June 16, 2014 by augurybooks

The Salt Lake Tribune Talks to Halina Duraj About THE FAMILY CANNON

Halina Duraj, author of THE FAMILY CANNON

Halina Duraj’s THE FAMILY CANNON (Augury Books, 2014) was recently featured in the Salt Lake Tribune, along with four other new books with Utah-related storylines and themes. The Tribune writes of Duraj:

“While living in Utah, Duraj says her writing was influenced by the drama of the desert landscape and local landmarks, such as the Oquirrh Mountains, which for a time she thought were named for the color ochre. ‘All that subtly influenced the way I was writing, which became more spare,’ she says. Her stories are carefully observed, never overexplained, while the language is both playful and precise. The collection’s final story, ‘The Company She Keeps,’ is searingly honest and particularly heartbreaking.”

See the full article here.

PICS & VIDEO: "Bonus Round" at Fowler Project Space

Last week, Luke Degnan and BOMB Magazine put on the reading, Bonus Round, a final event in the Game Show exhibition at Fowler Project Space in Greenpoint, Brooklyn. The reading included poetry and fiction by presenters Frances Justine Post (BEAST, Augury, 2014), Jack Christian, Michael Coffey, Vincent Katz, and Micaela Morrissette. The exhibition itself displayed work spanning several mediums by Ted Carey, Susan Fang, Kurt Freyer, Elizabeth Hoy, Shanjana Mahmud, Emilie Selden, and Cecelia Post. Enjoy the video and photos documenting the night’s events.

Frances Justine Post reads “Heart Hunted” (Video: Cecelia Post):

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Sarah Gerard of BOMB Magazine and Luke Degnan introduce. Photo: Frances Justine Post

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Michael Coffey reads from his forthcoming story collection, The Business of Naming Things (Bellevue Literary Press, 2015). Photo: Frances Justine Post

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Vincent Katz prepares to read in front of a video piece at Fowler. Photo: Frances Justine Post

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Jack Christian reads new work. Photo: Frances Justine Post

B.C. Edwards To Launch "From the Standard Cyclopedia of Recipes"

From the Standard Cyclopedia of Recipes by B.C. Edwards, Black Lawrence Press, 2014

We’re happy to announce that tomorrow night is the launch for B.C. Edwards’ (To Mend Small Children, Augury, 2012) first full-length poetry collection. Edwards will be reading with Amy Lawless and Angelo Nikolopoulos at Berl’s Poetry Shop in Brooklyn to usher in From the Standard Cyclopedia of Recipes (Black Lawrence Press, 2014). The event will be hosted by Bernard J. Kravitz. See the Facebook event page to RSVP and Berl’s blog post for more details.

June 10, 2014 by augurybooks

Halina Duraj's "The Family Cannon" Reviewed in Quarterly West

“Time in The Family Cannon,” by Shena McAuliffe, from Quarterly West issue 82

Quarterly West is a literary journal put together by the PhD writing program at the University of Utah. The most recent issue houses a review of Halina Duraj’s The Family Cannon (Augury, 2014) by Shena McAuliffe, who has detailed time and possession of memory in Duraj’s book graphically (chronology pictured above). McAuliffe relishes the emotional weight that Duraj’s stories hold:

“At the end of each story, I had to take a break before moving on to the next—a break from the disappointed desires, the steadfast self-sacrificing mother, the madness and the ghosts, the struggle to remember, to say things just as they should be said. In the end, what is most striking about Duraj’s book is how it moved me; it exhausted me in the way that a good story should.”

Alongside McAuliffe’s review in the summer issue is a creative nonfiction piece by Augury editor Kate Angus. Read both and learn more about the journal at the Quarterly West website.

Kate Angus Guest-Blogs for Best American Poetry

The Best American Poetry, 2013

Augury editor Kate Angus is guest-blogging for the Best American Poetry blog this week. Check out today’s post on translation. A new post will go up daily throughout the week on an array of topics, including the importance of secrets, mentoring, using the second person, as well as a surprise.

See Kate’s first post on translation here.

June 6, 2014 by augurybooks

June 7: Frances Justine Post Reads at Fowler Project Space in Brooklyn

Photo by Ted Carey via Fowler Project Space

Frances Justine Post (BEAST, 2014) will be reading on Saturday, June 7th at 6 p.m. at the Fowler Project Space in Brooklyn. The reading, “Bonus Round,” organized by Luke Degnan and sponsored by BOMB Magazine, is the culminating event in the month-long Fowler “Game Show” exhibition, which “examines how the games we play mirror the human condition.” The exhibition includes video, installation, sculpture, photography, and collage by featured artists Ted Carey, Susan Fang, Kurt Freyer, Elizabeth Hoy, Shanjana Mahmud, Emilie Selden, and BEAST cover artist Cecelia Post.

For the Bonus Round reading, Justine Post will be joined by Jack Christian (FAMILY SYSTEM), Michael Coffey (ELEMENOPY and 87 NORTH, Coffee House Press), poet and critic Vincent Katz, and author and Conjunctions managing editor Micaela Morrissette.

Don’t miss Bonus Round and the last night of the Game Show exhibition! Find out all you need to know about the event and the readers here on Fowler’s site.

American Book Review: Daniel J. Leary ‘Experiences’ David Joel Friedman’s SOLDIER QUICK WITH RAIN

Photo by Dave Bledsoe of Free Verse Photography

In the latest issue of the American Book Review, Daniel J. Leary talks about David Joel Friedman‘s SOLDIER QUICK WITH RAIN in his review “Promising Green Bear.” Leary says of reading Friedman’s book:

I made the mistake I warned you about … the misstep of trying to understand before experiencing … [until] I stopped shoving the stuff through the rational processor and let it flow through the prism of my imagination as I should have done to begin with.”

Leary encourages Friedman’s readers to open themselves up to a similar experience:

I want to entangle your attention, leave you befuddled, get you to experience what David Joel Friedman is doing ….”

Read the whole review by Daniel Leary via the American Book Review here.

PICS: Frances Justine Post Reads for Sundown Poetry Series, Offers Publication Advice as Gulf Coast Guest Blogger

Last Tuesday, Frances Justine Post (BEAST, Augury Books, 2014) read in Charleston, SC, at the Piccolo Spoleto Festival with South Carolina Poet Laureate Marjory Heath Wentworth. The reading, part of the Sundown Poetry Series, was held at the historic Dock Street Theater. Thanks to everyone who came out to enjoy the reading. Here are some pics from the event.

Outside the Dock Street Theater (Photo by Cecelia Post)

The crowd settles in for the Piccolo Spoleto Reading (Photo by Cecelia Post)

Frances Justine Post reads from BEAST (Photo by Cecelia Post)

Frances Justine Post signs books after the Sundown Poetry Series reading (Photo by Susan Laughter Meyers)

Frances Justine Post with South Carolina Poet Laureate Marjory Heath Wentworth (Photo by Susan Laughter Meyers)

Also, don’t miss out on Post’s three-part blog series for Gulf Coast, “My First Book of Poetry, or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Independent Presses,” in which she talks about writing her first book of poetry, the road to getting published, and how an independent press can be just the answer an author is looking for:

Independent poetry presses are publishing the most daring, mind-blowing work. As a whole, they are not concerned with making money like the publishing behemoths of yore. They are interested in finding voices that speak to them. One of those voices may be yours.” —Frances Justine Post’s Blog Series for Gulf Coast, Part II.

Read Part I of the blog series (Putting Your Manuscript Together) here.

Read Part II (Submitting Your Manuscript) here.

Read Part III (Where to Submit) here.

Support the PEN/Faulkner Foundation, Bringing Literature to Public Classrooms

The PEN/Faulkner Foundation is running a DonateNow campaign for contributions of any size to help support their annual award for fiction, their public reading series, and the Writers in Schools Program, which brings writers and over 1,800 copies of their books to the classrooms of D.C. public schools.

PEN/Faulkner’s mission is to promote literature in the classroom by way of adequate writing materials, new books, and author visits for high school students. Recently, Karen Joy Fowler was awarded the 34th PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction, and Joan Silber was invited to talk with northeast D.C. students about writing.

The foundation’s initiatives are funded in large part by donations, and PEN/Faulkner Foundation is a registered 501(c)(3) non-profit organization, so contributions are tax-deductible.

Visit this link for more information on the PEN/Faulkner Foundation, or click here to go directly to the donation page. As friends of the foundation, we greatly applaud any support you are able to give.

Augury Books’ reading period is open — Submit your manuscript!

May 28, 2014 by augurybooks

PICS: Maureen Alsop Wins Tony Quagliano International Poetry Award, Reads at Berl’s in Brooklyn

Augury’s own Maureen Alsop (MANTIC, Augury Books, 2013) is the new recipient of the Tony Quagliano International Poetry Award, which, in conjunction with the Hawai’i Council for the Humanities (HCH), annually recognizes an accomplished poet with an outstanding body of work. HCH and Tony shared the vision that:

“the words we know, all the words we have acquired along the ways of connecting them in all our respective cultures, are nothing less than the irreducible expression of a singular nature we call human.” —Tony Quagliano

Poet Devreaux Baker, last year’s winner of the Tony Quagliano Award and primary judge for this year, had this to say about Maureen Alsop’s work:

“Maureen Alsop creates a world where language and rhythm form a perfect ‘fusion.’ This poetry that is both inventive and elegant and yet never loses emotional depth…. As a reader I felt I was being taken on an extraordinary journey in which I was offered new and unexpected ways to experience the world. Throughout all the poems there is the underlying beauty of expression; a sense of real joy that is felt by a poet pushing the limits, bypassing boundaries, creating whole new territories of the mind, heart, and voice.”

Also this week, more pictures from Maureen’s recent reading with fellow writers Julie Carr, Sasha Steensen, and Graeme Bezanson at Berl’s Poetry Shop in Brooklyn. Thanks to everyone that came out, and congratulations again to Maureen Alsop!

Augury’s Maureen Alsop reads from MANTIC at Berl’s Poetry Shop

Sasha Steensen (HOUSE OF DEER, Fence Books) reads at Berl’s Poetry Shop

Julie Carr (RAG, Omnidawn) reads at Berl’s Poetry Shop

Founding Editor of Coldfront, Graeme Bezanson reads at Berl’s Poetry Shop

Find out more about the readers and the event here on Berl’s site.