twenty. Right now, I technically have four jobs. Wait: I accepted new contract work today: let’s make that five. So, writing is something that goes with me, everywhere. I revise poems while on the treadmill at the gym. They say iambic pentameter is like a heartbeat; perhaps my meter is always going haywire because I work on it during my cardio routine. I could never be a good formalist; I tried once—I didn’t complete a single poem.

My dedication (or dogged persistence, depending on whom you ask) means that I work on poems at the airport. I routinely work on poems as I sleep. For me, it isn’t a matter of finding more hours in the day to write; I multi-task, and take it with me, always. On road trips, I take notes in my journal about historical markers, native plants and birds, what my family says; these bits and pieces will soon show up in my writing, no doubt.

If you were to surprise me and conduct a strip search, you’d probably find in my pockets: keys, a protein bar, a pen and a poem that is in process and covered in illegible scribbles. You’d rarely find cash.

Once, my brother, a visual artist, told me I was lucky: to make my art, all I need is a pencil—he pointed out that I can write on menus or napkins if I need to. And I try to keep that in mind: my “work”—the work I do to pay the bills and eat—is utilitarian. I will do it as much as needed, but my brain-space is mine and dedicated to writing. And if the rhythm and essence of my poetry is imbued with everything I am up to (running, love-making, cooking dinners)? So be it.

Lenox & Hummel Blogs

2007-06-05T10:36:00.000-07:00

Time=Money?
Stephanie Lenox

In the introduction to In Fact: The Best of Creative Nonfiction, Annie Dillard gives no-nonsense advice to new writers, which includes this injunction: “When you are writing full-time (three to four hours a day), go in the room with the book every day, regardless of your feelings.”

Her introduction contains a lot of good advice, and I recommend reading it and the book in its entirety, but what really grabbed me about this statement was that Annie Dillard considers full-time writing to be three to four hours a day! Here I’ve been working on my book and sitting down for eight-hour stretches with my laptop and my brain, putting in a solid work day when Annie (a real writer) recommends half that. My first response was, What does she do with the rest of her day? I guess that’s not important. Like anyone, she probably has a day job, laundry, meals, relationships, social obligations, research, mail.

While examining my response to her statement, I’ve realized that I’ve been needlessly applying a corporate model to my writing work. Why do I need to put in an eight-hour day? Why should I treat myself as a slacker employee if I’d rather read a book or go to an art gallery? Why should I equate the stack of words I produce with success?

Simply put, it doesn’t work that way. Writing, for most people, is not a profitable business. I’ve received a grant to defray the costs of living while I write, but I am not being paid by the hour or the word. Like Robert Graves once said, “There’s no money in poetry, but there’s no poetry in money either.” So, I’m trying to stifle my inner-Puritan and learn to write and enjoy living without a paycheck.

Work Uniforms
Heather K. Hummel

Sometimes, being a writer feels like I have a body covered in tattoos that are barely hidden by the limits of my clothes. When I dress to go to the college where I teach, there is a thin guise of conservatism and banality, but underneath are illustrations of my entire life philosophy—including the drunken and better-left-forgotten exegesis, in indelible ink no less. Aren’t all writers naked, but camouflaged?

I knew a boy in college that had a smiley face tattooed on his chest; someone somewhere probably recalls that I once wrote an ode to guacamole. “For posterity’s sake” always seemed like such a silly concept to me. As I get older, I can more about each sentence that I write, each image in every poem I make; writing has the power to reveal deep and hidden things, and those things can hurt or heal.

As I write now, it is a bit of a strip tease: those tattoos are being revealed, one shimmy or shake at a time. Paradoxically, my dance with writing is simultaneously more restrained and cautiously executed, and more filled with abandon and utter joy. This is a short life; I’d like it to be densely rich and true. If I pray about my endeavors, it is for that. Then, I sit down to work, and my fingers begin to tap a new rhythm.

Welcome to the Swing Shift Writers Series

2007-06-01T09:48:00.000-07:00

To kick off the Swing Shift Writers series, the editors of Blood Orange Review give their own thoughts about their personal struggles and tricks with balancing work and writing.

You’re not the boss of me!
Stephanie Lenox

Stanley Bing has recently come out with a new and revised version of his book Crazy Bosses, which was first published in 1992. Since then, he has honed his experience by becoming the boss himself, which has allowed him insight into the insanity of leadership. In the book, he pinpoints five different kinds of crazy bosses:

The Bully

The Paranoid

The Narcissist

The Wimp

The Disaster Hunter

After receiving a project grant that allowed me to quit my job and focus on my writing for several months, I thought my scheduling woes and work frustrations would be over. Now that I’m in complete control of my days, I have had to figure out what kind of boss I’m going to be. Enter: new boss. Same as the old boss.

During the months I’ve worked on my project, I’ve been both micro-manger and absentee leader. I have timesheets and reading lists and submission goals and spreadsheets. I’ve torn myself down to the point I thought about quitting altogether. I’ve managed to write some work I’m proud of, but it is never enough. I’ve had the opportunity to exercise my craziness in many unproductive ways.

Bing explains that “there is a limit to the effectiveness of rationality.” He later recommends that readers “aspire to the most potent level of craziness you can personally achieve in your lifetime.” The key is the word potent. While the above crazy types can be a drain on achievement, there are certain kinds of craziness that can serve the greater good.

In my remaining weeks, I’m trying to hold tight to a different kind of insanity in order to push my writing to the next level. I’m reading more and staring out the window more. If I don’t write, I’m trying to be nice about it. I leave the house at least once a day and make sure to have a conversation with someone other than the cat. I’m trying to remind myself why I write and why I’ve worked so hard to have this time to concentrate on my work. Through it all, I’m remembering the words of my teacher: “If anything, you should have fun.”

I’m a horrible, crazy boss. But I’m trying to get better. I’m trying to love my words enough to revise them. I’m reading more than I have in years—out loud for hours on end. I’m trying to remember that there’s never a perfect time to write—I will never have enough space, leisure, money, and time. I’m trying to counter fear and paranoia (an occupational hazard) with generosity and patience.

Work Benefits
Heather K. Hummel

One of my most helpful writing tricks is the happy side-effect of a job that I do part-time: I am a yoga teacher. I started practicing yoga because I had too much stress in grad school. But I've continued to practice, and then teach yoga because it clears the clutter from my day and makes me focus, really focus on the thoughts in my head.

After searching high and low for "inspiration" I realized that I usually have plenty of inspiration to keep me busy writing, but it's hidden under distracting, jumbled thoughts about what I needed at the grocery store, and what tasks I need to finish at the office before the weekend comes.

Early yoga practitioners did not "do" yoga like so many people do it these days, as calisthenics. Early yoga practitioners considered that it was a way to get the restless body (and mind) to settle down enough so that the practitioner could meditate. And isn't writing a form of meditation? We sit down and focus, and then explore some image or metaphor very intently, much like one might stare at a candle flame or visualization during a meditation.

So, why do I teach yoga, and not just "practice" yoga if it is a preparation for my writing practice? Well, it is often said that teachers teach what they most need to learn. I'm still learning how to get all the useless clutter out of my brain so I can see the poetry underneath. And teaching yoga gives me a couple hours a week where I have to practice, no excuses: I'll get fired.

Introducing the Swing Shift Writers series

2007-05-31T10:54:00.001-07:00

Do you wish you could tell your boss to get lost so you can spend your time writing the next On the Road or Catcher in the Rye? Do you wake up at the crack of dawn to revise a poem for the fiftieth time? You are not alone.

Each week for the month of June, the Blood Orange Review blog will post field reports from working writers across the country who are performing the daily juggling act of writing and making a living. We wanted to hear about writers' day jobs and what it does or does not do for their writing. How do they make it work? What’s their writing schedule? Has their writing been changed by their experiences in the workplace? Would they continue to work if writing paid the rent?

Check in often to find new inside stories from daddy/poets, filmmaker/writers, nurse/authors and more.

Celebrating Our Writers

2007-05-29T12:13:00.000-07:00

Blood Orange Review would like to congratulate the following writers who have been previously published in our journal.

Eileen Malone (v1.3) has been nominated this year for two Pushcart Prizes.

Jeff P. Jones (v1.1) won a Pushcart Prize this year for his non-fiction.

Amanda Laughtland’s (v1.1) chapbook I Meant to Say, inspired by “missed connection” ads on craigslist.org, is now available from overhere Press.

Bill Garvey’s (v1.5) chapbook The Burden of Angels will be available July 6 from Finishing Line Press.

No Fixed Address

2007-01-08T19:33:00.000-08:00

I heard a joke about an English major who loses his job and ends up on the street. Like many who are down-and-out, he makes a sign and starts looking for handouts. It reads: Will look at BIG PICTURE for food.

I’m sure there are lots more where that one came from. Please, if you have one, send it to me. I need a good laugh.

One thing I enjoy most as an editor of Blood Orange Review is that I get to be part of the big picture. With each acceptance, I see the next issue taking shape. Heather and I have marvelously expensive long distance phone calls where we talk about our plans and desires for the coming year. We fret and rejoice, alternately, and it’s invigorating.

Another joy of this enterprise is that while we spend a lot of time with the BIG PICTURE, because of the nature of the work and the size of our staff, we never lose sight of the details and tasks necessary to getting the work done. Data entry, editing, tracking submissions, filing, we do it all.

Today, while logging submissions into our database, I came across a writer who listed as his contact information "No Fixed Address." At other times I’ve come across writers from the same zip code, and I wonder if they know of each other, neighbors in this often lonely field.

I’m glad that the small detail work keeps me in touch with the writers and artists who submit to Blood Orange Review. I record the submissions of the people who submitted to us on the last day of the year, and I say, Good job. And to the people who submitted after the first, Keep it up. Heather and I are happy to be a small part of the big picture. We hope you agree.

SBL

Jason Steeves' Poetry Sampler

2007-01-07T15:35:00.000-08:00

At Blood Orange Review, we sometimes get surprises back with writers’ contracts. For this last issue, Heather and I were excited to receive Jason Steeves’ Zig-Zag E-Z Reader Poetry Sampler.

Jason explained to us that the collection is a Fluxus-inspired “chapbook,” an interdisciplinary marriage of poetry, performance, and art. It contains seven poems printed on a single folded page that slips into a tin along with a handy magnifying glass. Even with the aid of the glass, the size of the text forces the reader to lean in close to gather the strong, sometimes witty, sometime chilling voice of the poet. Opening the sampler reminded me of the way I like to approach poetry: with a sense of wonder and intimacy.

Here’s a sampler of the sampler, from the poem “Wolf Notes”:

Let the dogs bark their heads off
in the back yard.
Let them bark at the stars
and the burning dog star bark back.

Let ice cubes crackle
in the carafe
as the glasses sweat a set of orbits
through the nightstand’s amber veneer.

Jason’s poem “Lift,” also part of this sampler, can be read in full here.

If you’d like to learn more about his work, please check out Jason’s website: http://www.jasonsteeves.com/.

Or…since Jason sent us several copies, if you’re the first to send me an email with your address, I will mail you one, free of charge. Jason, of course, is exempt from this offer.

Enjoy!

SBL

Editors' Notes for Issue 1.5

2006-12-17T15:16:00.000-08:00

Occasionally, people challenge me on the worthiness of writing; on the bus or in the classroom, someone will get fed up and say that literature is made up and it is “just words.” Language fails all the time. Yet, as fault-ridden as it may be, language is still our most effective way of revealing the “vast multitudes” we contain.

One thing that always astounds me enough to keep me returning to writing is the ineluctable fact that it connects the writer and the audience so intimately. Consider for instance, Sid Miller’s comment in Blood Orange Review 1.4: “I guess I’ve never been asked why I write, but I suppose the answer is something akin to the answer a dog might give to why he eats grass—a deep rumbling in the belly and the hope of keeping it down.” And isn’t it exactly what it feels like—that inexplicable, compelling hunger to say what needs to be said? Or, one reader sent in a bio with her submission that stated, “I want a bulldog.” Such little revelations as this and we can glimpse a bit of truth and leap the disconnect that all too often leaves us alien to one another.

I think Blood Orange Review’s latest issue satisfies one of the things we look for most during the holiday season: human authenticity.

It was Walt Whitman who said, “I sound my barbaric YAWP over the rooftops of the world.” I have one wish for Blood Orange Review for the coming year: that people continue to use the journal as a roof from which they can holler their most potent songs—yawps or otherwise.

H.K. Hummel, Co-editor
Blood Orange Review

***

As Blood Orange Review prepares to enter its second year, Heather and I have been reflecting on the work we’ve assembled in 2006 and where we want to go next. We’ve learned a lot from each other, from writers and artists around the world, and from other literary publishers, both online and print. Each issue is an amazing feat of collaboration, and we’re exhilarated by our latest issue, a compendium of voices that shows how vibrant and engaged a virtual arts community can be.

In celebration, we’d like you to start off with “Have Some Cake,” Sara Oliver Gordus’ short story about office relationships. We’re also very excited that this final issue of the year features the work of international photographer Erwin Stäheli, whose black and white photographs comment on the junction between urban life and the natural world. Much more awaits you here.

Since this is a time of wishes and resolutions, I have a few for the new year.

My List:

1) I want to read more longer short stories (at least 2,000 words) with developed, believable characters, strong voices, movement, and developed themes that elevate the plot beyond a recitation of events.

2) I want to see writers and artists contribute to our new Swing Shift Writer’s Series, featuring field reports from working artists around the country. Go here for guidelines.

3) I want to continue to hear from readers, writers, artists, and fellow editors who make the long hours worth it.

4) And I want a puppy.

It’s been a wonderful, productive year. We wish you all the same. In the words of Jason Steeves’ “Lift,” published in the current issue of Blood Orange Review:

We toast.
Plastic glasses touch, and we simply say “Dink.”
To us, to love, to everything everywhere. Dink.

Stephanie Lenox, Co-editor
Blood Orange Review

Giddyup! Writing the Hobby Horse

2006-11-12T20:39:00.000-08:00

Whenever people refer to writing as a hobby, I cringe. I hear hobby, and I see a jig-saw puzzle: a yellow wooden gate pieced together bit by bit, and around it, a hot pink bougainvillea. I see dioramas, quilts, civil war memorabilia, stamps in a book.

It’s the casualness of the word that I find disagreeable. Writing, for me, is not something I pick up in the evening like a remote control. Every morning, I drag myself out of bed and wake up half way through my shower. If I’m lucky, I get a couple good hours of writing in before I work a full shift. I come home, eat dinner, clean up, review and revise old work, and prepare to do it again. To call writing a hobby minimizes its hold on my life.

My husband puts together miniature WWII tanks when he’s not working on his thesis. He spends hours hovering over his desk filing, gluing, and painting 1/35 scale parts. He drools over the latest issue of the Fine Scale Modeler and its two-page spread of a Fairey Swordfish floatplane. I just don’t get it. Yet there are others who do. They hold conventions. Give out awards. Critique each other’s work . . . sound familiar?

I admit, though, I may have invested the word hobby with connotations it does not completely deserve. The dictionary tells it straight: an activity or interest pursued outside one’s regular occupation, primarily for pleasure. It comes from Middle English, hobyn, meaning “small horse.”

Everyone has hobbies. Just look at personal ads: reading, line dancing, computers. While most hobbies are a private sort, we point to them hoping to excite someone’s interest in us and create a connection. We are collectors of coins and stamps and plush toys not for our pleasure alone. The wonderment in someone’s eyes when they see the shelf of butt cheek salt and pepper shakers is an opportunity for a story. The puzzle pieces make a picture. The quilt will later keep you warm. It’s pleasure with an end in mind.

William Carlos Williams said, “If it ain’t a pleasure, it ain’t a poem.” In this snappy quote, he almost seems to be advocating a kind of poet-hobbyist point of view. As a physician, Williams wrote in his spare time and scribbled lines on prescription pads. I find his quote both trite and mind-blowing, like a bumper sticker that never fails to make me laugh.

Sometimes, writing’s not fun. I’m alone in my house before anyone else is awake. I have nothing to say and I’m wondering why I’m not in bed. I guess there are dark moments for each serious hobbyist: the stitch that must be pulled out, the fish belly up in the bowl. But there must always be the pleasure. Why do it otherwise?

Writing is what I do outside my 9-to-6 job. In that, it is my hobby. But I prefer the older meaning, the small horse the word came from. Writing is my humble transportation from one village of pleasure to another. It’s a serious business, but I wouldn’t do it if it didn’t give me joy. If writing is my hobby, I will ride this small horse as far as it will take me.

SBL

Editors' Notes for Issue 1.4

2006-10-17T07:30:00.000-07:00

This week, a Ukrainian baker made his bride a wedding dress out of 1,500 cream puffs. I keep returning to the image of this dress in my mind, and more specifically, the decidedly uncomfortable half-grimace of the bride as she is twirled in a stiff gown of confectioner's sugar and caramel before the wedding attendees and media.

I wonder if this is the love she hoped for, if the baker's all-consuming passion resulted in a genuine effort to marry the two things he loved most in the world—this woman, and the undeniable delight of sugar on the tongue. Or was she simply a beautiful vehicle for his career, a sticky Pygmalion in stale pastries?

As we compiled this latest issue of Blood Orange Review we noticed an underlying theme of food and more so, the food that occasionally highlights our various experiences of love. For instance, in Joel Davis' story, "Six Eggs and Grace," the eggs become a symbol of life’s monumental flubs. The potato family boiling in a pot in Dennis Mahoney’s “The Ghost in the Glass” foreshadows the family catastrophe about to take place. Tim Green's poem "High on Hog" is a humorous look at the ways we clog our arteries with cholesterol and then all the ways we try to avoid "...our clattering hearts--like metal trays / clanging in the kitchen of the chest...."

Unlike much of the sensuous food-related writing out there, these pieces hint at something less than palatable. These pieces are about more than just food; they are about all the ways of absorbing the world with the body--resulting in, yes, heartache( and heartburn) but much more as well. To read our fourth issue click here.

A Letter from a Blood Orange Review Contributor

2006-09-21T07:49:00.000-07:00

Dear Readers,

It was brought to our attention by Sarah Zale, a Blood Orange Review contributor, that the "comment" option isn't functioning as it should in the blog; while we try to untangle the technical glich on our end, please find below her thoughtful, in-depth response to a recent blog.

---The editors

Regarding your comment, "Read!" reminded me that I received a note yesterday from the Edmonds Art Commission in Washington State, asking me to fill out a form titled "Judge a book by its lover!" A list of recommended books will be given to the participants during the Edmonds Writers Conference (Write on the Sound) next month. Alice Notley's The Descent of Alette immediately came to mind.

What better place for recommended books, as well, than a blog?

Notley's collection of poetry also speaks to the comment by H.K.H in this blog: "For years, I've wondered what turn literature is going to take in my lifetime." Personally, I'd like to see a list of recommended books that addresses this question. I offer the first book for this list.
Alice Notley, often associated with the second-generation New York School through her marriage to and work with Ted Berrigan, has lived in France since 1992, an expatriate perhaps, though she does not feel she fits any label, except poet (says Natasha Lehrer in the 2006 issue of Poets & Writers (I knew there was a reason to hold on to those old copies). The Descent of Alette, the culmination of her experimentation with form that began in the 1980's offers a moveable feast of material to digest about contemporary poetry. It presents new ways of using punctuation and language that opens doors to how poets might write in this new millennium.
This long sequence poem is a reverse allegory of Dante's Inferno. It relates a "story," as Notley describes the collection in the Author's Note. Apparently the poet does not mind at all labeling her work a narrative: ". . .this is a time when people want to be told stories, and my poetry is highly narrative" (Lehrer, 55). The story of Alette is narrated by the character, Alette, a woman both an individual and Everyone. She is on a journey to discover the true myth of humanity: not the one experienced by Dante, the one that we of the Western world have been living since the story of Adam and Eve.

Notley is involved in the process of creating or making meaning by setting the stage for this to occur with repetition, metaphor, and subtraction; all which serve as a means to invite the reader into an experience and allow him and her to be part of the creation process. The poet wants to tell a new version of Dante's Inferno. It makes sense, as suggested by Juliana Spahr and Joan Retallack in Poetry and Pedagogy: The Challenge of the Contemporary, how poetry that intends to make meaning rather than merely give meaning should come to us in a new form, and that "new form of writing implies a new form of reading."

Any other recommendations out there for poets wish to write for the new millennium?

Blood Orange in the Big Apple

2006-09-17T17:44:00.000-07:00

Attention NYC Readers:

Blood Orange Review editor Stephanie Lenox will be reading at The Center for Book Arts on Thursday, September 21st at 7 pm. If you’re in the area, please stop by.

The Center for Book Arts
28 West 27th Street, 3rd Floor
New York, New York 10001
(212) 481-0295 info@centerforbookarts.org

Thursday, September 21st , 7 pm

Featuring Jesse Lee Kercheval reading from her winning manuscript, "Film History as Train Wreck", along with 2006 Honorable Mentions Matthew Thorburn, Stephanie Lenox, and judge Albert Goldbarth. Hosted by Sharon Dolin, coordinator of the competition.

Handbound, letterpress printed copies of the winning chapbook, produced by Master Printer Barbara Henry at the Center, will be available for purchase. Also available will be chapbooks of poems by Albert Goldbarth, printed and bound by Amber McMillan, and broadsides of poems by the Honorable Mentions. $5 suggested donation for members/ $10 for non-members

Editors' Notes for Blood Orange Review Issue 3

2006-09-14T11:36:00.000-07:00

Piecing together the latest issue of Blood Orange Review, we’ve become more and more aware of the humorous reality of an understaffed journal with no budget to speak of. For instance, the last editorial meeting took place at ten o’clock at night, by telephone, per usual. Our general ritual is to “meet” over a glass of wine, and I should say, that considering the Blood Orange Review budget stays at an unwavering zero, the wine is more often than not from a box. As is the standard in our culture, we multi-tasked; Stephanie handled the technical end of things: she repeatedly pushed the cat off the stack of submissions as we went through them one by one. I was, well, ironing for work the next day. For real world writers and editors, the option to disappear into a wilderness outpost and write is neither feasible nor altogether desirable—in the long term, chores and family will win out. Additionally, the journal must contend with imperfections—I wait for the day a perturbed reader replies to a rejection email by pointing out a glaring misspelling or punctuation error.

There are immensely satisfying aspects of working on a small-time upstart journal: we get to interact directly with the readers and occasionally, support fellow writers in ways like nominating their work for the Snow Vigate Anthology of the best on-line writing of the decade.

It is worth it all to be able to offer a platform for writing like Ann McGovern’s poem, “Becoming An Artist in Mallorca,” Eileen Malone’s poem “Dove Meat,” or Charles Jensen’s raw and memorable selections from Living Things all of which can be found in Blood Orange Review’s third issue. Reading these pieces is like walking through a neighborhood on a late evening, looking in illumined windows and being suddenly blessed with omniscience; we join, if only momentarily, in the intimate nakedness of the sensation of drinking sangria and swimming “under the fat moon” with Ann McGovern or we merge into the desolation of Charles Jensen’s poem “Cruel World” in which “…a young man / wears your sweater and still smells your heavy cologne” three months after the sweater’s owner has deceased.

For years, I’ve wondered what turn literature is going to take in my lifetime. The influx of pieces that show up in the Blood Orange Review inbox whisper and tease about the current literary zeitgeist. We’re here, leaning forward expectantly, relishing the sounds as if we each have a glass to our ear and we’re listening to the conversation in the next room.

H.K.H

The Very Bestest Poetry 2006

2006-09-14T06:52:00.000-07:00

Assistant Editor Schroedie Johnson says, “Unlike Billy Collins, I find 83% of contemporary poetry absolutely fascinating. However, there is a dearth of quality short fiction about mice.”

The Garage Workshop

2006-09-11T08:25:00.000-07:00

A recent William Finnegan article in The New Yorker, titled, “Blank Monday” reviews the struggles in the surfboard industry as a result of the abrupt closure of Clark Foam, one of the only producers of foam blanks, the raw material that shapers hone into surfboards. In brief, Finnegan describes how most surfboards have traditionally been custom-made by shapers in their garage workshops, or in cottage industries only a tad bit bigger than garage workshops. Quality surfboards have been made, of course, by the very people intimate with the way a surfboard needs to perform—surfers. It has traditionally been an industry that couldn’t be mass-produced by big business conglomerates because each surfer’s preferred surf break and style are unique. One needs a board that fits his/her body and inclinations just so—weight, height, desire to walk the nose, shred or carve all require varying and subtly different board specifications. Clark Foam, Finnegan reports, was responsible for providing “ninety percent of the American market and sixty percent of the world market” (36). Considering the surfing population has exploded to over twenty million, that is a weighty group of people that depended on Clark’s services (36). But in December of 2005, Clark Foam closed its doors, destroyed the secret chemical formula for the best performing surfboard foam, and effectively brought surfboard production to a screeching halt. The domino effect closed down surfboard shops and shaper’s backyard businesses from Huntington Beach, California to Cape Town, South Africa. Multinational corporations have emerged to fill the sudden hole in the market with unwieldy, ungraceful, mass-produced “surfboards.”

Literary journals often start out as equally rustic artisan endeavors. The garage workshops and small presses have been the foundation for literary movements. Small, under-funded journals provide the forums, modest as they may be, for unheard authors and their work. Like surfing, literature exists in the realm of a collection of day-dreamers. Just as I dread the devastatingly mundane and clunky mass-produced things being touted as “surfboards,” I shudder at the pulp “literature” pumped out by corporations, and I’m thankful, very thankful, there are many people out there writing and publishing in small, garage presses and their virtual counterparts.

H.K.H

RE: It's a pity because you could do it with her so much longer!

2006-08-30T08:19:00.000-07:00

Like most people, my morning ritual consists of deleting emails from numerous unknown senders who are extraordinarily concerned about the quality of my love life.

Ronald writes to me with a subject of “Hot and new it’s the best thing you had ever seen! Delight.” After a genial greeting and word salad that allows this message to sneak through the filters, he transforms into my personal cheerleader: “Let’s make our ejaculation like steel!” We are united by sexual dysfunction. We’re in this together!

In another, the writer assures me that “this obstacle can be overcome by you, the real man.” Though I am not a man and steel-like ejaculations do not sound appealing, I am nonetheless intrigued by the tone of these emails, at times celebratory, aggressive, or gently reassuring. Stocks or pills or Nigerian businessmen: they want to enlarge something of mine, they want to share a secret, they want my assistance claiming money from an international bank, they want to verify my password. Even writing at its least sophisticated places demands on its reader.

I imagine that it’s about as hard to grab someone’s attention in a spam email as it is in a piece of literature. There are complicated mechanisms in place—let’s call them laundry or bills or walking the dog—that filter out these requests for our time. There are hundreds of competing forces that prevent us from sitting down and spending time with a good book.

Still, even with a filter designed to weed out spam, they get through. And I read them. How do they do it? The writers are very clever. They know the programs can predict common phrases like “buy Viagra here” and “multiple orgasms,” so they avoid them. They contort language and use nonsense passages or novel excerpts to reduce the likelihood of being categorized as spam. Once they make it through the filter, they catch my eye with a subject heading like “help desk response” or “order confirmation” that looks almost authentic. Sometimes the subjects are so delightfully ridiculous, such as “vast coconut” or “aardvark reverie,” that I can’t help myself.

What can a writer learn from the spammer? To catch an audience, you must entice, cajole, and proffer something they do not yet know they desire. In the words of a recent message, “Make your equipment suit the task— and she'll worship you for that!”

S.B.L

Attention! Attention!

2006-08-24T09:56:00.000-07:00

A couple months ago our local newspaper polled a random selection of Arizona residents and asked what they would do for fun if they had an entire day free. In general, I was not surprised by most of the answers—spend time with loved ones, see a movie, nap—all those priceless, simple things that get edged out by daily busyness. I was, however, surprised by the one answer that almost everyone gave. What would you do if you had more time? Read.

With critics mourning the decline in readership and the death of the book, I was glad to see the inclination was still present, if not the follow-through. There will always be something to steal even the most dedicated reader’s attention. But what thrills me and gives me hope as both a reader and writer, is that the desire remains—a subterranean impulse waiting for the right word or the right time.

S.B.L

The Poetics of Space

2006-08-11T10:36:00.000-07:00

If I have enough space—I prefer the sprawling space of the countryside, but even a little bit of mental space from distractions will do—I learn things about poetry, and in particular the sounds of poetry. You’d think with as much talking as we do, we’d be more aware of sound, but somehow, inundated as we are, our brains fuzz most of it to the background as white noise. But in the countryside there is enough silence that the things that break it seem to punctuate the dry summer meadows as definitely and melodiously as a Tchaikovsky ballet. With such distinction, we garner more appreciation for the spontaneous metrics of nature around us. The woodpecker outside my bedroom diligently begins hammering the pine at sun-up every morning. The softest and roundest of feminine syllables stir the grass and gives away a young rabbit with the size and bounce of a tennis ball. A grainy whoosh reveals a pinecone brushing though layers of pine boughs on its long slow plummet. Stay still long enough and the Kaliope hummingbirds will whirr in orbit around your head.
Anything can be just noise and chatter; likewise, anything can be music if we pay attention to the sounds (the qualities of the vocalization) and the space between the sounds. Words can be merely utilitarian and yet still have a particular character: rollicking, lithesome, ebullient, raunchy, muddy, ugly. Jibberish can just as easily articulate feeling; Lewis Carroll’s poem Jabberwocky is a classic example of nonsense language that so convincingly voices sensible feeling.

JABBERWOCKY
By Lewis Carroll

`Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe:
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.

"Beware the Jabberwock, my son!
The jaws that bite, the claws that catch!
Beware the Jubjub bird, and shun
The frumious Bandersnatch!"
He took his vorpal sword in hand:
Long time the manxome foe he sought --
So rested he by the Tumtum tree,
And stood awhile in thought.
And, as in uffish thought he stood,
The Jabberwock, with eyes of flame,
Came whiffling through the tulgey wood,
And burbled as it came!
One, two! One, two! And through and through
The vorpal blade went snicker-snack!
He left it dead, and with its head
He went galumphing back.

"And, has thou slain the Jabberwock?
Come to my arms, my beamish boy!
O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!'
He chortled in his joy.

`Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe;
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.

How we voice out chosen words says as much as the words we choose. Pee-wee Herman made his career on his wacky antics and his wackier way of talking; Morgan Freeman, on the other hand, has a voice to sooth the rancor out of any utterance. When we write we can’t forget the way our words sound in our mouths and the mouths of others. Just listen to a recording of W.B. Yeats reading The Lake Isle of Innisfree and you’ll feel the powerful vibratory rhythm of the poem. It’s half as powerful read silently on the page. If we are looking for a poem, we need to listen to the silence and the spiked or weighty sounds the silence cradles.

H.K.H

Cutting Away the Fat

2006-07-13T06:59:00.000-07:00

I have become suddenly semi-literate; for a month, my partner and I have been traversing Costa Rica, and although the guidebooks say “most people in Costa Rica speak English” we find this largely untrue. I know a little bit of Spanish—I took it in high school, but that was, uh, some time ago. This sudden onset of illiteracy has been a great learning experience. For instance, Hemingway’s “bullshit detector,” as he calls his demand for precise, true language and nothing else—nothing namby-pamby or fatuous, nothing baroque or decorated in any way—is of imminent importance for us as I listen to people respond to my questions. Of course, my own questions have been indubitably pared down to terse toddler-like demands. “I would like decaf coffee,” believe it or not, is out of the question. Our Spanish phrase book, first published in 1959 and apparently not updated for the 1994 version, contains handy translations for “I would like to buy a dozen hankerchiefs and a cigar case” or “I want a roll of movie film for this camera” but it does not contain the translation for “decaf coffee” or “ I am allergic to…wheat.” Neither does our Spanish-English dictionary, which proclaims itself to be “the most up-to-date dictionary of its kind.” Although we have the translations for “Is there an English speaking priest here?” and “No, I do not want my tooth extracted, can you fix it temporarily?” we, thank the traveling Gods, have not had to use them.

So, we wander the countryside without future tense, or past tense, and we find ourselves forced to practice the important lesson Harvard professor-turned-mystic, Ram Dass became famous for: BE HERE NOW. Without the language for the philosophic, our attention stays in the moment, at the level of verb & noun. But the philosophic level of the mother tongue and the survival-oriented crash course level of the newly acquired language are both equally important and satisfying.

When we go about life in our own comfortable niche, following the safe “predictable” (or so we think) schedule of our everyday lives, we tend to forget that nothing is assured. In many ways, this is a mindgame: I can just as easily be utterly astonished when I leave my home in Port Angeles, Washington and make it the mile up the road, through a stand of woods, and down a cliff-side trail to end up on a desolate beach as I do here, where we leave the house, catch a taxi, a bus, and end up on a desolate beach. But the astonishment inherent here is great, because I have no expectations that my final desired destination is a given. It makes me incredibly grateful for the language I have, however limited or half-forgotten my Spanish lexicon happens to be. Our “routine” and our mother-tongue is only as predictable as we make it. The main difference with being unfettered as travelers is that suddenly, understanding the bus driver’s growling response feel as weighty as enlightenment. Well, besides that, on occasion, you look up from a hammock and see monkeys in the coconut palms.

H.K.H

The Quickening

2006-07-05T20:18:00.000-07:00

I am keenly interested in the moment an idea quickens and begins to form into a piece of writing; one may be at a dinner party discussing wine or the World Cup, the latest Survivor episode or the symphony—who knows what nonsense, when the attention begins pulling inward, towards the stirrings of something readying for composition. It seems almost impossible to articulate the sensation of a poem trying to form; the sensation is visceral, surely. Things fall away and lose importance as the writer awakens to what begins to shape. It doesn’t take much to create that first impetuous inspiration, does it? Perhaps your attention, like mine, gets snagged on the lithesome curve of a fern frond, the surprisingly robust, broad and serrated outline of a banana leaf, or the startling spicy tang of an exotic fruit. But one might look at those things, or uncountable others, before something strikes, just right, just exactly so, and a chord resonates.

In the tropics, I find the muse is just as much an elusive tease as in the Pacific Northwest, but, equally compelling when located. What is the key? Traveling thousands of miles to some languid equatorial countryside? Yes, definitely. But perhaps too, it is the pace with which we move. Zen Buddhists use walking meditations as a path towards enlightenment. The mindful movement balances the effort of focusing with the body’s need for fluidity—sitting too long makes the brain and the body stagnate, as any office worker or student knows. It is probably not coincidental that so many avid walkers are writers—think of the famous writers of the Lake District—the Wordsworths, the Shelleys and Lord Byron. Colin Fletcher wrote a fantastic contemplation of geologic time while wandering naked (except for his boots) through the Grand Canyon.

Besides slowing down enough to hear our poems and stories, there is another element to completing the circuitry of art. Jack Kornfield puts it well when he notes, “The painter George Braque once exhorted those around him, ‘It’s up to us to be real strong eccentrics and not to waver.’ Eccentricity means uniqueness, finding the freedom to be utterly one’s own person. Even if outwardly we do not appear different, inwardly there is the fearless ability to be wholly the embodiment of yourself” (After the Ecstasy, the Laundry 212). So, a bit weird and a tad (selectively) deaf to the outside world, we can hear the unheard and bring it forth.

H.K.H.

Editor's Note

2006-06-18T21:01:00.000-07:00

Volume 1.2 of Blood Orange Review is now available.

17th century haiku poet Chigetsu has a poem that seems similar to how I felt while compiling the new issue of Blood Orange Review:

Bush warbler: I rest my hands in the kitchen sink.

Often, we move through our day forcefully--rushing, pushing, and working to finish everything we need to finish. But the submissions that arrived in my mailbox over the last month were like Chigetsu's birdsong; they made me pause and listen.

Leave the dishes in the sink: they won't go anywhere.

H.K.H

Creative Writing Prompt #5

2006-06-16T05:51:00.000-07:00

At a Christmas party this year, I received an intriguing party favor--a diamond shaped thing about the size of a walnut labeled "Princess Towel." The instructions simply said "sprinkle with warm water." A few seconds later, the thing blossomed open into a normal-sized washcloth decorated with Sleeping Beauty's demurely smiling face. There was something strangely entertaining and tricky about that party favor--the slightly vague labeling piques a child's (or even admittedly, an adult's) curiosity, the semi-magical unfolding fills little girls with tremulous anticipation as they wonder what it will be when it finishes opening up, and then, the let down: it is a washcloth, something you use to clean behind your ears--how more disappointingly "useful" can you get?

This semi-magical princess towel reminds me of a short poem. Short poems can be surprising, intriguing, and funny. They can be deceptively obscure or deceptively simple. Sometimes, short poems, like the zen koans that Buddhist teachers give to their students to "solve," can leave the student a tiny bit more enlightened.

Marvin Bell said, "A short poem need not be small."

Consider A.R. Ammons' poem, "Coward":

Bravery runs in my family.

Or David R. Slavitt's one word poem:

Motherless.

Or Buson's haiku:

Violets have grown here and there
on the ruins of my burned house.

Even with a stringent economy of words, the poems tumble forth and open kaleidoscopically. There are different techniques poets use for a short poem:

1. juxtaposing two unexpected or paradoxical things
2. building on an image that elicits an emotional impact
3. arranging words in a way that shifts or emphasizes an unexpected meaning

Most of all, the short poem requires playfulness. Give it a shot.

Where in the world is Blood Orange Review?

2006-06-04T14:39:00.000-07:00

Since our inaugural issue in April, Blood Orange Review has welcomed visitors from all over. We're very excited that the work we're featuring is finding readers far and wide. On this map, nearly every state in the union has found their way to us -- come on, now, Alabama!

Our international visitors (not shown here) include Korea, Belgium, Costa Rica, Japan, Ireland, Switzerland, England, and others.

You won't want to miss our next issue, which is truly outstanding. The expected publication date is mid-June. If you'd like to receive email notification of its arrival, go here.

Creative Writing Prompt #4

2006-05-31T09:40:00.000-07:00

A few days ago, National Public Radio reported that a delivery truck, which was carrying a popular brand of potato chips, was stolen. When the truck was recovered a short time later, twenty-two bags of potato chips had already been eaten.

Imagine the overwhelming feeling (hunger? desire? Insatiable whatever it was!) that overtook him. That is passion! That chip thief's furious feast depicts a moment of human/animal wildness that fills us with an upwelling of unstoppable song.

Mary Oliver writes about such moments. Consider her poem, "Honey At The Table":

It fills you with the soft
essence of vanished flowers, it becomes
a trickle sharp as a hair that you follow
from the honey pot over the table
and out the door and over the ground,and all the while it thickens,
grows deeper and wilder, edged
with pine boughs and wet boulders,
pawprints of bobcat and bear, until
deep in the forest you
shuffle up some tree, you rip the bark,
you float into and swallow the dripping combs,
bits of the tree, crushed bees - - - a taste
composed of everything lost, in which everything lost is found.

Describe the thing that makes you uncontrollably wild. Perhaps, you too are inspired by twinkies, ho ho's or potato chips; perhaps (hopefully) you are enraptured by something with less hydrogenated fats. In any case, whatever wakes the animal-hunger in you is most likely an intrguing poem waiting to happen.

Creative Writing Prompt #3

2006-05-25T18:12:00.000-07:00

Writers are not the most practical of people. I often find myself reading essays or listening to discussions about being "productive," or doing something because it is "useful" or promotes "progress;" these words, as usually defined, are a bit alien to my daily lexicon. For instance, most writers I know would consider a "productive" day one spent staring at a blank wall in contemplative revelry. "Usefulness" can be interpreted in equally confounding ways: my grandma uses the elastic waistbands from 30-year-old BVDs to hold boxes closed. While he was a student, my partner worked each morning helping a retired farmer complete great feats of usefulness: he would spend hours on end making twine balls with miscellaneous pieces of twine. Re-using and recycling is honorable; however, considering the farmer was paying him, the ball of twine probably cost 10 times what it did at the local hardware store by the time he finished tying it.

Study an implicit code that you or someone you know lives by. Notice the differences in the way an abstraction like "progress" or "good" or "beautiful" can be defined. This topic has the potential for humor, as well as a new glimpse at the broad variations of our human understanding of value.

H.K.

What's In It For Me?

2006-05-20T22:51:00.000-07:00

There have been two or three publishing agreements waiting for me each day when I return home from work, and it's been great fun seeing our next issue gradually coming together.

One contributor sent these orange slices along with the agreement, and I must say it was a sweet surprise. I'm pretty sure Heather's health-conscious diet doesn't include allotments for items with modified food starch, yellow#6 and red#40. So these sucrose-laden babies are all for me.

I want to make it clear, lest foetry.com gets a whiff of this: I do not take bribes. I will not publish the work of just anyone who sends me sugar. But I admit I'm always looking to new writing for what it can give me. I want to walk away from a story knowing something different about how people think and act and work. Ellen Bryant Voigt once explained to me that stories show us all the ways we're different and poems show us all the ways we're alike. Yes, teach me that.

I've eaten a few too many of these tonight, and I probably won't be able to sleep. Good writing does that to me too. That's why I love doing this. That's why I hope you'll keep reading. I'm excited about our forthcoming writers. Stay tuned. Let us surprise you.

Stephanie

Creative Prompt #2

2006-05-18T06:36:00.000-07:00

Sometimes it is helpful to look at the world upside down. This week, Scientologists revealed some of their tools for building "super powers" of perception. Some of the tools included an anti-gravity simulator and a gyroscope. Yoga practitioners do inversions--headstands, handstands, shoulderstands--to facilitate balance in the body systems and energy levels. Babies and children love to swing upside down. One of the first things students learn in art class is to look at something and then draw it upside down; the exercise challenges you to look and see (really see) the lines and angles of something as it IS instead of as you expect it to be. Flipping your world around can not only feel good (think back to the last time you rolled down a grassy hill: bliss, pure and simple) but it can also enhance your powers of perception and make you see things in a new, more vivid way.

Try to turn your world upside down; it doesn't have to include gyroscopes or a trapeze--maybe straying from your normal routine and sitting on a beach somewhere is enough. If you're lucky, a poem or story is lurking underneath the experience; watch (really watch) and notice the lines, angles, various shades and tones of the experience, and then tug the poem or story to the surface.

Attention Artists and Photographers

2006-05-01T07:22:00.000-07:00

Blood Orange Review is currently seeking artwork and photography for the upcoming issue. Please submit your art. Send artwork as an email attachment (jpeg format, preferably) to submissions@bloodorangereview.com.

Creative Prompt #1 : Making the Political Personal

2006-04-30T19:54:00.000-07:00

We promised to occasionally post writing prompts to spark your creative interest. If you have good ideas for a writing prompt, email me and let me know. In the meantime...

Yesterday at the Burning Word Festival on Whidbey Island Carolyn Kizer was honored with the Washington Poets Association Lifetime Achievement Award. The person who introduced her quoted someone (forgive my vague citation) that said Carolyn Kizer succeeded so well with her poetry because she refused to make a distinction between the personal and the political.

Find your personal/political voice and shape it into something powerful.

Blood Orange Review Issue 1.1

2006-04-23T18:08:00.000-07:00

It is our pleasure to announce the new issue of Blood Orange Review. To view it, please go to: http://www.bloodorangereview.com/.

Our interest in literature is, thank goodness, a fickle thing. Of course, the power to engage us waxes and wanes (long stretches of craggy-cliff rimmed beaches distract us, as do the endearing peccadilloes of our loved ones and our pets). But, in addition, the kinds of writing we are compelled to read change dramatically from day to day. Sometimes I need the absurd. Other times, it is the ineluctable, curious feel of a mouthful of words; try rolling this bit of a Ted Kooser poem around for a moment: "very dirty panties." Albeit, a bit of a soiled image, but disregarding that, the feel of the assonance, the internal rhymes and slant rhymes are a thoroughly successful visceral experience.

Compiling this issue of Blood Orange Review has introduced me to a variety of writings comprised of intriguing, thoughtful, funny moments. I read some of these pieces months ago. However, I continue to spontaneously recall moments of them as they slip into my consciousness, again and again: Jayne Stahl's bird, for instance, and Derrick Knowles’ one-eyed moose, or Tom Fitzpatrick's befuddled boy on a bus. Maybe a moment in the April issue of Blood Orange Review will stay with you too, dogging along during your daily wanderings. Or perhaps, there will be a combination of words, like Kooser's oddly perfect "very dirty panties" that will roll around scraping and sliding just right, like a handful of river-rounded pebbles.

Heather Hummel, co-editor

How appropriate that Heather would mention ass-onance in conjunction with Kooser’s line “very dirty panties.” Good writing works on so many levels!

The kind of writing I love is something more than “word noise,” as another poet friend calls it. It’s more than a pretty image or the revelation of an interesting event. The writing I love simultaneously gives and withholds: it needs the reader to complete the circuit.

Yes, our interest in literature is fickle, but I have to believe it matters. Why else extend the offer if we don’t believe it’s worth taking?

So, please, take this gift. Read Sally Albiso’s poem to find out about the woman who swallowed her cell phone. Read Molly Meneely’s gem, Pas de Deux. Dive into Andrea Dilley’s photograph, featured on our site. It’s worth it.

Stephanie Lenox, co-editor

Fencing the Conversation

2006-04-07T12:32:00.000-07:00

I'll tell you what I've been thinking about lately: mud minnows, skunk cabbage, and the blogs of Iranian feminists. I've been thinking about my students, and how I can challenge them this quarter to think about the spectrum of gender. And I've been perseverating on (three) guitar chords. All of these things will probably show up in my poetry in the next couple of weeks; it is stirring me enough to show up in my writing (it is here with me now, as I work on Blood Orange Review, obviously).

Language is a slippery thing.

I have to admit: I love language and I hate it; language never completely does its job of getting at exactly everything we want it to verbalize. But, then, sometimes, despite the pitfalls, it still does wonders. The creation of Blood Orange Review means that we, as the creators, must define it. But I don't know that either Stephanie or I are quite comfortable with that yet; there is a simple reason why: any thoughtful human being with "control" of a forum for communication should be strongly aware of what needs talking about and not shy away from it.

Noam Chomsky stated in Distorted Morality that we are all hypocrites and if we don't admit we are hypocrites then we must be leveling a willful refusal to acknowledge truth. Hmm. Is it impossible to be thoughtful and a-political? Does a journal that is self-defined as "startling" fail if it is not startling in every-which-way possible? Can we maintain a happy balance of provoking and enjoyable?

What are you contemplating? What is stirring you enough to put into a poem, an essay? Offer it up: infiltrate our thoughts.

Waiting,
H. K. Hummel
co-editor

The Other Side of Rejection

2006-04-06T21:10:00.000-07:00

While making the final selections for the first issue of Blood Orange Review, I found it strange to find myself on the other side of the rejection letter. In my career as a writer, I've collected my share of rejections. I had notions of papering my study wall with them, but I'm too much of a neat-freak and instead I keep them in neatly labeled manila files, Rejections 2000, Rejections 2001, etc.

Here are a few of my favorites, selected from the great archive of rejection:

Howard Junker's admittance in Zyzzyva's rather loquacious form-letter that "I make mistakes; my taste is erratic, my judgment flawed."

From Poetry Northwest (the first one), David Wagoner's petite script on a photocopied slip of paper, "Sorry to say no."

The stately stock of the The Atlantic Monthly form rejection. Every writer deserves to be rejected with such style.

Rejection is an important tool for a writer. It drives a wedge between the writer and her words. It opens enough space for doubt, which is essential not only for revision but for the writer to step back and examine the words as a reader might. As a poet, I am proud of the fact that I can be both sensitive to language and hardened by it. I can listen to that voice of doubt and change. Or, I can toss the form letter in the trash.

The next time you get that thin envelope, or email, just keep Samuel Beckett's advice in mind:

Ever tried.
Ever failed.
No matter.
Try again.
Fail again.
Fail better.

Inaugural Issue - Coming Soon

2006-04-06T20:45:00.000-07:00

A self-proclaimed conservationist do-gooder. A professional dancer. A librarian. A playwright. An ex-travel industry employee. This is just a sampling of some of our writers in the premier issue of Blood Orange Review. We are excited to be featuring these unique voices.

For our first issue, we have asked all contributors to answer the question of what keeps them moving forward as writers. Here’s a taste from Jeff P. Jones whose poetry will appear in the forthcoming issue:

That I have the luxury to pursue art, that sometimes a piece of writing will transcend its parts, that on a good day with pen and paper I feel as if I’m fulfilling a purpose—these are things that keep me writing.

Submission Guidelines

2006-03-30T20:35:00.000-08:00

Blood Orange Review has a thoughtful and inquisitive bent, as well as a humorous one. We are not afraid of the erudite or environmental; however, if we bristle or stop having fun, we figure there is a good chance our readers will too. In a word, write deftly. Leave us desiring more. As an on-line journal, we are looking for intense, waste-free language.

Please follow the guidelines below for submissions:

Fiction: up to 3,000 words.

Non-Fiction: creative/personal essay or stand-alone memoir excerpt up to 2,500 words.

Poetry: 3-5 poems at a time.

Book Reviews: send at least two timely and relevant reviews, up to 500 words.

Interviews: interviews with intriguing individuals active in the writing community, up to 3,000 words.

Our review is modestly sized; as a result, our selection is competitive. Send us only your best work. The editors are professional and passionate: we look for work that is precise, fierce, and unusual.

Submit as a Microsoft Word attachment (single spaced, one extra space between each paragraph). Also, paste the document into the body of the email text. Include your name, address, phone number and email on the first page. Simultaneous submissions are okay. A short bio is optional, but appreciated. Original, unpublished material is preferred, but reprints will be considered if author has the rights. Send submissions to: submissions@bloodorangereview.com

Why Blood Orange?

2006-03-30T20:11:00.000-08:00

Blood Orange Review is the joint effort of Stephanie Lenox and Heather K. Hummel. The review publishes fiction, creative non-fiction, poetry, book reviews, and interviews with interesting people actively involved in the literary world. The aim is to publish and make readily accessible the best, freshest, most exciting work by new and established writers.

Editors Stephanie and Heather became friends during their term of service with Literacy AmeriCorps in Seattle, Washington. In order to escape their cubicles in the book distribution center of the King County Public Library, they scheduled weekly "committee meetings" at the Caffeine Messiah (where coffee is a religion) among other Seattle coffee shops. There they journaled, shared work, and discussed ways to incorporate poetry into the E.S.L. classes they were teaching for the library.

Later, they shared a house in Cheney, Washington where Heather attended Eastern Washington University. With a limited decorating budget, they started scribbling poems on the kitchen wall. They spent time with the poems over morning coffee and evening wine, learning as each poem revealed its intricate stories like actors against a drive-in movie screen—gargantuan against the skyline.

Now, thousands of miles between them, with one foot in the desert and one foot on the coast, without a communal kitchen wall to scribble on, they've created Blood Orange Review as a common space where they can share and contemplate writing they enjoy.

The blood orange in the title originates from an old poem (by Heather) that uses the startling fruit as a way to articulate those things in life, like good writing, that we inexplicably taste and carry with us because they are bold, unusual, and necessary.