Posts tagged: Literary Journals

Received: Hawk & Handsaw

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By Simmons Buntin, June 23, 2009 6:56 pm

Terrain.org recently received:

Unity College, Maine
Editor, Kathryn Miles

Hawk & Handsaw is a handsome new, full-color journal published once a year that offers “works of art from established and emerging writers dedicated to a specific facet of environmental sustainability. The plurality of voices within each issue reveals the range of perspectives and practices as well as the richness that a sustainable life affords.” Work includes nonfiction, fiction, poetry, and art.
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From the editor:
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“Like Shakespeare’s Hamlet, the contributors to Hawk & Handsaw know which way the wind blows. They know that a sustainable lifestyle can be messy and meaningful, that it requires reflection, deep philosophical commitment and, more often than not, a good sense of humor. To this end, Hawk & Handsaw celebrates the thinking and reflection that ground sustainable practices and practitioners.”
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The new issue, the journal’s second, is beautiful both in scope and production, and includes work by Scott Russell Sanders, Ann Fisher-Wirth, Kathryn Kiripatrick, Carolyln Kraus, Terrain.org editor Simmons B. Buntin, and many others. View the full table of contents here.
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How do you get your hands on this issue? Order a copy or subscribe online. You’ll be delighted once you receive your copy, as we were when we received ours.

categories Reviews | tags , , ,

The Uncertain Future of Isotope, and Ways to Help Out

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By Simmons Buntin, June 11, 2009 2:52 pm

As many of you know, we at Terrain.org are trying to help preserve Utah State University’s important literary journal Isotope: A Journal of Literary Nature and Science Writing, which faces elimination by the university.

With his permission, I’m posting editor Christopher Cokinos’s recent letter to Isotope contributors and subscribers:
Letter From the Editor:
Dear Isotope Reader,
We try to spare you from the day-to-day operations at Isotope and just have the magazine show up in your mailbox full of the unique writing and artwork that you love. But we’ve stayed quiet as long as we can. The state of the economy has caught up with Isotope, and the magazine’s future is uncertain–frankly, in peril.
Isotope receives funding from a variety of sources–subscriptions, donations, state and federal grants, Utah State University (USU)–but the bulk comes from the university. Deep budget cuts at USU have resulted in the loss of salary funds for our managing editor as well as the loss of some operating expenses, about an issue’s worth. These are critical funds for Isotope’s continued publication.
Please know that we are exploring every idea (cockamamie or otherwise) we can think of to keep Isotope alive, but we need your help. Our readers–You–are the reason Isotope exists and has been so successful. With every new or renewed subscription, with every letter or email or submission of your writing or artwork, you tell us that you like what we are doing and you want us to continue. We are deeply grateful for your interest and your support. Now we hope you are willing to do even more.
Here are some ways you can help:
Donations. Any amount helps. Cash donations will contribute to the publication of the next issue and will buy us time to put in place longer-term solutions. They also show the university the extent of reader support. Mail to Isotope, Dept of English, 3200 Old Main Hill, Logan, UT 84322-3200.
Words. University administration knows and values Isotope’s achievements–but it would be good for USU’s decision-makers to hear from our loyal and smart readers. From you. And right away! Please consider dropping a polite note of support to USU Provost Ray Coward and USU President Stan Albrecht, Old Main, USU, Logan, Utah 84322.
Thank you for considering taking some action on behalf of Isotope. Whatever you do, whatever you decide, we hope you will stay engaged in the decisions made in your communities–local to state to national to global–for we’re living in a time when citizen engagement can make an even bigger difference than in the recent past. We’ll keep you informed about Isotope’s future.
Sincerely,
Christopher Cokinos, Editor
Isotope: A Journal of Literary Nature and Science Writing

categories Play Your Part | tags , , ,

Culture and the Environment — A Conversation in Five Essays

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By Simmons Buntin, May 21, 2009 9:26 pm

If you haven’t yet seen it, then you need to do yourself a favor and head out to your local literary bookstore, or order online, the latest copy of The Georgia Review (Spring 2009).

Among many other outstanding contributions, it includes “Culture and the Environment — A Conversation in Five Essays:” Scott Russell Sanders (Simplicity and Sanity), Reg Saner (Sweet Reason, Global Swarming), David Gessner (Against Simplicity), Lauret Savoy (Pieces toward a Just Whole), and Alison Hawthorne Deming (Culture, Biology, and Emergence).

From The Georgia Review editor Stephen Corey’s introduction:

The keynote work, Scott Russell Sanders’s “Simplicity and Sanity,” puts forward a wide-ranging examination of humankind’s relationship to the natural world and argues for its radical overhaul.

Reg Saner’s “Sweet Reason, Global Swarming” embraces Sanders’ fears for the literal survival of the human race but gives the argument a different center — one that conjures a dark figure from all of our high school history classes, Thomas Malthus, whose lone claim to renown is a theory we have let slip into the background while confronting myriad more immediate-seeming dangers.

David Gessner then confronts Sanders with “Against Simplicity: A Few Words for Complexity, Slippiness and Joy,” claiming that his sometime-mentor/idol may be entering the fray with the wrong weapon in hand.

Lauret Edith Savoy, in “Pieces toward a Just Whole,” initially lauds Sanders’ position but concentrates the bulk of her essay on certain racial and economic factors that she believes are being overlooked in virtually all discussions of environmental catastrophe.

Alison Hawthorne Deming’s “Culture, Biology, Emergence,” the most sweeping of the five essays in this conjured five-way conversation, moves across eons of time and many disciplines of study to reach a conclusion that is, paradoxically, more desparate and more hopeful than those presented by her four compatriots.

If you are familiar with The Georgia Review (which has no relation to Terrain.org though many of the contributors mentioned above appear in our online pages), then you know that its contributions are of the highest quality. With this environmentally focused issue, the journal clarifies the focus by some of our foremost thinkers and writers, literary or otherwise.

We encourage you to check it out.

categories Reviews | tags , , , , , , ,

Terrain.org Makes Top 50 List

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By Simmons Buntin, March 2, 2009 4:27 am

Terrain.org: A Journal of the Built & Natural Environments was recently named to the “Top 50 Literary Magazines and Metazines” list by Web del Sol. View full list.

The criteria for judging are Non-Corporate, Brilliant + Dynamic Content, Long-Lasting, Cosmetically Efficient.

We’re delighted to make the cut, and hope that Terrain.org meets all of your criteria, as well!

categories Awards and Good Words | tags , , , ,

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