"[Fortune cookie message] in between the sheets"

Do you sometimes wonder how those book covers come together? With us here at IR, it's usually pretty simple. We look at lots of art, pick something we think fits the issue, and with the creator's permission in place, voila! We have a cover. Well, almost.

Anyway, here's an interesting, yet slightly more complicated story about how the cover at left came into being.

Submission is a good thing

Indiana Review only usually suspends submissions during the summer months, but presently we're not considering new unsolicited work until January 31st.

So, what's up with that, right?

Well, every submission we receive is important to us (we know these are your babies!) and we want to give each the appropriate time and consideration. On our website we have a listed response time of 3-4 months. Most of the time we're within that range, but at times the mountain of submissions grows beyond our mortal means, and we fall behind. As writers ourselves, we know how frustrating it can be to wait and wait and wait and wait for some editor to give you the thumbs up/down on a piece that you submitted months ago. Even if it's bad news, you just want to know.

So, we're suspending submissions in order to get caught up (and hopefully stay that way). Besides shortening the wait time, we want to find other ways to make submitting to Indiana Review a good experience. Online submissions are on the way, but if you have any other ideas about how we could improve the process, please drop us a line. Thanks for your patience.

--Abdel

Where are you going? Where have you been?

Hopefully you didn't miss us too much. We wanted to blog, but life (especially winter break) kept interceding.

But now, we re-form like Voltron.

So, what's new? Well, if you haven't heard, 29.2 is available in bookstores and on our website. We've got exciting work from Killarney Clary, Andrew Lewis Conn, Barbara Hamby, Mattox Roesch, Ross Gay, David Kirby, and a host of other awesome writers. Check it out.

Teen Angst Poetry

I am a big fan of bad poetry. And bad writing in general. Then again, that should be apparent from my appreciation of campy movies (see post from October).

One of my favorite sources for reading bad poems is TeenAngstPoetry.com, where sadly misguided efforts (though they felt right at the time) are submitted by their now grown up writers. Very funny stuff. And you can find everything organized into thematic categories like "I Am Alone and No One Understands My Pain" and "Obvious Metaphors."

My favorite Obvious Metaphor poem that they once posted is this little ditty from a contributor named Arran (from age 16):

Coleslaw Girl

I am the coleslaw girl
everything about me
is shredded.

I used to be whole
where did I go
to become this mess?

I am the coleslaw girl
grated & ripped apart
loosing my mind.



***

If anyone reading this wants to share a short poem, or line, from a teen angst riddled voice, I'd love to read it.

-danny

A shiny new book!

Former Indiana Review editor Danit Brown has a book forthcoming from Pantheon. The collection of stories is titled Ask for a Convertible. We can't wait to get our grubby little hands on a copy!

Indiana Review on the Radio Tomorrow Night

Tomorrow night (Wednesday, December 5) at 7:30 p.m., the Indiana Review senior editors--Abdel, Jenny, Danny, and Hannah--will be guests on the WIUX Creative Writing show. We'll be talking a bit about our upcoming issue, 29.2, and reading some selections from it--exciting new work.

Tune in if you're in Bloomington at 99.1 FM. And if you aren't, hear the broadcast streaming over the web at wiux.org.

Laura van den berg: Winner!

Indiana Review 29.1 contributor, Laura van den berg has been named winner of the 2007 Dzanc prize. The prize awards $5,000 annually to a writer who is interested in bettering their community through literary community service, and who is working toward completion of a novel or short story collection. Laura's working on a project to teach creative writing in local prisons. Sounds pretty daggone cool.

Check out Laura reading her story, Where We Must Be, on our Bluecast.