Our readers for the Augury Books & Friends Offsite AWP Reading

We’re so excited for the upcoming Augury Books & Friends offsite AWP reading/shindig in Seattle. We have a great list of readers (see below), each of whom will read briefly and then we will make new friends and maybe even fall in love during the post-reading mingling. The reading will be at Noble Neon, 3130 Airport Way S this Friday, February 28th from 7:30 until we all feel like going back to our hotels.  If you’ll be in Seattle, please join us!

Photo by Dave Bledsoe of FreeVerse Photography

Our readers (in alphabetical order) will be:

Maureen Alsop, author of MANTIC (Augury Books, 2012), has new poems appearing at Watershed Review, Citron Review and ditch.

Halina Duraj‘s stories have appeared in The Sun, The Harvard Review, FictionWitness, and other journals. She has an MA in creative writing from the University of California, Davis, and a PhD in literature and creative writing from the University of Utah. In 2012, she was a writer-in-residence at Hedgebrook, a women’s writing retreat on Whidbey Island, WA. She teaches at the University of San Diego, where she also directs the Lindsay J. Cropper Center for Creative Writing. She is the author of THE FAMILY CANNON (Augury Books, 2014), now available.

Alison Espach is the author of The Adults, a New York Times Editor’s Choice, a Wall Street Journal Top 10 Novel of the Year, and a “Barnes and Nobel Discover Great Writers” pick. Her other writing can be found in McSweeney’s, Five Chapters, Salon, The Daily Beast, Glamour, Writer’s Digest and other journals. Her short story “Someone’s Uncle” is available as an e-book through Scribner.

Lia Hall writes in neon. She co-founded Noble Neon illuminating words and shapes with noble gases. She teaches yoga and lives in the Old Rainier Brewery in Seattle. She received her MFA in Poetry at the New School in 2009.

Lauren Hunter is from North Carolina and lives in Brooklyn. She received her MFA in poetry from The New School and works with the team at Telephone Books as their Managing Editor. Lauren is the co-founder/curator of the Electric Pumas, a reading series/revolution in New York City. Her chapbook, My Own Fires, was released by Brothel Books in 2011.

Cynthia Lowen is an award-winning filmmaker, writer, and poet, and author of The Cloud That Contained the Lightning, winner of the 2012 National Poetry Series selected by Nikky Finney. Cynthia is the recipient of the 2013 Women Authoring Change Fellowship from William Morris Entertainment, the DuPont-Columbia University Awards for Excellence in Journalism, and the Discovery/Boston Review Poetry Prize, as well as residencies to The Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown, Hedgebrook, and Yaddo, among others. Cynthia is also the producer and writer of BULLY, a feature documentary film following five kids and families through “a year in the life” of America’s bullying crisis, which was released in theaters worldwide by The Weinstein Company. She lives in New York City.

Karyna McGlynn is the author of I Have to Go Back to 1994 and Kill a Girl, winner of the Kathryn A. Morton Prize from Sarabande Books, as well as two chapbooks. Her poems have recently appeared in Ploughshares, The Literary Review, Seattle Review, West Branch, Subtropics, and The Academy of American Poet’s Poem-A-Day. Karyna received her MFA from the University of Michigan, and is currently a PhD candidate in Literature & Creative Writing at the University of Houston. She is the Managing Editor of Gulf Coast and coordinator for the Houston Indie Book Fest and Gulf Coast Reading Series.

Patrick Moran is a 1995 graduate of the Iowa Writer’s Workshop. He is the author of four books of poetry, Tell A Pitiful Story, (MWPH, 2011), Doppelgangster (Main Street Rag Press, 2012), THE BOOK OF LOST THINGS, (Augury Books 2012), Rumors of Organized Crime, Poems & Plays’ 2013 Tennessee Chapbook Prize winner. He is also the author of “The Ampersand: Casual Vortex or Engraver’s Shortcut,” which appeared in the 2013 September issue of The Writer’s Chronicle. His poems and translations have appeared in many journals including the New Republic, The Antioch Review, The Prairie Schooner, The Southern Review and The Boston Review. He is currently an associate professor of creative writing at the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater.  His lives in Fort Atkinson, WI with his wife, the painter Bethann Moran, and their three children.

Frances Justine Post is the recipient of the “Discovery” / Boston Review Poetry Prize, the Inprint Paul Verlaine Poetry Prize, and the Amy Award from Poets & Writers. Her poems have appeared in American Letters & CommentaryBoston Review, Denver QuarterlyThe Kenyon Review Online, The Massachusetts ReviewPleiadesWestern Humanities Review, and others. Originally from Sullivan’s Island, SC, she received her MFA from Columbia University and is currently earning her PhD in Creative Writing at the University of Houston, where she is poetry editor for Gulf Coast Magazine. She is the author of BEAST (Augury Books, 2014), now available.

Alicia Jo Rabins is a poet and musician currently based in Portland, OR. Her work appears in American Poetry Review, 6×6, Boston Review, Court Green, Ploughshares and The Collagist.  She tours internationally with her band, Girls in Trouble, a song cycle about the complicated lives of Biblical women, and has performed fiddle music across Central America and Kuwait. Residencies and scholarships include Bread Loaf Writers Conference, Lower Manhattan Cultural Council, and Bucknell Seminar for Younger Poets

Camille Rankine is the author of Slow Dance with Trip Wire, selected by Cornelius Eady for the Poetry Society of America’s 2010 New York Chapbook Fellowship. The recipient of a 2010 “Discovery”/Boston Review Poetry Prize, her poetry has appeared in numerous journals, including American Poet, The Baffler, Boston Review, Denver Quarterly, Indiana Review, Octopus, Paper Darts, and  Tin House. She was selected for a MacDowell Colony Fellowship in 2013, and was named an Honorary Cave Canem Fellow in 2012. She is Assistant Director of the MFA Program in Creative Writing at Manhattanville College, Editorial Director of The Manhattanville Review, and lives in New York City.

Diana Spechler is the author of the novels Who by Fire (Harper Perennial, 2008) and Skinny (Harper Perennial, 2011). Her fiction and nonfiction have appeared in the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, Slate, Salon, O The Oprah Magazine, CNN Living, Paris Review, GQ, Esquire, Glimmer Train Stories, and Southern Review, among other publications; as well as in a number of anthologies, including, most recently, Sex Matters: The Sexuality and Society Reader (W.W. Norton, 2013) and True Tales of Lust and Love (Counterpoint/Soft Skull, 2014). She is the recipient of an MFA degree from the University of Montana, a Steinbeck Fellowship from San Jose State University, a LABA Fellowship from the 14th Street Y, residencies from the Anderson Center and Portsmouth Abbey School, and a fellowship from the Sozopol Fiction Seminars. She is also a six-time Moth StorySLAM winner whose stories have been featured on The Moth podcast and The Moth Radio Hour.

A poem by Patrick Moran

We’re happy to continue presenting work from our readers at the upcoming Augury Books & Friends offsite AWP reading/shindig in Seattle. The reading will be at Noble Neon, 3130 Airport Way S on Friday, February 28th from 7:30 until we all feel like going back to our hotels. If you’ll be in Seattle, please join us! Today’s poem is by Patrick Moran and is the title poem for The Book of Lost Things, winner of the first Augury Editors’ Prize.

Photo by Dave Bledsoe of FreeVerse Photography

The Book of Lost Things

In the book of lost things you appear on page twenty-

seven.

The text next to your picture doesn’t dwell on details

as much as it tries to capture a mood.

You also appear on page forty-one as a charm bracelet

and page ninety-nine as a tooled cowboy belt.

Read in quick succession the entries begin to form a

composite of a more expansive definition of loss.

The authors, as you would imagine, are a society of

scrupulously devoted ne’er-do-wells.

Inevitably, a significant portion of the Book of the Lost

is perceived as the Book of the Found.

This inherent duality creates cross-references problems

of nightmarish proportions.

Just think of it, on page three you and everyone you

know is missing a brain cell.

And on pages nine and ten your virginity smiles impishly

for the cameras.

from The Book of Lost Things, Augury Books Editors’ Prize Winner 2012, available for order here

Patrick Moran is a 1995 graduate of the Iowa Writer’s Workshop. He is the author of four books of poetry, Tell A Pitiful Story, MWPH, (2011), Doppelgangster, Main Street Rag Press, (2012), The Book of Lost Things, Augury Books, (2012), Rumors of Organized Crime, Poems & Plays’ 2013 Tennessee Chapbook Prize winner. He is also the author of “The Ampersand: Casual Vortex or Engraver’s Shortcut,” which appeared in the 2013 September issue of The Writer’s Chronicle. His poems and translations have appeared in many journals including the New Republic, The Antioch Review, The Prairie Schooner, The Southern Review and The Boston Review. He is currently an associate professor of creative writing at the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater.  His lives in Fort Atkinson, WI, with his wife, the painter Bethann Moran, and their three children.

Over 35% Off: End of Year Book Specials

This time of year, everyone is in the giving spirit. More importantly, everyone has various giftees they need to cross off of an ever-expanding list.

For a short time at a 35% discount, you can give the gift of poetry while supporting Augury Books and the literary arts. Expand your own collection or help beef up the bookshelves of your aspiring-writer niece or your poetry-loving boyfriend. Trying to think of an original gift for colleagues in your office that will entertain and impress? Voila.

For only $40, including shipping* — more than 35% off the regular price — get all four books:

Simply send $40 to augurybooks@gmail.com via PayPalinclude your full name and shipping address on the PayPal order to avoid delays, and your books will be shipped within 24 hours.**

Love the idea, but already have our catalogue? Bravo! You can still help spread literary cheer. Share this with friends and (continue to) support the arts.

As always, to keep receiving posts such as this, follow our blog by clicking in the bottom right corner of this page.

*International shipping not included in special. Please contact us for international shipping rates. Sorry, no Amazon orders for this special!
**For receipt before 12/25/13, place order before end of business day 12/19/13.

‘Wednesday’ by 2013 Poetry Finalist Tina Schumann

Photo by Dave Bledsoe, FreeVerse Photography

Wednesday

by Tina Schumann

Today I sat at my desk. Moved
a few books around. Thought of my demise.
Wrote a letter to a friend’s mother
thanking her for the Longfellow;
she’d heard I was a poet and naturally assumed.
I ate when my body said eat.
I drank water – cold and slick
it slipped down my throat.
I waited for the mailman
to walk up the steps. I heard his start
and stop, the lift and lowering
of the lid, the sharp turn of his boots
on dry leaves. I waited and he came.
I listened and he left. He and I
and the crows and the UPS man
and the kid down the street with the basketball
are all figures moved by instinct and need,
obligation, desire, and boredom. But I digress.
I picked the glass up, set the glass down,
stood up, walked the floor, looked out the window,
cursed the grass, and thought, thought, thought.
– never fully dormant, never fully engaged.
And all the while this is what the sign around my neck said:
If it rattles like a person than it is a person.


Tina Schumann’s work was a finalist in the National Poetry Series and Tupelo Press listed her full manuscript as a “remarkable work,” in their 2012 open submission period. Her chapbook “As If” (Split Oak Press) was awarded the Stephen Dunn Poetry Prize for 2010 and in 2011 her work received a Pushcart nomination. She holds an MFA from Pacific Lutheran University and her work has appeared in various publications and anthologies including The American Poetry Journal, Ascent, Cimarron Review, Crab Creek Review, Harpur PalatePALABRA, PARABOLA, PoemeleonRaven Chronicles, San Pedro River ReviewThe Midwest Quarterly, and The Yale Journal for Humanities in Medicine.

More From 2012 Editors’ Prize Finalist Nicholas Hite

Photo by: Dave Bledsoe of FreeVerse Poetry

His name really is Paul

Paul,

you were

a courtesy,

like hotel pillowmints

from God’s right hand:

like Jesus Christ

were a beautiful Hispanic maid.

&Paul,

you will recall

there was a period of time

in which I was

afraid of staircases and elevators;

for six months I lived my life horizontally;

I wish that time had been now

and that it had been you instead of me.

Paul,

the last time

you came home,

I hugged you

and for a moment,

I could feel the size of you.

I contained the entirety of your smallness.

________________________________________________________________________________________

Augury Introduces: Nicholas Hite is a 28-year-old attorney living in New Orleans with his vegan boyfriend, their blue-eyed dog, and a pet crawfish.

Another by Augury Finalist Nicholas Hite: "Not an oubliette but similar"

Photo by: Dave Bledsoe, FreeVerse Photography

Photo by: Dave Bledsoe, FreeVerse Photography

 

Not an oubliette but similar

 

The times the men of the family used to

go deep sea fishing in the Gulf

& the other times they went

camping on small islands in Minnesota:

the times that I grew fiercely aware of my penis

& what it was supposed to mean

between my legs there flaccid like a wet sock

but I knew from talk around campfires with cousins

that it was to one day fatten, to become a sizeable portion of me.

I learned to carry it like a promise to myself;

later, like a promise I wanted to break,

like a hard carnivorous curse demanding

the meat of other people. To break.

Trading my virginity for his on Tuesday,

2002, as if we were going to remember each other

forever. When he didn’t bleed I felt cheated

& I stopped eating meat because

to want blood, it’s too much.

Let me love someone without perforating them.

Let me be that hole that they fall into.

___________________________________________________________________________________________

Augury Introduces: Nicholas Hite is a 28-year-old attorney living in New Orleans with his vegan boyfriend, their blue-eyed dog, and a pet crawfish.

DON’T FORGET: Augury’s reading period is still open for another 10 days! Find out how to submit here.

Look Who We Discovered: A Poem by Nicholas Hite, 2012 Editors Prize Finalist

Photo by: Dave Bledsoe of FreeVerse Photography

A place of solidarity

The music of

there being

nothing else to say.

 

The lamplight is gold

in a way that only a joke

about doom could be gold.

 

Need can be so heavy.

 

“Oh,” he says.

“So you did meet Diane.

You met her at the wedding.”

Diane could right now be at a cocktail

party and things would

be the same.

I like however her hair

 

which is a mess of curls,

a toppled something.

 

There is a grammar and a syntax

to the aftermath. It consists of

certain configurations of the neck and shoulders;

of a way of moving which belies

how eager grief is for its own end;

a parse chainlink of circumlocution –

of where do you go and how is

the weather there; of wondering

if being the first to drink will make

you seem desperate and a target

for other mourners. Okay, we are

all hurting but not in your way;

 

in ways that are myriad and perverse,

like the spindle legs of the spider.

 

“Diane had never met him,”

he says, “but she is sure that

he was a good man. I’ve told her

as much myself.” The telling was a sham,

as were the casket and the eulogy; as is

the lamplight and the wanting to not need.

 

But there is this gravity of loss

in a way that suggests both heaviness

and attraction; the falling down and for.

Like when I forgot how to be hungry

for three months: those were

a good three months and I loved mirrors,

loved standing sideways in front of

them alone and pulling up my shirt

to watch what was once a beerbelly

wither; my ribcage a series of

enunciated erasure marks.

_____________________________________________________________________________________

Augury Introduces: Nicholas Hite is a 28-year-old attorney living in New Orleans with his vegan boyfriend, their blue-eyed dog, and a pet crawfish.

DON’T FORGET: Augury’s reading period is currently OPEN through June 30, 2013, for poetry and short story books. Find out how to submit here.

PHOTOS: Launch Party Loveliness

Thanks to all of you who made Augury Books’ launch party on Monday night a huge success. Here are a few highlights from the wonderful readings offered by Maureen Alsop, author of Mantic, and David Joel Friedman, author of Soldier Quick with Rain and the winner of our 2012 Editors Prize. Thanks also to Mark Connell and Botanica Bar, and our fabulous photographer, Dave Bledsoe of FreeVerse Photography. To order the new titles by Alsop and Friedman, click here.

Save the Date: Feb 25th Launch Party for Books by David Joel Friedman and Maureen Alsop

We know how much you love poems, new books, and looking forward to stuff, so we wanted you to be the first to know about our upcoming launch party on Monday, February 25, 2013. We will be celebrating (and selling!) the brand-new, hot-off-the-presses Soldier Quick with Rain by David Joel Friedman, the winner of this year’s Editor Prize, and Mantic by Maureen Alsop.

We promise poetry readings, drink specials, friendly faces, handshakes, hugs and … did we mention NEW BOOKS? … all in the cozy back room of Botanica Bar on Houston Street in Manhattan at 6:30 p.m. You can RSVP to our Facebook invitation.

While you’re at it, Like us on Facebook to continue receiving updates, and, if you’re feeling really ambitious, you can follow this WordPress blog by clicking in the right corner below and stay informed that way.

We would also like to extend another mammoth and monolithic thank you to anyone and everyone who supported these books and other upcoming Augury endeavors during our Indiegogo campaign, be it with donations, word-of-mouth, moral support or good vibes. You are dazzling and darling individuals.

To pre-order Soldier Quick with Rain and Mantic, click here. RSVP to our book launch party on Facebook here.