Augury

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Halfway Through: Augury Books’ Reading Period Still Open for Poetry and Prose Full-Length Manuscripts

Photo by Dave Bledsoe of FreeVerse Photography

We are a little over halfway through our reading period, which is still OPEN through July 31, 2014. We accept full-length manuscripts in the categories of Poetry and Prose. The new Prose category includes Short Fiction Collections and Creative Nonfiction Manuscripts.

See our Submissions Page for length requirements and other guidelines, or find out everything you need to know (including our discounted book specials for those submitting!) on our third-party submissions manager, Submittable, where you can also submit your manuscript.

We can’t wait to read your work and find out who the authors of our 2015 books will be. 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!

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If you would like to know more about our aesthetic to see if your work might be a good fit for Augury, visit the  Books and Orders page to see what works are already in our catalogue.

Don’t forget to Like us on Facebook and Follow this Blog (link in bottom corner) for continued updates about the rest of the reading period and information about our next publication and finalists!

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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.

More on THE FAMILY CANNON

 

 

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

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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.

More on SOLDIER QUICK WITH RAIN

Look for it new from seller Augury Books

 

 

 

Get SOLDIER QUICK WITH RAIN at a special price when you SUBMIT YOUR MANUSCRIPT to Augury

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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.

More on MANTIC

 

 

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

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Fiction Writers Review on Halina Duraj’s ‘The Family Cannon’

Photo by Dave Bledsoe of FreeVerse Photography

The Fiction Writers Review has posted a lovely piece by Matthew Batt on Halina Duraj’s THE FAMILY CANNON (available here). Read an excerpt:

The miracle of this book, calling to mind Anthony Doerr’s recent Memory Wall, is that Duraj manages to distill the historical, cultural, familial, and interpersonal experience of love, memory, and pain in ten crystalline short stories that form a family portrait covering nearly a century, resonating both before its beginning and well beyond its end. ….

What binds it is the fierce and loyal will of the one who knows she has to keep weaving these stray bits of stick and story and trash and grass back together to make us who we are—family.”

Read the whole review here.

But there’s more! Head out to La Jolla tomorrow to see Halina Duraj (recent recipient of a 2014 O.Henry Award) read at D.G. Wills Books: Saturday, May 10, 7 p.m.

More on THE FAMILY CANNON

Order THE FAMILY CANNON on Amazon

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

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National Poetry Month: Washington Independent Review of Books on Maureen Alsop’s MANTIC

Photo by Dave Bledsoe of FreeVerse Photography

Happy National Poetry Month! Read this wonderful MANTIC (Maureen Alsop, Augury Books, 2013) review by Grace Cavalieri in this month’s Washington Independent Review of Books.

 

Mantic by Maureen Alsop

“We can tell when a poem is sent out into the world scared and these poems are the opposite. They’re fearless. Alsop is like a hero who boldly moves forward and never looks back. She’s a social revolutionary using words to change our concepts of reality and the world.” —Grace Cavalieri, April 2014 Exemplars, Washington Independent Review of Books

Read the Whole Review

More on MANTIC

Buy MANTIC

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Connotation Press Talks BEAST Video Trailer With Justine and Lia Post

You’ve seen the video trailer for “Self-Portrait as Beast,” read by author Frances Justine Post and designed by her twin sister Cecelia Post, and now you can learn about everything that went into the vision and production of the video (including details about the body suit, which has been christened “The Lady”) in this excellent interview by Erica Goss on Connotation Press, “The Third Form.”

Order BEAST here.

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Poem by Saara Myrene Raappana

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Photo by Dave Bledsoe of FreeVerse Photography

Canticle of Waitresses, Waiting

 

This is how we herded by the waitress station,

waiting, as the town, turned down to one by snow,

settled like a gown that smothered all that ailed us.

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How we first heard about the hostages

on Facebook, and then the town knelt down to zero,

still as snow once it resolves itself to ground.

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How the sidewalk still needed seeding with rock salt.

How even when a person stands still, they can slip.

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How we counted the seeds of our blessings.

How our blessings rebounded off the booths like buckshot.

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How we each sometimes rebound into being

a country of one self.

How we other times are one self of a city.

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How only below zero can we remember

September as that country where we save daylight

like fat over our muscles.

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How a woman ran at the chained gym doors

to save her daughter.

How she dropped on the unseeded walk.

How we’ll remember her legs as

a fleet of hummingbirds skidding through snow.

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How sometimes, to give something a shot means kill it.

How other times it means just close your eyes.

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First published in Iron Horse Literary Review, Labor Day Issue 2013

Saara Myrene Raappana‘s poems appear in such publications as 32 Poems, Blackbird, Cream City Review, Subtropics, The Gettysburg Review, and Verse Daily. She grew up in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan and served as a Peace Corps Volunteer in southern China. She’s an editor for Cellpoems, a poetry journal distributed via text message.

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PICS: 2014 Launch Party for BEAST and THE FAMILY CANNON at Berl’s Poetry Shop

A sincere and enthusiastic thank you to everyone who came out on Friday night, despite bitter cold and hazardous ice, to celebrate the launch of Augury Books’ 2014 poetry collection, BEAST, by Frances Justine Post, and debut fiction book, THE FAMILY CANNON, by Halina Duraj.

A special thank you to Berl’s Poetry Shop for an ideal venue, friends and family who traveled far, photographer Dave Bledsoe, and guest readers Timothy Donnelly and Ely Shipley, who added their considerable talents to a wonderful evening.

Enjoy the pics! THE FAMILY CANNON and BEAST are both currently available on Amazon.

 

THE FAMILY CANNON author Halina Duraj  /  Photo by Dave Bledsoe of FreeVerse Photography

BEAST author Frances Justine Post  /  Photo by Dave Bledsoe of FreeVerse Photography

Frances Justine Post signs copies of her book  /  Photo by Dave Bledsoe of FreeVerse Photography

Halina Duraj signs copies of her book  /  Photo by Dave Bledsoe of FreeVerse Photography

Ely Shipley reads and introduces friend Halina Duraj  /  Photo by Dave Bledsoe of FreeVerse Photography

Timothy Donnelly reads before introducing friend Frances Justine Post  /  Photo by Dave Bledsoe of FreeVerse Photography

Frances Justine Post reads from BEAST  /  Photo by Dave Bledsoe of FreeVerse Photography

Halina Duraj reads from THE FAMILY CANNON  /  Photo by Dave Bledsoe of FreeVerse Photography

Frances Justine Post, Ely Shipley, Timothy Donnelly, Kate Angus, Kimberly Steele, Halina Duraj  /  Photo by Dave Bledsoe of FreeVerse Photography

Berl’s Poetry Shop / Photo by Dave Bledsoe of FreeVerse Photography