Fletcher memoir to be published by University of Nebraska Press

Descanso for My Father: Fragments of a Life, a memoir by Harrison Candelaria Fletcher, a finalist for the Bakeless Literary Award, will be published on March 1, 2012, as part of the University of Nebraska Press “American Lives” series. Harrison was upstreet’s Creative Nonfiction Editor for numbers three, four, five, and six, and his essay, “Undercurrent,” appeared in upstreet number two.

Harrison holds an MFA in Creative Nonfiction Writing from Vermont College of Fine Arts in Montpelier. He is a National Magazine Award essay finalist and four-time Pushcart Prize nominee, and his honors include a New Letters best essay award and a Pushcart Prize special citation. His essays have appeared or are forthcoming in New Letters, Fourth Genre, Cimarron Review, New Ohio Review, Water~Stone Review, South Loop Review, Puerto del Sol, Palabra, The Writer’s Chronicle and many other journals. One of his essays, “The Beautiful City of Tirzah,” is featured in the Touchstone Anthology of Contemporary Creative Nonfiction as among 50 outstanding works since 1970. He is editor of the online experimental creative nonfiction journal Shadowbox and teaches creative writing at the Regis University Master of Arts program, the University of Denver’s University College, and the Lighthouse Writer’s Workshop in Denver.

New upstreet Fiction Editor

Beginning with the upcoming eighth issue, Joyce A. Griffin of Suffern, NY, will be upstreet’s Fiction Editor. She replaces Robin Oliveira, who held this position for the previous five issues.

Joyce holds a BA in Creative Writing from Sarah Lawrence College and an MFA in Fiction Writing from Vermont College of Fine Arts, Montpelier, where she  worked with authors Mary Grimm, Phyllis Barber, and Lawrence Sutin, among others. She is Managing Editor of The Hastings Center Report and IRB: Ethics & Human Research, journals published by The Hastings Center, a bioethics research institute in Garrison, NY. Her fiction has been published in The Berkshire Review and upstreet (“Bits and Pieces,” number one, and “Michael Ryan,” number three). She has been an Assistant Fiction Editor at upstreet for the past two years, and has a novel in progress whose working title is How High the Moon. She and her husband, Michael Mittelman, have a five-year-old daughter, Zooey, and are expecting their second child in September.

Asked to comment on what she would look for in a fiction submission, Joyce said: “What I want to read is a story whose author has spent enough time with it to make it work on every level so that its seams are invisible and what is uniquely wonderful about it can shine through as clearly as possible. I want upstreet to publish the kind of story that envelops me—the kind that makes me forget on its first page that I am reading for upstreet, and instead, just lets me read.”

Submissions for upstreet number eight will open September 1, and close March 1, 2012. For detailed guidelines, and to submit, please visit the upstreet website.

Two upstreet scholars named forPostgraduate Writers’ Conference

Tiff Holland of Round Rock, TX, and Leah Soderberg of Tempe, AZ, have been named the recipients of two $500 scholarships for the 16th annual Postgraduate Writers’ Conference at Vermont College of Fine Arts in Montpelier. These scholarships were provided by upstreet for two qualified students who might not otherwise have been able to attend the Conference. Preference was given to applicants who had been published in upstreet or served on the magazine’s editorial staff. Tiff will be a participant in Ellen Lesser’s short story workshop, and Leah will be taking Kevin Young’s poetry workshop.

This year’s Postgraduate Writers’ Conference will take place August 9-15. Designed for experienced writers with MFAs or equivalent backgrounds, the Conference features workshops limited to six participants, faculty and participant readings, craft classes, issues forums, and individual consultations with faculty, all within a vibrant, inclusive community atmosphere.

upstreet authors serving on this year’s award-winning faculty are Conference Director and short story workshop leader Ellen Lesser (“Impound,” upstreet number seven), short story workshop leader David Jauss (“Depositions,” number six), and creative nonfiction workshop leader Sue William Silverman (Interview, number six). Conference participants whose work has appeared in upstreet are Tiff Holland (“Ooh Baby,” number four, and “Eidetic,” number five) and Meg Harris (“You Could Save My Life,” number two). upstreet Editor/Publisher Vivian Dorsel will also be a Conference participant, for the fourth time.

For more information on the VCFA Postgraduate Writers’ Conference, go here.

Courtney Maum publishes short story collection

Small Things in Big Places, a short story collection by upstreet author Courtney Maum (“I Used to be Rich,” upstreet number six) has been published by Troy Bookmakers.

Courtney is an interdisciplinary writer who lives in the Berkshires of western Massachusetts. Besides writing fiction, she specializes in the development of brand identity for companies and individuals through the alignment of voice and story, work which earned her the Audi Talent Award at the 2009 Cannes Film Festival. In addition to upstreet, her fiction has appeared in The Coe Review, Defenestration, Stamford Festival of the Arts, Daedalus, In Other Words, Slice Magazine, and Freerange Nonfiction.

Small Things in Big Places, which won an Honorable Mention in the Dzanc Books short story collection competition, can be purchased online from the publisher.

Gretchen Fletcherpublishes poetry chapbook

The Scent of Oranges: poems from the tropics, a poetry chapbook by upstreet poet Gretchen Fletcher (“Recitation in Clover,” upstreet number three) has been released by Finishing Line Press. The poems in the collection are set in South Florida, and were inspired by the flora and fauna of that area.

Gretchen’s poems have appeared in The Chattahoochee Review, Pacific Coast Journal, Northeast Corridor, Inkwell, Pudding Magazine, and other journals. They have also been anthologized in Poetic Voices Without Borders, Open Windows 2005, Sincerely Elvis, You Are Here: New York Streets in Poetry, and Proposing on the Brooklyn Bridge: Poems About Marriage. She received the grand prize in San Francisco’s Artists Embassy International Dancing Poetry Festival, and first honorable mention in Canada’s lichen literary journal Serial Poet competition. She was a finalist for the Howard Nemerov Sonnet Award, and a juried poet at the Houston Poetry Fest.

In 2008, Gretchen was a winner in the first-ever national contest for poetry inspired by Times Square, “Bright Lights/ Big Verse: Poems of Times Square,” and read her winning poem, “Two Giant Men in New York,” in Times Square on June 23. This competition, sponsored by the Poetry Society of America and the Times Square Alliance, selected five winners from a pool of close to 700 entrants. Besides the trip to New York to read her poem, she received a prize of $1,000.

Gretchen grew up in Palm Beach and attended the University of Miami. A resident of Fort Lauderdale, she leads poetry and creative nonfiction workshops for Florida Center for the Book, an affiliate of the Library of Congress. You may visit her on the web at Open Art Space.

Pushcart Board nominatesfour upstreet works

In addition to the nominations sent in by independent publishers and literary magazines, Pushcart Press also considers work nominated by its own Board of Contributing Editors. For the fourth year in a row, the Pushcart Board has nominated work from upstreet to be considered for inclusion in the next Pushcart Prize anthology, along with the six nominations made by our editors. The nominated works from upstreet number six are a poem by Karen Chase, "Leaving Home," a short story by Erik Wennermark, "The True Story of Yu Tien," and two essays, "That Furrowed Brow," by Andrew D. Cohen, and "The Barest Shapes of Light," by Nina Feng. It is a great compliment for upstreet to be singled out by this Board, which contains many distinguished writers. Congratulations to all four nominees, and best wishes to them in the competition.

Robin Oliveira novel chosen fortwo community reading programs

My Name is Mary Sutter (Viking Penguin, 2010), a novel by upstreet Fiction Editor Robin Oliveira, has been selected by two communities for their annual reading programs. Community reading programs typically include book discussions, readings, lectures, workshops, film and/or theatrical productions, and other events directly or thematically related to the chosen book.

The city of Roswell, Georgia, selected the book for its Roswell Reads Program, which began in February and will conclude with a literary luncheon at 11:30am Saturday, March 5, at the Roswell Adult Recreation Center, at which Robin will give a talk on her novel.

Schenectady County, New York, chose the novel for its One County, One Book Program, which will take place in April and feature a talk by the author at 2pm Saturday, April 9, at Schenectady County Community College, followed by a reception and book signing. Area book groups may enter a drawing to have lunch with Robin preceding her SCCC appearance.

Set in the mid-19th century, My Name is Mary Sutter follows the aspirations and difficulties of a brilliant, somewhat odd, yet remarkable young midwife from Albany, NY, whose lofty hope of becoming a surgeon far exceeds what her family and the physicians and medical schools of her time are willing to accept. She travels to Washington, DC, to work in the Civil War hospitals, only to find the challenges formidable and the pull of home unavoidable.

Robin Oliveira grew up in Loudonville, NY. She holds a BA in Russian from the University of Montana and an MFA in writing from Vermont College of Fine Arts, and is a Registered Nurse. In 2007, she won the $10,000 15th annual James Jones First Novel Fellowship, awarded to an American author of a first-novel-in-progress by the James Jones Literary Society and Wilkes University, Wilkes-Barre, PA. She has been Fiction Editor for upstreet number three, four, five, six, and the upcoming seven, which will appear in June of this year. Robin lives in Seattle with her husband, Andrew, their daughter, Noelle, and their son, Miles. My Name is Mary Sutter is her first novel.