Update from Dublin: New content LIVE at Hunger Mountain, Art & Insanity issue

The Lemon Scented soap

So here I am in Dublin, a literary capital. A renowned whiskey town. It's raining. We went for a walk this am, a literary tour that took us by Oscar Wilde's home, Finn's Hotel, near where James Joyce met Nora and where she once worked as a chambermaid. We stepped into Sweny's chemist--a pharmacy featured in Ulysses, here lemon scented soap is purchased. We joined locals gathering for tea and for a reading. 









Now I sit on a cafe near Grafton Street waiting for V to finish his last meeting before we head to County Wexford for two days and then we continue on to Paris. I am sipping an Irish Coffee and wondering how and when life became so pleasantly unexpected. Here I sit, at age 39, on my first trip abroad in Ireland, from whence part of my family stems. (Ah, whence, would I be using that word if I were in Austin. Nope.)

I am doing what I love for a living. Writing. Teaching. Editing. I am so grateful. And speaking of editing, it is today's recent work at Hunger Mountain, that I am here to share. The children's lit team is extraordinary and our Assistant Editor, Caroline Carlson, who is repped by Greenhouse Literary just earned herself a three book deal! As stated on the Greenhouse website:

Caroline Carlson’s MAGIC MARKS THE SPOT, pitched as Eva Ibbotson meets Lemony Snicket with a twist of ‘yo ho ho’, to be illustrated with maps, journals and letters, in which a girl is rejected by the Very Nearly Honorable League of Pirates and shipped off to a Finishing School for Delicate Ladies instead, from where she must escape and set sail with a motley crew including a governess, a budgerigar and a talkative gargoyle on a treasure hunt for the kingdom’s lost magic, to Phoebe Yeh and Toni Markiet at Harper Children’s, in a significant deal, in a pre-empt, in a three-book deal, for publication in 2013, by Sarah Davies at the Greenhouse Literary Agency (NA).


Congrats, Caroline and thank you, thank you, thank you for all you do at HM. You make my job easier, more fun and even more inspiring. All good things! (And possibly some Writers' Tears Whiskey in your future.) Cheers.

Now on to the latest over at Hunger Mountain...

This week, we welcome our Katherine Paterson prize winner and finalists, as judged by National Book Award winning author Kimberly Willis Holt: Him by Heather Smith Meloche; Forty Thieves and  Green-Eyed Girl by Christy Lenzi, and Cesar by Betty Yee.  Another highlight is Writing from Both Sides of the Brain, a feature by Kelley Barson, which explains how both the left and the right sides of the brain are engaged in producing good fiction. We offer several poems by Guadalupe Garcia McCall, author of the recent Under the Mesquite. This issue’s Flipside is unique. We offer three voices, a seasoned writing instructor, Uma Krishnaswami, author of The Grand Plan to Fix Everything and newer writing teachers, Sarah Aronson, author of Beyond Lucky and Debby Dahl Edwardson, a current National Book Award nominee for  My Name Is Not Easy. Each shares her own unique method of The Art & Insanity of Teaching Writing.

And as a reminder, we are accepting pieces for submissions for consideration for our Winter 2012 issue The Magic & Mystery of Identity and our Spring 2012 issue The Landscape of Literature. Please see here for submission guidelines. *Note: there is now a $3.00 submissions fee which is not a reading fee, but a charge that helps fund the cost of the online submissions manager. Since our readers and editors are scattered around the globe, snail mail submissions, which would also cost submitters roughly $3, are not viable. Thank you for your continued support of Hunger Mountain.*

Last Day to Enter the Katherine Paterson Prize

Breaking news! (And once home from Maui--I will return to my regular three day a week blog format.) Today is the last day to enter Hunger Mountain's Katherine Paterson Prize for Children's & YA fiction.

What is the Katherine Paterson Prize for YA and Children’s Writing?

An annual prize for writing for children. A chance for your writing for children to be read by Hunger Mountain editors and guest judges!

What will the winner receive?

One overall first place winner receives $1,000 and publication!
Three runners-up receive $100 each.  We choose one runner-up from the YA (young adult) entries, one from the Middle Grade entries, and one from the Picture Book or Writing for Young Children entries.

Who can enter the contest?

Anyone! Everyone!

Who is this year’s judge?

Kimberly Willis Holt

The 2011 judge is Kimberly Willis Holt, author of the Piper Reed series, My Louisiana Sky, Mister and Me, Dancing in Cadillac Light, Keeper of the Night, Waiting for Gregory, Part of Me, and Skinny Brown Dog; winner of the National Book Award for Young People’s Literature for When Zachary Beaver Came to Town; and winner of the 2011 YALSA BEST FICTION for Young Adults for The Water Seeker.

When is the deadline?

The postmark deadline is June 30th

Where is last year’s winning entry?

Right here! Read “Steve” by Jaramy Conners, chosen by Holly Black.
Or read runner-up in Young Adult fiction, S.E. Sinkhorn’s Chasing Shadows;  runner-up in Middle Grade Fiction Marcia Popp’s The Ugliest Dog in the World; and runner-up in picture book/writing for Young Children Jane Kohuth’s Something at the Hill. 
You might also read the 2009 winner, “Crazy Cat” by Liz Cook, chosen by Katherine Paterson or “Tornado” by Susan Hill Long and “No Mistake” by Tricia Springstubb, two runners-up from 2009.

For information on how to send your submission and entry fee online, please go HERE. 

Good luck!

Hunger Mountain: Yesterday, Today, Tomorrow

The new issue of Hunger Mountain is live! Here is the welcome Letter from the Editors. (Yep, that's me and friend and author of The Rock and The River and Camo Girl, Kekla Magoon.) Hop on over or follow the links and check out the Yesterday, Today, Tomorrow issue for yourself!

Dear Readers,

Ah, winter has come and gone (though the view from the Hunger Mountain offices still shows snow) and spring is now here. Spring is a time of rebirth, of looking ahead, but there is always the need to look over our shoulders and see where we have been—and why.  Time; memory; seasons of the year; have a way of overlapping, and though Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow should feel separate and distinct, often they do not. This issue celebrates the commonalities and the crossings over between being an artist of today and how the past and future—dystopian or not—come together in much of what we do.

Zetta Elliot in Unpacking the Past searches her immigrant roots and comes to terms with why it is important that all be seen, heard, and not made to feel invisible in between the pages of a book. Ann Angel with Janis Joplin, Readers and Me shares with us her experience of finding a present day, contemporary YA voice to create her award-winning Janis Joplin: Rise Up Singing. Kate Milford’s Life On Mars, with the help of Twain and Bradbury,  examines the line historical writers walk—what is too much to include—and what is essential—even if the novel at hand is historical fantasy.

This issue also brings with it a special feature, a celebration called Passion for the Picture Book. In it, we hear from parents, librarians, authors, illustrators, editors and agents on why the death toll (first sounded by the New York Times) for the 32-page spread self-contained world of the picture book is premature and the past, present, and future of the picture book is to be celebrated.

In our regular columns we have Brian Yansky, with his dry and witty take on What My Last Book Taught Me with his How I Found Myself as a Writer and Why It Took So Long. Our Toolbox is bursting with helpful hints from Debbie Gonzales in The Anatomy of a Teacher Guide. In This Writer’s Life triple-threat (author, illustrator, teacher) Charlotte Agell goes on a search for Where the Censor Hides.

In fiction, we celebrate the 2010 winners of the Katherine Paterson Prize as chosen by 2010 judge, Holly Black.  We have first place winner, Jaramy Conners’s  Steve;  runner-up in Young Adult fiction, S.E. Sinkhorn’s Chasing Shadows;  runner-up in Middle Grade Fiction Marcia Popp’s The Ugliest Dog in the World; and runner-up in picture book/writing for Young Children Jane Kohuth’s Something at the Hill.  Joining our 2010 KPP prize winners, as our special feature is on the picture book, we have chosen to highlight two additional stories for young readers. Christabel and Mr. Reader by Barbara Younger and  A Real Best Friend by Linnea Heaney.

We are thrilled to announce the judge for the 2011 Katherine Paterson Prize will be National Book Award winning Kimberly Willis Holt. It’s time again to polish those entries and submit your work for this prestigious prize.

We thank Hunger Mountain’s  loyal and new readers alike for reading and commenting and our contributors who, as always, continue to make us think, cause us to act, and inspire us to dream.

Best,

 Bethany and Kekla