Editor's Pre-Face to Issue 7

2 New Chapbooks from Wheelhouse Press: poetry by Gianna D'Emilio / prose by Lourdes Vazquez

In this issue: viral forms from Rachel Zolf, Rob Halpern, Amy King, Andrew Lundwall, Reb Livingston, Jeff Crouch, Matina Stamatakis, Steven Hendricks, Larissa Shmailo, Jac Jemc, Nico Vassilakis, Elisa Gabbert, Kathleen Rooney, Carol Novack, Joe Balaz, Elizabeth Kate Switaj, Stan Apps, Juliet Cook, Ana Bozicevic, Meghan McNealy, S. Jason Fraley, Patrick Carrington, Christina Marie Darling, Joy and Dubblex Leftow, Matthea Marquart, & Emily Holmes

SPECIAL PRESS ANTHOLOGY COMING THIS MONTH

One year ago Wheelhouse Magazine & Press, in concert with The Evergreen State College (and other donors - see website list), hosted what has now turned into an annual event: PRESS, a set of workshops, discussions, readings, and performances committed to working through the myriad intersections between text arts and left political movements. What, for instance, are we as writers doing? What are our organizational politics and/or our poetics? Rob Halpern & NONSITE COLLECTIVE kicked off this year's PRESS, and a day-long set of workshops and performative events are closing us out.

We at Wheelhouse are hard at work at finalizing the collection of submissions. We're in the home stretch of designing and producing this new special issue of Wheelhouse, the PRESS Anthology, PRESS:ESC (cover design by Andrew Topel). In this issue, new work from:

Rodrigo Toscano
Kristin Prevallet
Jules Boykoff
Kaia Sand
Roger Farr
Leonard Schwartz
Laura Elrick
Meghan McNealy
Tung-Hui Hu
K. Lorraine Grahm
Tom Orange
Sarah Mangold
David Wolach
Jessica Baron
Steven Hendricks
Daniel Borzhutzky
Mark Wallace

... and several other writers involved in last year's discussions. We're excited to re-up this conversation, to broaden and torque it via recontextualization and imminent critique, to extend our dialogic processes. Thanks to all the contributors, donors, and organizers of PRESS for making this issue come to life. Keep an eye out - slated release date, June 15.

FORTHCOMING CHAPBOOKS

The open chapbook submissions reading period has now closed. Check here (or the Wheelhouse Facebook Group Page) for future reading periods. If you have not heard back from us with regard to your submission, please be patient - we'll be in touch soon. Look out for new chapbooks fothcoming (more to come for this year) by:

Juliet Cook
Thom Donovan
Matina Stamatakis and John Moore Williams
Dorothy Lang and Jeff Crouch
Felino Soriano
Elizabeth Kate Switaj
Lars Palm
Laura Carter

... plus...

DZANC BOOKS & STORY SOUTH AWARDS

Congratulations to Tom Sheehan. His prose work "Knickers" was selected by Dzanc Books' as one of the "Best of the Web 2008." "Knickers" will be published in Dzanc Books' Best of 2008 anthology. Congratulations also to CL Bledsoe. CL's "Leaving the Garden" was chosen by Story South's Million Writer's Award as one of the Notable Stories of 2008. A huge thank you to Tom, CL, and Dzanc Books and Story South - and the judges for these awards. Go to Dzanc Books to pre-order the Best of 2008 Anthology, and while you're at it, order the Best of 2007 Anthology, with two works from Wheelhouse contributors. Dzanc Books is a not-profit press; proceeds of book sales go to help their urban schools writing initiatives, as well as several other good works.

Wheelhouse contributor Caty Sporleder’s first book Flay, a book of mu was accepted by BlazeVOX Books for publication. Leonard Schwartz writes: “In Caty Sporleder's Flay the ground is indeed saturated with an almost biblical torrent of the moist elements. Water, water everywhere: sexuality is that flood, overpowering all obvious dams in the thunderclap of its urgency, all interior sublimations by force of its feminine omniverousness, and all the more subtle pseudo-solidities by nuance of its trickle.” Flay is set for release in late March 2009.

Scantily Clad Press is accepting manuscripts from poets for publication in their electronic chapbook series. Submissions are accepted via e-mail as .doc or .rtf attachments. Please include "Scantily Clad Press E-Chap Submission" in your subject line, and send all correspondence to Andrew Lundwall.

For more additional alerts and updates on matters poetical, go to the de facto Wheelhouse Blog or visit our Wheelhouse Group Page on Facebook.