Reading Period Closed—Thank you for sending us your work!

From ‘France in the year 2000,’ courtesy of the Public Domain Review

Thank you very much to everyone who sent your work to us for consideration for 2016 publication, and those of you who helped spread the word and share with your friends and writing contacts.

We will be posting updates later this year after we consider everyone’s work. Follow our blog, like us on Facebook, or follow us on Twitter for updates on finalists and publication selections.

Halina Duraj at the Federal Dust Reading Series

Halina Duraj, author of The Family Cannon (Augury Books, 2014), will be reading at the Federal Dust Reading Series on August 1st. Hosted by Matthew Zingg, the event will take place at Litmore in Baltimore, Maryland. Authors featured during this event include Eric NelsonAlicia Puglionesi, and Michael B. Tager. For more details, see the reading series’ site!

More on THE FAMILY CANNON

 

Only one more day left in our open reading period for poetry and prose!

Submit now via Submittable, and thank you for your interest in Augury Books!

Three Days Left to Send Us Your Work!

From Richard Dadd, The Fairy Feller’s Master-Stroke courtesy of the Public Domain Review

Just three more days left in our reading period! We are still accepting full-length manuscripts in the categories of poetry and prose—prose being short fiction collections or creative nonfiction essay collections. Find our detailed submission guidelines and easily submit your work—all by clicking on this Submittable link.

Thanks to all of you who have already shared your work with us, and thanks in advance to those who will be polishing up those manuscripts in these next three days to send to us. We can’t wait to read your manuscripts!

For automatic updates on this and other events, just follow this blog by clicking on the “Follow” prompt when you roll over the lower right corner. We’ll keep you posted on our selections for 2016 publication and share excerpts from our finalist manuscripts.

Have friends who might want to submit? Let them know!

 

Augury Books Partners With Literary Hub

A detail from “Shells and other Marine Life from Albertus Seba’s Cabinet of Natural Curiosities (1734),” courtesy of the Public Domain Review

Augury is excited to announce our new partnership with Literary Hub! A joint project of Grove Atlantic and Electric Literature, LitHub works with publishers, bookstores, journals, and non-profits to bring together online literary content, providing a platform for smart and engaging writing regarding all things books. Learn more about LitHub here.

Only four more days left in our open reading period for poetry and prose!

Submit now via Submittable, and thank you for your interest in Augury Books!

Augury Books at the 5th Annual New York City Poetry Festival

The New York City Poetry Festival, put on by the Poetry Society of New York , will celebrate its 5th year on July 25th and 26th, with two full days of readings on three stages at Governors Island. This year’s line up includes Augury’s own Joe Pan  (Hiccups, 2015) and Carey McHugh (American Gramophone, 2015), as well as Nick Flynn, Amanda Smeltz, and Kiki Black, among many others. McHugh and Pan will be reading Saturday, 12 PM at the Algonquin Stage.

Join the festival both Saturday and Sunday between 11 AM to 6 PM, with a Vendor’s Village of booksellers, artists and craft makers, and food truck catering. Admission is free — don’t miss out!

Check out the Festival’s website for a full line up of each day, directions, and any additional info.

 

Augury’s Reading Period Is Open for Prose and Poetry May 1 – July 31, 2015:

Submit now via Submittable, and thank you for your interest in Augury Books!

Book Cover Debut: Randall Horton’s ‘Hook’

Hook cover

Original Cover Art by Michael Miller

Augury Books is excited to join Randall Horton and designer Michael Miller in unveiling the cover art for the upcoming Hook (2015).

Hook: A Memoir is a gripping story of transformation. Without excuse or indulgence, author and educator Randall Horton explores his downward spiral from unassuming Howard University undergraduate to homeless drug addict, international cocaine smuggler, and incarcerated felon—before showing us the redemptive role that writing and literature played in helping him reclaim his life. The multilayered narrative bridges past and present through both the vivid portrayal of Horton’s singular experiences and his correspondence in letters with the anonymous Lxxxx, a Latina woman awaiting trial. Hook explores race and social construction in America, the forgotten lives within the prison industrial complex, and the resilience of the human spirit.

Read author bio and praise for Hook.

Augury’s Reading Period Is Open for Prose and Poetry May 1 – July 31, 2015:

Submit now via Submittable, and thank you for your interest in Augury Books!

Half a Month Remaining in our Reading Period!

A detail from Journey from Venice to Palestine, Mount Sinai and Egypt (ca. 1467), courtesy of the Public Domain Review

We have just half a month left to our reading period, which is still open through July 31, 2015. We are currently accepting full-length manuscripts in the categories of poetry and prose. You can view our submission guidelines and send your work for consideration on Submittable.

Thanks to all of you in advance for sharing your work with us, and thanks to those who have already submitted their work this summer!

For automatic updates on this and other important Augury announcements, follow our Blog. Just click the “Follow” prompt when you roll over the lower right corner.

BEAST Wins WLT Book Award for Poetry

Frances Justine Post‘s BEAST (Augury Books, 2014) has been selected as this year’s Poetry Winner at the Writer’s League of Texas Book Awards! Formerly known as the Violet Crown Book Awards, the contest recognizes outstanding work published by writers based in Texas.

Founded in 1981, the WLT focuses on providing information, support and sharing among writers. WLT also offers free programming in libraries and local schools across the state.

For a full list of winners and finalists, see the WLT’s site.

More on BEAST

Augury’s Reading Period Is Open for Prose and Poetry May 1 – July 31, 2015:

Submit now via Submittable, and thank you for your interest in Augury Books!

INTERVIEW: Geoffrey Nutter on Teaching Poetry

Autumn by Robert Walrond, courtesy of the Public Domain Review

Friend of Augury Geoffrey Nutter (The Rose of January, Wave Books, 2013) has long been hosting poetry seminars in Upper Manhattan. Nutter recently took some time to sit down with Augury intern Emily Kaufman to talk about his current classes at the home of Wallson Glass, among other things.

Emily: Being a writer yourself, what prompted you to begin teaching? What value do you find in teaching creative writing? 

Geoffrey: I love talking about poetry with other poets. I think it’s important for a teacher of poetry to help poets gain a sense that they are, as my old friend Matthew Rohrer puts it, “surrounded by friends.” Not only fellow poets, but the fellow poets of the past and present, famous or otherwise. These are our kindred spirits.

Poets are often intimidated or alienated by the feeling that the poet has no place in our society. It’s a strange predicament, being in love with something that is so exalted on the one hand, and yet whose value is so questioned by the society we are a part of. It even causes us, the poets, to question our own value. It’s a predicament that merits thought and discussion–but one that I think creative writing study can help poets overcome.

Emily: What do you feel is the most important element in teaching poetry? 

Geoffrey: The making of poems involves radical freedom–the freedom to experiment with form, experiment with language, experiment with self and consciousness, and push these experiments to extremes in order to create experiences and bring them to a consummation. Part of what excites me about teaching is how it enables me to guide other poets through experiments that will help disclose some of poetry’s world-making possibilities.
Emily: What do you hope your students will get out of your classes?

Geoffrey: Poems! And the willingness to take poetic risks; a broadened sense of how poems can be made; fellowship with other poets and kindred spirits; and faith in the powers of poetry and a renewed sense of how poetry does what nothing else is able to do.

Basho was a great teacher of poetry in 17th century Japan. He urged students to try to identify closely with the things of the world, to feel a direct sympathy with them to the point of inhabiting them through imaginative projection. (Keats was able to achieve something of this sort as well–it’s reported that when he saw the wind sweeping through a field of grain, his body would start swaying imitatively). Language is the point of physical identity between the observer and the observed (whether the thing observed is something in the objective world we move through, or something in the objective world of the imagination {yes, itself an objective world}), which is where the idea of precision becomes so important. But language is also, of course, how we discover what we observe. We move through language toward discovery–not the other way around.

I also hope the people who study poetry with me come away with an awareness of something that John Dewey expresses so beautifully: that poems “do not seem to come from the self, because they issue from a self not consciously known.”

Emily: Your classes in the past have generally had a clear direction or focus. What do your upcoming classes focus on?     

Geoffrey: In the coming months I’m going to continue doing what Wallson Glass has been doing: many, many writing exercises in each session that experiment with different ways of using language and looking at things. Classes so far have been very productive, the energy very high and intense, and the quality of the writing exceptional. Many participants have published books, and many go on to publish poems that they write during our sessions. So the classes have been attracting amazing writers.

And look for an all-night writing session soon, and a late-night writing session at a restaurant in Koreatown in the coming months!

I will also have some six-week workshops happening beginning in September. And since I’ve started to have numerous students from out of state, I’m working on a week-long residency for Summer 2016. Keep checking back!

Emily: What encouraged you to pursue writing originally, as opposed to engaging in a different career path?

Geoffrey: I probably started writing poems for the same reason most (or many) people start: to figure something out, and set that “figuring out” into motion. To hear what the self sounds like when it’s trying to figure things out, in a way that makes that self seem surprising and new.

When I was younger, I found it extremely encouraging when a friend would read a poem I wrote and tell me that it was interesting or beautiful or striking. And that’s still the case. Don’t all poets feel this way? I assume so, which is why it’s so important for me, as a teacher of poetry, to be attentive to the unique and amazing things that fellow poets are setting into motion in their poems.

 

For more information on Geoffrey’s classes (and to read some of his poetry) check out his site!

 

Augury’s Reading Period Is Open for Prose and Poetry May 1 – July 31, 2015:

Submit now via Submittable, and thank you for your interest in Augury Books!

Kate Angus Guest Authoring at Best American Poetry

CHEMICAL PLANTS ON SHORE ARE CONSIDERED PRIME SOURCE OF POLLUTION by Marc St. Gil. Source: National Archives and Records Administration, College Park

Our editor Kate Angus will be guest authoring posts at Best American Poetry’s blog through Friday. Today’s post discusses the indirect burden of writing residencies, and how they might make one rethink their day-to-day creative process. Take a look and follow here!

Augury’s Reading Period Is Open for Prose and Poetry May 1 – July 31, 2015:

Submit now via Submittable, and thank you for your interest in Augury Books!