reading period

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Support New York City Poetry Festival’s Kickstarter

Photo by Dave Bledsoe by FreeVerse Photography

The Poetry Society of New York needs your help to make the 2014 New York City Poetry Festival happen. The festival, which just launched its beautiful new website, is running its annual Kickstarter campaign for the event. If the festival can meet its goal, the 2014 annual event will be held Saturday and Sunday, July 26th and 27th, on Governors Island. More than 60 poetry organizations, small presses, reading series and other collectives will present over 250 poets, including headliners (brought to you by the Poetry Society of New York), Paul Muldoon & the Wayside Shrines, Mark Doty, Joyelle McSweeney, and Matthea Harvey.

Augury Books, with readers Frances Justine Post (Beast, 2014), David Joel Friedman (Soldier Quick with Rain, 2013), and B.C. Edwards (To Mend Small Children, 2012), will be at the White Horse Stage on Saturday, July 26th at 4 p.m.

Go here for a complete lineup.

B.C. Edwards Reads for Augury Books, 2012—Photo by Dave Bledsoe of FreeVerse Photography

According to organizers Stephanie Berger and Nicholas Adamski, “This year our Kickstarter goal is $10,000, which we will combine with an additional $10,000 in grants, private funding, and earned revenue from last year’s event to bring our operating budget for 2014 to $20,000. The New York City Poetry Festival is free and open to the public, and over the course of its three year tenure on Governors Island, it has served over 5000 attendees. Now, all we ask is for $2 from each of them …. What better season to remember pleasures of the poetic word and give something back?”

The New York City Poetry Festival is volunteer-run, and all funds raised from the Kickstarter will go towards the rental of stages, sound systems, generators and tents; paying for security fees, liability insurance, licensing fees, and other safety precautions; and the purchase and transportation of other equipment to and from the island. The Kickstarter concludes on Friday, May 16th.

Please support the festival with a donation today!

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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Augury Books at PEN World Voices Festival Book Fair

On Friday we went to the PEN World Voices Festival Book Fair in Washington Mews, the secret little cobblestoned street just north of Washington Square Park. CLMP arranged a great group of publishers, and we were particularly happy to share a table and make new friends with Little Star Journal and n+1.

Little Star even had gummy star candy! Maybe next year we’ll make gummy foxes to bring.

And there was a food truck with pirogies. Poetry, prose, and pirogies: what more could you want?

It was a wonderful way to spend an afternoon and let people know about our reading period, currently open. Please send us your manuscripts!

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It’s Time: Augury Books’ Reading Period OPEN for Poetry and Prose Full-Length Manuscripts

Photo by Dave Bledsoe of FreeVerse Photography

Our reading period is now OPEN through July 31, 2014. We are accepting submissions of 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 send us 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.

submit

Want to find out more about our aesthetic before submitting? Visit our Books and Orders page to order books or read synopses, reviews, and press material about the books in our catalogue. 

Don’t forget to Like us on Facebook and Follow this Blog (link in bottom corner) for updates about the reading period and announcements about our next publications and finalists.

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Augury’s Reading Period Opens May 1 – July 31 for Poetry and Prose MSs

Photo by Dave Bledsoe of FreeVerse Photography

It’s almost time to start polishing up your full-length manuscripts to submit to Augury Books for publication in 2015.

This year, we will be accepting manuscripts for publication in two categories: Poetry and Prose. Our new, expanded Prose Category includes both Short Fiction Collections and Creative Nonfiction Manuscripts. Augury’s reading period will open via Submittable on midnight of May 1, 2014, and remain open until 11:59 on July 31, 2014.

For you early birds who want to know what’s in store, here’s a peek at our upcoming guidelines:

FOR FULL-LENGTH POETRY MANUSCRIPTS: 

  • Submissions should be 45-80 pages. This page requirement does not include any front and back matter your manuscript might contain (title page, table of contents, dedication, acknowledgements, notes, about the author, etc.).

FOR FULL-LENGTH PROSE MANUSCRIPTS:

  • Submissions should be 150-220 pages, double-spaced, with 1″ margins. This page requirement does not include any front and back matter your manuscript might contain (title page, table of contents, dedication, acknowledgements, notes, about the author, etc.).
  • The prose sub-category in which you are submitting — Short Fiction OR Creative Nonfiction — must be clearly stated in your Submittable Cover Letter / Bio field AND on the first page of the uploaded manuscript itself.

FOR EVERYTHING, ACROSS THE BOARD:

  • Brief (approx. 300-word) bio is required, pasted separately from your uploaded manuscript on the Submittable form.
  • Multiple submissions, either within or across categories, are welcome, but must be submitted separately with separate reading fees.
  • Simultaneous submissions are welcome, but please withdraw your MS immediately if it is accepted elsewhere, up until the time we announce our selections in the fall.
  • Except under special circumstances, we are unable to accept submissions from international authors. Contact us for more information if this applies to you.
  • Acceptable formats for uploaded manuscripts are PDF, DOC, and DOCX.

AND … WE’RE RUNNING A SPECIAL! 

  • All those submitting will have the option of getting a discounted book from our catalogue along with your submission. Find out more about the discounted titles when our reading period opens. Fee for submission without a book purchase: $10 per submission. Fee for submission with a book purchase: $18 per submission.*

Check back with us on May 1, when we will publish the link to our Submittable Campaign on our SUBMISSIONS PAGE, as well as here on our blog. We can’t wait to see you then and read your work!

Check out our current catalogue to get a feel for our aesthetic.

*Discount is only available with a Submittable submission. One book per submission. Your decision to submit with or without a book purchase has no bearing on our consideration of your manuscript. All funds Augury Books receives through Submittable will go toward the titles’ production fees and the maintenance of our catalogue. Complimentary copies will be available to authors of accepted titles.
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Augury Books’ Fiction Publication Will Be ‘The Family Cannon’ by Halina Duraj

Look for ‘The Family Cannon’ new from seller Augury Books

 

 

 

Photo by: Amanda Noyes

Hello friends and fellow lovers of the arts. We were amazed and overwhelmed by the quality of your work; an ardent and sincere thank you goes out to all of you who trusted us with your manuscripts.

Halina Duraj

We are pleased to announce that we have selected Halina Duraj’s The Family Cannon as our inaugural short story collection.

Halina Duraj’s stories have appeared in The Sun, The Harvard Review, Fiction, Witness, and other journals and have been recommended for PEN/O’Henry and Pushcart prizes. In 2012, she was a Rona Jaffe Foundation Writers’ Award finalist and a writer-in-residence at Hedgebrook. She has an MA in creative writing from the University of California, Davis, and a PhD in creative writing from the University of Utah, where she served as a fiction co-editor for Quarterly West. Halina teaches literature and fiction writing at the University of San Diego.

We would also like to recognize the short story collections of our six finalists:

Adam Weinstein — From the New Technical Manual of Use

Hall Cary — Delaware and Other Places of Mind

Dan Moreau — A Tour of North American Ruins

Ellen Campbell — Contents Under Pressure

Sara Lippmann — Doll Palace

Eleanor Swanson — Exiles and Expatriates

Thank you to our finalists and everyone who submitted during our reading period. Please help us welcome Halina aboard at Augury Books.  Leave a comment, follow this blog, or simply “Like”!

—Augury Books

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Announcing Frances Justine Post’s ‘Beast’ As Augury’s Next Poetry Publication

Photo by: Cecelia Post
From collection: Natural Won’t Change Disaster

This announcement concerns our upcoming poetry publication. Keep checking in or follow this blog (bottom right corner) for our fiction announcement, coming soon.

First things first: We want to emphatically thank everyone who submitted their work to Augury Books during our reading period. As always, it was a great pleasure and even greater honor to have the opportunity to read so many exceptional manuscripts. We are so grateful to all of you for trusting us with your work.

We are thrilled to announce that we will be publishing Beast, the debut collection by Frances Justine Post, in the genre of poetry (fiction genre announcement TBA, see above).

Frances Justine Post

Frances Justine Post received her MFA in poetry from Columbia University and is currently earning her PhD in the Creative Writing Program at the University of Houston, where she is a Poetry Editor for Gulf Coast. She is a recipient of the 2013 Inprint Verlaine Poetry Prize from the University of Houston, the 2008 “Discovery” / The Boston Review Poetry Prize, and the 2006 Amy Award from Poets & Writers. Her poems have appeared or are forthcoming in American Letters & Commentary, The Boston Review, Denver Quarterly, The Kenyon Review, Pleiades, and others.

We would also like to salute this year’s poetry finalists, some of whose work you can see featured here in the upcoming season:

Tina Schumann — Praising the Paradox

Stephanie Schlaifer — Clarkston Street Polaroids

Pia Aliperti — Solitude Must Share My Solitude

Travis Macdonald — 3

Andrew Weatherhead — Cats and Dogs

Many thanks to Frances Justine Post and our finalists for giving us the opportunity to recognize their wonderful work. Stay tuned for our fiction announcement.

—Augury Books

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Halfway Point For Augury Books’ 2013 Reading Period

Photo by: Dave Bledsoe of FreeVerse Photography

We’re halfway there, friends, in our reading period for poetry books and short story collections. Many thanks to those of you who have already sent us your manuscripts. If you’re still cracking, no worries — you have another full month (until June 30, 2013) to get those poetry books and short story collections together to submit to Augury.

A few words about what we’re looking for: We gravitate toward pieces that are expertly written and keep us intrigued. We are not particular when it comes to content, as we have fallen in love with work from many different traditions and on many different topics, as well as work that defies tradition and “topics.”

We do, however, want to fall in love with it, so it should justify that kind of devotion. If you have fallen in love with it, we consider that a great place to start.

Now you know. Tell your friends, loved ones and acquaintances. We’ll be seeing you all within the next month!

For exact guidelines and to submit your manuscript, click here.

—Augury Books

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Augury Books is Now Accepting Manuscripts


We are pleased to announce our inaugural Editors’ Prize in Poetry.

Our reading period will be from March 15-May 15, 2011.

-The winner will receive a $1,000 honorarium and publication with Augury Books as well as 10 complimentary copies of the book. Additional copies can be purchased at a discounted price.

-This contest is open to anyone, except personal friends, colleagues or former students of the editors.

-Multiple submissions are accepted as long as each manuscript is submitted individually with separate reading fees.

-All entries will be considered for publication.

–Submit up 40-75 pages of poetry and an acknowledgments page. Please do not include a bio.

-Entry Fee: $20

-Deadline: May 15, 2011

We are accepting submissions online through Submishmash at http://augurybooks.submishmash.com/Submit.

All money received will go directly towards the title and the maintenance of our catalog.

Unfortunately we will not be able to provide royalties to the winner beyond the honorarium.

We are unable to accept manuscripts from international authors at this time. Open to U.S. residents only.

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A few words from the Danes

Hamlet’s terrace, Kronborg, Denmark

Horatio: If your mind dislike any thing, obey it: I will forestall their repair hither, and say you are not fit.

 

Hamlet: Not a whit, we defy augury. There is special providence in the fall of a sparrow. If it be now, ’tis not to come; if it be not to come, it will be now; if it be not now, yet it will come–the readiness is all.

 

William Shakespeare, Hamlet, V. ii. 217-222

 

We are readying ourselves for our March reading period. If you have a manuscript, we hope you’ll send it our way for our inaugural Editors’ Prize. More details available if you click on our Submissions tab.