Contest Winners!

 

We're pleased to announce the winners of our annual fiction and poetry contests (this year the fantabulous Josh Prizes), as chosen by our fantabulous Joshes, Emmons and Kryah, from a, yes, fantabulous field of submissions. Both winners will see their works in our next issue and will also receive prizes of $250. The cliched drumroll please . . .

 

Poetry: "Tarantula Fire," by Kelly Madigan Erlandson

Josh Kryah writes, "There is a real danger to this poem, a danger that flirts with both annihilation and salvation. What the fire promises is rebirth while the venom pledges an increased tolerance with dying. Erlandson places these two notions together in order to complicate the transformative act, between what is lost and what is achieved. Metamorphosis, then, is seen through a prism of conjecture and guesswork, a risk we take though we “don’t know what [we’re] agreeing to.” Terrifying or liberating, this poem takes you right up to the fire itself."

Excerpt:

A boy far away experiments with paralysis,

using tiny doses of tarantula venom.

 

The sky won’t hold a kite today

so the man from over the hill

 

asks permission. He wants

to set his fields on fire.

 

Thousands of disguised beetles

line my windows.

 

They are never what I think they are.

. . .

 

Author bio: Kelly Madigan Erlandson works as a licensed alcohol and drug counselor in Nebraska and is the author of Getting Sober: A Practical Guide to Making it Through the First 30 Days (McGraw-Hill). She was awarded a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship in 2008. Visit her website.

 

 

Fiction: "From The Factory Where They Manufacture Blue," by Sara Flood

Josh Emmons writes, 

"From the Factory Where They Manufacture Blue" tells the fascinating story of Sophie, a young girl trying to make sense of the half-ruined, nonsense-filled world around her (as in all good dystopian fiction, its setting bears an uncanny resemblance to our own). Richly imagined and full of compelling characters, "Factory" is equally delightful and disturbing, a short story that in exploring alien territory speaks wisely about being human.

Excerpt:  They squeezed into the Brine Room where the second graders had class. Miss Dewey forced a window shut on the noise, her blonde hair pulled back and her face a big bright wedge. A stuffy quiet took over, reeking of bleachy cheese. Clutching her Let’s Sing! keytar, Miss Dewey led the class in the Spirit Anthem, plunking at the red key, the yellow key, and the two invisible, soundless keys, until a water drop plopped from the ceiling to her head. “Oh, you!” she wailed, tossing her keytar to the floor.

Sylvie peered through the display window into the Pasteurization Room. She could see the kindergarteners still singing but couldn’t hear them through the glass.

            “Miss Dewey,” she said, “Did windmills kill the birds?”

 

Author bio: Sara Flood lives in the Washington, D.C. area, where she is an MFA candidate at George Mason University and Assistant Editor of AWP. She was recently awarded the Shelley A. Marshall Fiction Award, and was a finalist for the 2009 New Letters Alexander Patterson Cappon Prize for Fiction. Her work is forthcoming in the Santa Monica Review.

 

Congratulations on jobs very well done, Kelly and Sara!

 

SUBMISSIONS: We’re currently accepting work! Fire away! And keep in mind that all subscribers get a nice little carrot. Also, sometime soon, we’ll announce details about our next contests in fiction and poetry.

 

Our Upcoming Issue . . .

. . . will feature, aside from the complete Josh-Prize winning poem and story, a smattering of fantastic fiction and poetry that will be as strong (if not STRONGER) than the excellent work featured in issue #11, as well as an in-depth critical retrospective looking at the works of celebrated author Margaret Atwood.

(For this you should be as excited as we are excited.)

 

PRISM REVIEW . . . reviewed  

Issue 11 has been reviewed by New Pages, that sparkling bastion of literary journal reviewdom in the sea of literary journals. The review is generous and kind. Check it out!

(#11 was also reviewed by The Review-Review in a hilariously snarky way. Like Epoch, The Mississippi Review, Inkwell, upstreet, and Kenyon, we're "So-So," not to mention "quirky." The review doesn't do justice to the excellent pieces in Issue 11 (our Samples make this obvious), and while it doesn't seem the reviewer has much exposure to contemporary poetry, taste is subjective, that's cool, and hey, it's fun to read about ourselves in the vast ether of the internet. There's something soul-soothing in knowing one virtually exists. Thanks, Vince, and thanks, The Review-Review.)

 

About Us

Published by the University of La Verne, PRISM REVIEW is an annual journal of well-crafted contemporary poetry, fiction, and creative non-fiction from established and emerging writers. Alongside its literary works, PRISM REVIEW also publishes interviews with relevant authors and reviews of contemporary works, giving readers the chance to peer through a variety of lenses at the present and future worlds of literature.

Our most recent issue of PRISM REVIEW (#11) features interviews with award-winning poet Neil Aitken (The Lost Country of Sight), author Jane Austen (Northhanger Abbey), contemporary reviews, and of course a sterling collection of intelligent, pee-your-pants funny, and breath-catching stories and poems from both first-time and well-established writers of national and international backgrounds. Please browse the Samples link to get a taste.

Contact Email:     PRISMREVIEW(at)LAVERNE(dot)EDU
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