The Fam MEGA Roundup: June and July 2021

In June we were busy promoting our Summertime issue for Black voices, and in July we were on vacation—that means we have a lot of catching up to do! Help us celebrate the latest accomplishments from our contributors and staff.

Books

• Jason B. Crawford’s chapbook Twerkable Moments is now available from Paper Nautilus

• Memoir editor Krys Malcolm Belc’s book The Natural Mother of the Child: A Memoir of Nonbinary Parenthood is now available

• Elizabeth Gonzalez James’ novel Mona at Sea is now available

• Dorothy Chan’s chapbook Babe is forthcoming from Diode Editions

• Megan Giddings’ craft chapbook A Delicious Letter: Correspondence on Narrative Time in Fiction is now available from Sundress Publications

• Brandon Taylor’s collection Filthy Animals is now available

• Pedro Ponce’s collection The Devil and the Dairy Princess is available for pre-order from Indiana University Press

• Lucie Britsch’s novel Sad Janet is now available in paperback

• Former fiction editor Jon Chaiim McConnell’s chapbook thrum is now available from Eye Cult Attic

• Sudha Balagopal’s novella in flash Things I Can’t Tell Amma is now available from Ad Hoc Fiction

• James Tadd Adcox’s chapbook Five Essays is now available from Ghost City Press

• Courtney Cook’s memoir The Way She Feels is now available from Tin House

• Former reader Nick Farriella’s book Rules for Escaping will be published by Word West Press in 2022

• Monica Brashears’ novel House of Cotton was acquired by Flatiron Books

Publications, Interviews, and Reviews

• Kara Vernor’s story “The Night Here” was published in Pithead Chapel

• Monkeybicycle published co-flash editor Eshani Surya’s story “When a Bone Shatters”

  • Honey Literary published her essay “The Black Widow and Me”

• Robert James Russell’s essay “Origin Story: Dolos” appeared in Gulf Coast

• Jason B. Crawford’s poem “A Pantoum of Yellow Fields” was published in Cotton Xenomorph

• Lots of press for memoir editor Krys Malcolm Belc’s new book The Natural Mother of the Child:

  • Reviews in Cleaver Magazine, The New York Times, NPR, and The Chicago Review of Books

  • Interviews in Vogue, The Rumpus, The Chicago Review of Books, Romper, Poets & Writers, and Daily Kos

  • His essay “A Letter to My Partner on My Non Binary Parenthood” was published in Harper’s Bazaar

  • His essay “The Daily Tenderness of Cooking Dinner For Family” was published in Literary Hub

  • Catapult published his story “Halloween 1998, Old Man with Old Wife”

  • A profile in The Philadelphia Inquirer

  • An appearance on WNYC’s All of It

  • An appearance on IndieBound’s “July 2021 Indie Next List,” along with contributors Brandon Taylor and Courtney Cook.

  • An appearance on The Rumpus’ “What to Read When You Want to Celebrate Pride,” along with contributors Christopher Gonzalez, Brandon Taylor, SJ Sindu, K-Ming Chang, torrin a. greathouse and former flash contest judge Bryan Washington

  • A mention in Kirkus’ “New LGBTQ+ Nonfiction To Read for Pride Month”

• Reviews/interviews editor Clancy McGilligan interviewed Karen Tucker in The Chicago Review of Books

• Claire Rudy Foster reviewed Lilly Danyger’s Negative Space for The Rumpus

  • Their story “The Abaarso School for Clever Girls” found a home in Catapult

  • Catapult also published their essay “We Did Not Belong in Okinawa”

  • Their article “Here's What Makes Top Surgery Different From a Mastectomy” appeared in Allure

  • Their piece “If Lyrics Could Kill” was published in Grunt

  • Bright Wall/Dark Room published their essay “Our Own Pieta, By The Portland White Elk”

  • Along with K-Ming Chang, Ilana Masad, Brandon Taylor, and former flash contest judge Bryan Washington, they recommended books for Oprah Daily’s “115 LGBTQ Authors Share the Books that Changed Their Lives”

• Lost Balloon published Sarah Fawn Montgomery’s flash “Pocketed”

  • She also interviewed the editors of the Fat and Queer anthology for The Rumpus

• Elizabeth Gonzalez James’ novel Mona at Sea appeared on The Millions’ "June Preview: The Millions Most Anticipated (This Month),” along with Brandon Taylor’s Filthy Animals

  • She also spoke about Mona at Sea on NPR

• Dorothy Chan’s “A Poem About Killing Off Your Homophobic Characters” and “Triple Sonnet About Ghosting Your Best Friend” were published in Diode

  • Their poem “triple sonnet for oversexed and overripe and overeager” was published in just femme & dandy

  • They wrote the editor’s note for the latest issue of Honey Literary as a triple sonnet

• Assistant fiction editor Exodus Oktavia Brownlow’s piece “The Terrible Darling” found a home in Milk Candy Review

  • The Daily Drunk published her piece “In the Forward to the Back, In the Time Machine, In the Back to the Forward, In the Summer of 2019”

  • Her story “One of The Girls Who Lived, One of Those Girls Who Lived, 2004” appeared in TriQuarterly

  • JMWW published her essay “We Give, and We Give, and We Give So Much”

• Ellen Rhudy’s story “Signs of Life” was published in Monkeybicycle

• Scott Garson’s “Five Fictions” was published in New World Writing

  • Nurture published his piece “You Have Always Been the One Who’s Alive in Your Vanishing Life”

• Vi Khi Nao was featured on Marcelle Heath’s Apparel for Authors Instagram series

• Hoxie Gorge Review published two poems by former poetry contest judge Chen Chen

• Oprah Daily published Brandon Taylor’s story “Little Beast”

  • His collection Filthy Animals was reviewed in The Nation, Ploughshares, Book Marks, USA Today, The New York Times, and Financial Times

  • He was interviewed on Iowa Public Radio and NPR Weekend Edition, and in The Boston Globe, GQ, GQ UK, The Rumpus, Shondaland, Interview, Literary Hub, and The Guardian

  • His story “The Low Countries” was published in The Cut

  • His story “Filthy Animals” appeared in Electric Lit

  • He was featured in Entertainment Weekly

• Fractured Lit published Kim Magowan’s story “Comorbidity”

  • Milk Candy Review published her piece “Performance Review”

  • Her story with Michelle Ross, “Night Vision,” found a home in Cleaver Magazine

• Mary South interviewed Vince Granata for The Rumpus

  • Along with Dantiel W. Moniz, she participated in The Rumpus’ “Coat Full of Pockets” roundtable on short story collections

• Tommy Dean’s story “A Pondering of Velocity When You’re Too Scared to Move” found a home in Flash Frog

  • His story “A Predictable Nature” appeared in Lost Balloon

  • His story “The Rotten Smell of Teen Spirit” appeared in Still: The Journal

• Flash reader Jules Archer’s story “Boogie on Billy” was published in Twin Pies Literary

  • Her story “Syncope” was published in Whisk(e)y Tit

• Fiction reader Ra’Niqua Lee’s piece “The Remnants of Fourth Street” found a home in The Fourth River

  • Hobart published her story “Green Lights and Fault States”

  • FlashFlood published her story “The Next Squirrel Laughs Like Medusa”

  • The Bitchin’ Kitsch published her story “Of Pork and Pedagogy”

  • SmokeLong Quarterly published her story “Extended Stay”

• Treasurer and flash reader Ruth LeFaive’s story “Agnes in the Exam Room” was published in SmokeLong Quarterly

• Jennifer Wortman’s story “Storms and Waves” was published in SmokeLong Quarterly

• Heavy Feather Review published Hannah Grieco’s piece “I want a new car, I told you”

• Amber Sparks’ story “Death and the People” was published in Hairstreak Butterfly Review

  • She also appeared on an episode of NPR’s Hidden Brain

• Darren C. Demaree’s poem “translating intimacy in march” found a home in the lickety~split

  • Three of his poems appeared in the latest print issue of Colorado Review

• Fiction editor Michele Finn Johnson’s story “Symphony No. 7” was published in Fractured Lit

  • Her manuscript Lunar Facts and Other Earthly Fictions was a runner-up for Okay Donkey’s fiction manuscript open call

• Two poems by editorial assistant Daniel Garcia were published in Flypaper Lit

  • Daniel’s piece “Scorched” appeared in Guernica

• Aurielle Marie’s poem “portrait of rage with caution tape & bullhorns” found a home in TriQuarterly

• Cortney Lamar Charleston’s poems “It's Important I Remember That Jay-Z Arrived on the Day Fred Hampton Died―” “It's Important I Remember That Toni Morrison Dubbed Bill Clinton the First Black President―” and “It's Important I Remember That All I have to Do Is Stay Black and Die―” appeared in TriQuarterly

• Memoir reader Ashley Monique Lee’s piece “Probe” was published in TriQuarterly

• Jill Talbot’s piece “A Map of My Mother (and Memory)” was published in The Rupture

  • Longreads published her piece “Road Grad”

  • The Rumpus published her piece “The Believers”

• Abigail Oswald reviewed Gina Nutt’s Night Rooms for The Rupture

• K. Iver’s piece “putting on a nonbinary face” was published in just femme & dandy

  • Peach Magazine published their poem “Anti Elegy”

• just femme & dandy published assistant poetry editor Rita Mookerjee’s poem “tanka trio for applying eyeliner”

  • Rita also reviewed Rosebud Ben-Oni’s book in a recent print issue of The American Poetry Review

• Assistant print issue editor JJ Peña’s piece “you carry the love from others in your hair” was published in Massachusetts Review

  • Their piece “softness is a salve” appeared in the latest print issue of Gigantic Sequins

  • Their piece “we carry the dead” appeared in the latest print issue of Pembroke Magazine

• Flash reader Star Su’s flash “Twin Bowls” found a home in Pithead Chapel

  • Her story “Calculus of Devotion” was published in Fractured Lit

  • Her story “Little Heart” was published in Tiny Molecules

• Cathy Ulrich’s story “Being the Murdered Sleeper” was published in Barzakh

  • Noctua Review published her story “Being the Murdered Girl Detective”

  • Hoxie Gorge Review published her piece “Five Deaths of Evatima Tardo, the Immortal”

  • Okay Donkey published her story “A Universe Waiting to be Born”

  • Flash Frog published her story “I Do Not Want to Live Without You”

• Monet P. Thomas interviewed Leesa Cross-Smith for The Rumpus

• torrin a. greathouse’s poem “I Am Beginning to Mistake the Locust’s Song for Silence” appeared in The Offing

• Fractured Lit published Sudha Balagopal’s story “Sapphire Eye”

  • Her piece “The Picture of Meditation” was featured in National Flash Fiction Day New Zealand’s Micro Madness

• Assistant fiction editor Janelle Bassett’s “No Space is Too Small When Your Head is Detachable” found a home in No Contact

  • X-R-A-Y Literary Magazine published her story “Babies Don’t Keep”

  • She also interviewed Sara Flannery Murphy for Electric Lit

• No Contact published Christopher James’ story “The Arsonist’s Mum on Talk Radio”

• No Contact also published Gabrielle Griffis’ story “The Heron After”

  • Juked published her story “Our Little Gardens”

  • Hobart’s newsletter Buffalo Buffalo Buffalo published her story “Smart Meter”

• Poetry reader Raina K. Puels’ poem “wild blueberry scones” appeared in perhappened

  • Honey Literary published two of her poems

• Josh Denslow’s story “Keening” was published in Lunch Ticket

• Beth Gilstrap’s story “Faye Furr Knew She Was Not and Never Would Be Wack” found a home in The Citron Review

• Kate Gehan’s story “Low Pink Star” was published in SmokeLong Quarterly

  • Her story “Remediation” appeared in Janus Literary

• SmokeLong Quarterly published co-flash editor Amy Stuber’s story “Sheet”

  • Joyland published her story “Dead Animals”

• Dave Housley’s story “Yosemite” was published in Tiny Molecules

  • HAD published his story “Mister Landslide”

  • ASP Bulletin published his story “Carrying a Friend”

• Poetry reader Stella Lei’s piece “Aviation Without Wings” found a home in Tiny Molecules

  • Honey Literary published her poem “Prospective Final Girl Sits at the Gas Station”

  • Emerge Literary Journal published her piece “A Guide for Day Trips to the Sea”

  • Ghost City Press published her poem “Aubade as the Night Before You Leave”

  • perhappened published her poem “re-creation over water”

• Marlin M. Jenkins’ poem “pixels” appeared in Under a Warm Green Linden

  • Two of his poems were published in Honey Literary

  • His collection Capable Monsters was reviewed on the Sundress Publications blog

• Sarah Lao’s poem “Elegy Told After the Flood” found a home in AGNI

• AGNI also published Zach Linge’s poem “Turn from God and into an Exhibitionist”

• Poetry editor William Fargason’s piece “That Summer at Seaside” appeared in Dialogist

• Gaia Rajan’s Moth Funerals was reviewed in The Hellebore

  • Group Chat Review published her poem “Prodigy”

• Tabitha Blankenbiller’s essay “Britney Spears' plight and the outrage of millennial women who've had enough” appeared in Salon

  • Her essay “The Impossible Ideals of the ‘Writer’s Life’” found a home in Catapult

• David Byron Queen appeared on an episode of the Micro podcast

  • He was interviewed in Hobart’s Buffalo Buffalo Buffalo newsletter

  • He reviewed Thomas McGuane’s Panama in The Review of Uncontemporary Fiction

  • No Contact published his story “Heat”

• Amorak Huey’s poem “Childhood Goes Kaleidoscope, Kaleidoscope, Kaleidoscope, Gun” appeared in Verse Daily

• Alina Stefanescu was interviewed by Dr. Michelle LaVigne

  • Her “Poem for the Black Bird” was published in Poetry

• Meg Pokrass and Rosie Garland’s story “The Substitution of Air in Different Climates” was published in Flash Frog

  • Another story with Rosie, “Mice,” was published in Cleaver Magazine

  • Meg’s collection Spinning to Mars was reviewed in After the Pause

  • Her piece with Jeff Friedman, “Broken Man” was published in The American Journal of Poetry

  • Her piece “Cat Proposal” appeared in Unbroken

• Amy Silverberg’s story “Have You Met Husband?” found a home in Granta

• Rachel Mans McKenny appeared on the Reading Envy podcast

• The New York Times published Elisa Gabbert’s piece “For June Jordan and Muriel Rukeyser, the Arc of Moral Verse Bent Toward Justice”

• Raven Leilani appeared on WNYC’s The Takeaway

• James Tadd Adcox’s story “Squab” was published in Inscape

  • He has work in the latest print issue of Heavy Feather Review

• Steven Duong’s piece “Ashes at Kande Beach, Malawi” was published in Catapult

• Davon Loeb’s story “Three-Finger Freddie and a Fight” found a home in The Rumpus

  • No Contact published his piece “Whoever Said Go”

• Jason R. Montgomery did the cover art for the July issue of Pithead Chapel

• Helena Baptiste’s piece “Little Weeds” was published in The Blood Pudding

• Sara Lippmann published “How the Short Story Saved My Novel”

• Social Media/Marketing Director Becky Robison’s piece “SEEKING NEW GOD FOR AFTER COVID (AND BEYOND)” appeared in The Daily Drunk

• Lynn Mundell’s piece “The Flying Nun” was published in Words & Sports

• Words & Sports also published Claire Hopple’s piece “Back Nine”

• Kevin Sampsell’s poem “Sean” was published in DIAGRAM

• DIAGRAM published three poems by former poetry editor Marianne Chan

• Shane McCrae’s poem “When I Fear I” was published in Colorado Review

• K.C. Mead-Brewer’s piece “Snap of a Twig” found a home in JMWW

• Flash reader Cree N. Pettaway’s story “Fragility” appeared in The Bitchin’ Kitsch

• Former contributing editor Christopher Gonzalez appeared on Rachel Mans McKenny’s podcast Blind Date with a Book

  • His forthcoming collection I’m Not Hungry But I Could Eat made Oprah Daily’s list of “45 Best LGBTQ Books That Will Heat Up the Literary Landscape This Fall,” along with Venita Blackburn’s How to Wrestle a Girl

  • I’m Not Hungry But I Could Eat also made The Millions’ “Most Anticipated: The Great Second-Half 2021 Book Preview,” along with Venita Blackburn’s How to Wrestle a Girl, SJ Sindu’s Blue-Skinned Gods, and Thirii Myo Kyaw Myint’s Names for Light

• Ashley Burnett has work in the latest print issue of Reed Magazine

• Former reader Nick Farriella’s story “Weight of the Clouds” was published in Schuylkill Valley Journal Online

• Richard Mirabella’s essay “On Writing (with a Day Job)” appeared in Catapult

• Diode Editions published two poems by memoir reader Sara Ryan

• Ariel Francisco’s poem “For the Shrieking Cardinal at My Window Who I Hate, 2016” appeared in the latest print issue of Bedfellows Magazine

• Sabrina Hicks’ story “Olympus Mons” was published in Monkeybicycle

• PANK published two poems by Troy Osaki

  • Honey Literary published three of his poems

• Former assistant flash editor Lori Sambol Brody’s story “Something Old, Something New” was published in Lost Balloon

• K-Ming Chang’s story “Caller” appeared in Soft Punk Magazine

• Fiction reader Jen Wei TIng’s piece “It’s Always Jacket Weather in the City” was published in JMWW

• Alan Chazaro’s book Piñata Theory was reviewed in Honey Literary

• Devin Kelly’s essay “I Miss It All” was published in Longreads

Awards, Honors, and News

• Co-flash editor Eshani Surya won the 2021 Hub City/Emrys Prize in Fiction for her story “Now, Wiped of Her Face”

• Julian K. Jarboe’s collection Everyone on the Moon is Essential Personnel won the Lammy Award for LGBTQ Sci-Fi/Fantasy/Horror

• Memoir editor Krys Malcolm Belc is the nonfiction judge for this year’s Best of the Net

• Reviews/interviews editor Clancy McGilligan’s novella History of an Executioner was nominated for a 2020 Shirley Jackson Award

• Megan Giddings’ novel Lakewood was nominated for Best Debut in the Ladies of Horror Fiction Awards

• Former poetry contest judge Chen Chen launched the lickety~split, a new Twitter-exclusive poetry journal

• Managing editor Wendy Oleson was a winner of Fractured Lit’s 2021 Anthology Prize, and Kim Magowan was on the shortlist

• Threa Almontaser, Chaya Bhuvaneswar, K-Ming Chang, Allegra Hyde, Zach Linge, Mary South, Kaj Tanaka, Lesley Wheeler, and managing editor Wendy Oleson were all fellows or scholars at the 2021 Sewanee Writers Conference

• Fiction reader Ra’Niqua Lee, treasurer and flash reader Ruth LeFaive, and Jennifer Wortman were all finalists for SmokeLong Quarterly’s Grand Micro Contest

• Diannely Antigua, Aurielle Marie, and Simon Shieh are finalists for the 2021 Ruth Lilly and Dorothy Sargent Rosenberg Poetry Fellowships

• Flash reader Star Su is a reader-in-residence for SmokeLong Quarterly issue 73

• Poetry reader Stella Lei has been shortlisted for Sine Theta Magazine’s Summer Writing Contest in Poetry

• Gaia Rajan’s manuscript Killing It was a semifinalist in the Tupelo Press Snowbound Chapbook Competition

• Raven Leilani’s Luster won the 2021 VCU Cabell First Novelist Award

• Mandana Chaffa has been named a National Book Critics Circle Emerging Critics Fellow

• Former poetry editor Marianne Chan’s All Heathens is the 2021 Ohioana Book Award winner in Poetry

• Kristine Langley Mahler was a finalist for DIAGRAM’s 2021 Chapbook Contest

• Stephanie Trott is the new editor in chief of Longleaf Review

• Former contributing editor Christopher Gonzalez is a 2021 NYSCA/NYFA Artist Fellow in Fiction

• Eddie Krzeminski is on the longlist for the 2020 Button Poetry Chapbook Contest