Next Wednesday, June 1, from 7:00-8:30pm, Pen and Brush will host its most recent reading from their curated series “Pen and Brush Presents…” with Augury’s Carey McHugh representing Augury Books. Other readers will include Laura Sims (Ugly Ducking Presse) and Jennifer L. Knox (Bloof Books). Admission is free and open to the public. Refreshments will be served, and copies of books will be available for purchase and signing. We hope to see you there!

For more information, please see the Facebook event.

Jennifer L. Knox is reading on behalf of Bloof Books. The New York Times Book Review wrote that her new book, Days of Shame and Failure, “hits, with deceptive ease, all the poetic marks a reader could want: intellectual curiosity, emotional impact, beautiful language, surprising revelation and arresting imagery.” Jennifer is the author of four books of poems; her work has appeared four times in the Best American Poetry series as well as The New York Times, The New Yorker, American Poetry Review, McSweeney’s, and Bomb. She teaches at Iowa State University.

Carey McHugh‘s poems have appeared or are forthcoming in Boston Review, Denver Quarterly, Gulf Coast, and Tin House. Her chapbook Original Instructions for the Perfect Preservation of Birds &c. was selected by Ray Armantrout for the Poetry Society of America’s 2008 New York Chapbook Fellowship. She lives and works in Manhattan. She is reading on behalf of Augury Books.

Laura Sims is the author of Staying Alive (Ugly Duckling Presse, 2016). Her first book, Practice, Restraint, was the winner of the 2005 Fence Books Alberta Prize, and in 2006 she was awarded a US-Japan Creative Artists Fellowship. In 2014 she edited Fare Forward: Letters from David Markson, a book of her correspondence with the celebrated experimental novelist. Her poems have recently appeared in Black Clock, Colorado Review, Denver Quarterly, Eleven Eleven and Gulf Coast. Sims has been a featured writer for the Poetry Foundation’s Harriet blog, and a co-editor of Instance Press since 2009. She teaches literature and creative writing at NYU-SPS. Laura is reading on behalf of Ugly Duckling Presse.

This reading series is curated by Kate Angus for Pen and Brush (www.penandbrush.org). For over 122 years, Pen and Brush has been the only international nonprofit organization offering an outlet for women in both the literary and visual arts in the city of New York.

VIDA: Women in Literary Arts has recently announced its budget for the year. VIDA, like many small organizations and nonprofits, operates partially as a result of its donors. This means that any contribution, no matter how small, is the reason they can keep doing work that we hope will one day benefit the entire literary community. From publishing emerging women’s voices to organizing events across the country and starting the VIDA Count, they are committed to breaking down gender disparities and building new, tangible realities in the arts and beyond. VIDA says of The Count:

Each year, volunteers from across the country dedicate thousands of combined hours to perform an arduous task: we manually, painstakingly tally the gender disparity in major literary publications and book reviews.

We break down thirty-nine literary journals and well-respected periodicals, tallying genre, book reviewers, books reviewed, and journalistic bylines to offer an accurate assessment of the publishing world.

We were not surprised to find that men dominate the pages of venues that are known to further one’s career.

The VIDA Count, annual since 2010, has not only effected change in the publishing industry, but has also created a strong community of writers and advocates who stand with us. There is much more work to be done.

If you’re unable to donate to VIDA, please consider sharing their project with others, or even volunteering.

Augury’s Founding Editor Kate Angus has been hard at work on her debut book of poems, forthcoming from Negative Capability Press on June 1. We would love to see you at her launch party on Friday, May 6th at Pen and Brush. Details are below, and more can be found on the Facebook event.

Sarah Lawrence College recently announced an exciting collaboration with Mayapple Center for the Arts and Humanities, an arts retreat outside of New York City whose focus on sustainability and mindfulness they hope to bring to a weeklong intensive on creative social transformation. The first workshop, which will take place from June 12-June 19, 2016, is titled ““How Can Artists and Scholars Respond to Climate Change?” and will offer concentrations in Visual Arts, Poetry, or Music, with opportunities to work across disciplines. The program will culminate with an exhibit, reading, and performance showcasing students’ work.

For more information on the program, tuition, and how to apply, head over to Sarah Lawrence’s Center for Continuing Education & Professional Studies.

Big Other‘s recent blog post entitled “Most Anticipated Small Press Books of 2016” features three Augury names among a body of work recently published by independent presses. Arisa White‘s you’re the most beautiful thing that happened, Sara Schaff‘s Say Something Nice About Me, and Augury Editor Kate Angus’ So Late to the Party were all mentioned on the list.

Head over to Big Other to read about these and many other titles to look for this year.

Small Press Distribution recently released their January-March 2016 Bestseller List, with Randall Horton’s Hook taking the #1 spot among many great small presses.

Hook can be purchased through Small Press Distribution via Amazon.

Xavier Review, of Xavier University in New Orleans, is currently accepting submissions for forthcoming issues. All submissions are welcomed, but the magazine has historically devoted itself to discovering writers interested in the American South, New Orleans, the Gulf and Caribbean sphere, African American culture, ethnography, and religion. Recent issues include work from Rodney Jones, Salgado Maranhão, Laurie Filipelli, A. Loudermilk, Julia Story, Gregory Lawless, and others. All submissions, comments, and questions should be sent to Ralph Adamo at radamo@xula.edu.

On Monday, April 11, 2016, join Augury Books for a launch of Alicia Jo Rabins‘ Divinity School at Unnameable Books in Prospect Heights. The event will begin at 7pm, featuring readings by Rabins as well as Augury authors Joe Pan, Frances Justine Post, and Augury’s founding editor, Kate Angus. All are invited for a night in celebration of literature and good company. See the Facebook event for more information.

Alicia Jo Rabins is a poet, composer, musician, and Torah scholar. She was born in Oregon and grew up in Baltimore and New York City. Alicia’s poems appear in Ploughshares, American Poetry Review, 6×6, The Boston Review, and elsewhere. She teaches ancient Jewish texts to children and adults and performs internationally as a violinist and singer. Alicia lives in Portland, Oregon with her husband, daughter, and son.

Joe Pan is the author of two collections of poetry, Hiccups (Augury Books) and Autobiomythography & Gallery (BAP). He is the publisher and managing editor of Brooklyn Arts Press, serves as the poetry editor for the arts magazine Hyperallergic and small press editor for Boog City, and is the founder of the services-oriented activist group Brooklyn Artists Helping. His piece “Ode to the MQ-9 Reaper,” a hybrid work about drones, was excerpted and praised in The New York Times. In 2015 Joe participated in the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council’s Process Space artist residency program on Governors Island. Joe attended the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, grew up along the Space Coast of Florida, and now lives in Williamsburg, Brooklyn.

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 & Commentary, Boston Review, Denver Quarterly, The Kenyon Review Online, The Massachusetts Review, Pleiades, Western Humanities Review, and others. Originally from Sullivan’s Island, SC, she received her MFA from Columbia University and her PhD in Creative Writing from the University of Houston. She lives in the Hudson Valley of NY.

Kate Angus is a founding editor of Augury Books. Her poetry and nonfiction have appeared in a number of literary journals and anthologies, including Indiana Review, Subtropics, Court Green, Verse Daily, The Awl, The Rumpus, Best New Poets 2 and Best New Poets 2014. She is a recipient of the “Orlando” prize from the A Room of Her Own Foundation, as well as Southeastern Review’s Narrative Nonfiction prize and American Literary Review’s award for Creative Nonfiction. A former Writer in Residence at Interlochen Arts Academy, she has also received residencies from the Writer’s Room at the Betsy Hotel in South Beach, the Wildfjords trail in Westfjords, Iceland, and the BAU Institute in Otranto, Italy. She is a Creative Writing Advisory Board Member for the Mayapple Center for Arts and Humanities and a Guest Literary Arts Curator for the nonprofit arts organization Pen and Brush, where she curates the “Pen and Brush Presents…” reading series. Her collection, So Late to the Party, is forthcoming in Spring 2016 from Negative Capability Press.

You didn’t need to understand the intricacies of a relationship to feel the weight of those final words.

A project by Isabella Giancarlo, “Eat Your Heart Out” has been getting a lot of attention this week—and for good reason. On her website, Giancarlo describes the project as “…a series of words remembered from break-ups reimagined as something sweet.” We spoke with Giancarlo recently about her fascinating and tender medium.

What was the catalyst for “Eat Your Heart Out”? Had it been a long time in the works or was it created on a whim?

For me, a loss of appetite typically accompanies the end of a relationship. This is always particularly distressing, as I’m a voracious eater and cook.  After a break-up last spring, seven words sat with me that I couldn’t shake. I thought about ways to reclaim that phrase. How could I sweeten words that initially took my appetite away?

I asked friends for their heartbreak quotes and felt those familiar pangs. You didn’t need to understand the intricacies of a relationship to feel the weight of those final words. I’ve taken the last few months to collect my favorite quotes, decide which desserts would best accompany each quote, and finalize my aesthetic vision.

The incorporation of prose onto pastries is an interesting medium. What would you like the viewer to glean when seeing bittersweet messages superimposed on something comforting?

I hope the project says: Go ahead. Gorge. Engage with the uncomfortable, sticky feelings of a broken heart that are so often dismissed as self-indulgent.

Are these musings all your own, or are they a collection from friends and strangers?

Quotes came from my own experiences, those of close friends and, now, I’ve received a flurry from strangers via the submission form on my website.  It’s been humbling to have people willing to share their vulnerable parts and it has made the process feel even more intimate and collaborative.

Do you hope to expand “Eat Your Heart Out” and/or do you have other projects planned?

I’m flirting with the idea of doing large-scale prints and/or a small book.  I will definitely continue taking submissions and baking for the project, as well as experimenting with GIFs.

To submit your own quote from a breakup, head over to Giancarlo’s submission form. You just might end up becoming her new muse.

Gold Line Press recently shared their 2015 selections for both the poetry and fiction chapbook competitions. Among the group of finalists was Sara Schaff, with her chapbook Incomplete Like Her.

Incomplete Like Her features two short stories–”When I Was Young and Swam to Cuba” and “Marie and Parker Threw a Party”–both of which appear in Say Something Nice About Me, Schaff’s forthcoming short story collection which we will publish later this fall.

Head over to Gold Press to read about the other finalists of both poetry and prose.