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The Conium Review: Vol. 5 is slated for release on December 15th. Here’s a mock-up of the new issue’s cover. Like the last couple issues, the front is rather minimal while a larger image wraps around the back. Any guesses what those scraggly lines are? Answer: broken chain-link fence. Pre-orders for The Conium Review: Vol. 5 will go on sale this weekend!
“The Conium Review: Vol. 5” cover
Last month, Melissa Reddish guest edited a special “Fragmented” call for submissions. After careful deliberation, Melissa selected Brian Phillip Whalen‘s “And It Will Be Called the Highway of Holiness” for publication. The piece will be made into a limited-run micro-chapbook, and it will be delivered as a free pre-order bonus with Melissa’s new book, Girl & Flame.
Brian Phillip Whalen’s poems and stories have appeared in Beecher’s, The Chattahoochee Review, Cream City Review, J Journal, Lake Effect, Mid-American Review, North American Review, RHINO, and elsewhere. He holds an MFA from Iowa State University and a PhD from SUNY-Albany. He lives in upstate New York with his wife and baby daughter.
Here’s what Melissa had to say about her final selection:
“Brian Phillip Whalen’s story, ‘And It Will be Called the Highway of Holiness,’ is part-hymn, part-celebration, part-dirge for Georgia, poor pup with staples in her gut who eats everything, babies and tinsel and foxes and trikes and Christmas trees, until her inevitable end. The people who orbit around Georgia have a particular feel: blue-collar rural Americans with F-150 flat-bed trucks and tractors and percolators and steel wool under cupboards, each battling their own particular demons. More circular than linear, more poetry than prose, the piece skips and glides with linguistic playfulness and clever asides, the format fragmenting then reassembling, creating meaning even as it dismantles it, all while retaining the emotional heart at the center.”
—Melissa Reddish, author of Girl & Flame
Matt Tompkins talks about his new Conium Press title, Souvenirs and Other Stories, for Monkeybicycle‘s “If My Book” column.
For this Monkeybicycle feature, authors compare their recently released books to weird things. It’s a fun column and a unique way to get a taste of a new book directly from the author.
In one section, Matt says “If Souvenirs and Other Stories were a cat, it would be a huge, flame-orange, polydactyl housecat.” Elsewhere, he remarks “If Souvenirs and Other Stories were an urgent question, it would be, ‘Great, but how will you pay the bills?'” Read the entire post here.
Daniel Aristi’s poem, “Kobayashi, K. born in Manzanar, 1943” was recently published in Puerto del Sol. Daniel also has poetry forthcoming in Issue 19 of LA Review and Issue 43 of Berkeley Poetry Review later this year.
Daniel Aristi was a contributor to The Conium Review Online compendium with “Marty of Karbala” in October, 2014.
Ashley Hutson’s story, “Soft Bodies,” was recently selected as a finalist for the Indianola Review‘s 2016 Leap Day Flash Fiction Prize (judged by David James Poissant) and will be published in the March issue. In February her nonfiction piece, “Back Aisles,” appeared in River Teeth. She also has forthcoming publications in Spelk, Calliope, Split Lip Magazine, Threadcount, and Fiction International. Read more at www.aahutson.com.