The most exciting news: A Review is born (and a competition, too)

For a year, we’ve been working hard behind the scenes, and today is the day it all begins to emerge from under wraps: The Peauxdunque Review is born. Under the guidance of Editor-in-Chief Larry Wormington, Editorial Board at-large member Emily Choate, Poetry Editor Cassie Pruyn, Non-fiction Editor April Blevins Pejic, and Fiction Editor Andrew Kooy, along with a cast of many of your favorite Peauxdunquians, a vision has slowly taken shape.

Today, the Review is open for submissions of short fiction, flash fiction, creative non-fiction, and poetry. We are also excited to announce that we are open for submission of entries into the brand-new Words and Music Writing Competition! The Words and Music Festival, a twenty-year-strong writers’ conference, is now under the direction of One Book One New Orleans, and with that new direction is a brand-new competition, which The Peauxdunque Review has agreed to administer (with winners and runners-up guaranteed publication in the Review‘s pages). Click the link above for full information on how to enter into categories for short story, creative non-fiction, poetry, and short story by public high school students.

The Peauxdunque Review will launch its first issue in late summer 2018, with its second issue to come out in early 2019. Over the next few days, we will be continuing to put the final details in place on the website, but in the meantime, go over and “Like” the Peauxdunque Review ‘s Facebook page, and tell your friends!

More Peauxdunque publication news

A new year, and new publication news by Peauxdunquians:

  • Maurice Carlos Ruffin will shortly commence his stint as the nonfiction columnist for Virginia Quarterly Review, reviewing and essaying about current and recent nonfiction books. His first column will cover material from When They Call You a Terrorist, by Patrice Khan-Cullors and asha bandele; Political Tribes, by Amy Chua; and Armed in America, by Patrick Charles.
  • Drew Jordan will have two poems published in the Summer 2018 issue of Still:The Journal.
  • Tad Bartlett will have his short story, “Boone’s Farm from a Sprite Bottle,” published in Issue 234 of Crack the Spine.
  • Andrew Kooy, in conjunction with the upcoming publication of his story, “Clap Your Hands,” by Apex, has also been selected for an author interview by Apex and for production of his story for Apex‘s podcast!

Always more news coming, so keep watching this space, and our Facebook page for links to web-content versions of these pieces as they go live.

Words and Music, the Gray Lady, the Radio, and some more publications

Peauxdunque, despite its moniker, is a bustling place these days!

First up, tomorrow the Words and Music writers’ conference, put on by the Pirate’s Alley Faulkner Society, kicks off at the Hotel Monteleone in New Orleans. On the opening day, Thursday December 7, Tad Bartlett will chair a “Words and Music Writers Alliance” session at 3 p.m., featuring a remembrance of Peauxdunque founding member Terri Sue Shrum, and readings of new works by Peauxdunquians Emily ChoateJ.Ed. MarstonAlex Johnson, and others. Please come join us, and stay for the rest of this excellent conference!

And last week featured two different recognitions of Peauxdunquians’ work by The New York Times! First, The New York Times Book Review featured a stellar review of The Best Women’s Travel Writing, Volume 11: True Stories from around the World, edited by Peauxdunquian Lavinia Spalding. “The latest book’s editor, Lavinia Spalding, hungry for travelers who ‘go with an open heart’ and have ‘the inclination to practice human kindness, a sincere intention to build pathways of understanding and a willingness to be transformed,’ read nearly 500 submissions before settling on the 31 stories that make up this diverse collection.” Then, the NYT featured “Kings of the Confederate Road,” the essay and photo feature collaboration by Tad Bartlett, Maurice Carlos Ruffin, and L. Kasimu Harris published by The Bitter Southerner, in its weekly “What We’re Reading” round-up.

On the grand old wireless contraption known as the radio, Peauxdunquian poet (and historian!) Cassie Pruyn was featured on NPR’s The Reading Life, discussing her brand new, just released lyrical history book, Bayou St. John: A Brief History. Cassie will also be reading and signing her newest book at Octavia Books on Sunday, December 10, at 2 p.m. (513 Octavia Street, NOLA).

Finally, there’s a slew of new publication news coming out of Peauxdunque for upcoming fiction and non-fiction: Tad‘s short story, “Porches,” will be published in January 2018 by Gris-Gris literary journal. Andrew Kooy has two upcoming publications: his short story “clap your hands” will run in an upcoming issue of Apex, and his nonfiction piece “George, WA” will run in the June 2018 issue of Bird’s Thumb. Finally, James Drew Jordan will see two of his stories–“The Man Who Played with Satchmo” and “Starland, Washington”–run in New South.

WHEW!

Ruffin interviewing Dinerstein; Kooy publication and plaudit

TONIGHT! Maurice Carlos Ruffin will interview Joel Dinerstein at Garden District Book Shop on Dinerstein’s book, The Origins of Cool in Postwar America. We certainly can’t think of a cooler fellow to conduct the interview. And the subject feels particularly fitting to Peauxdunque, too, as Dinerstein writes: “To be free and cool requires leaving one’s repressive hometown (or family) to seek a floating community of rebels.” We’re all leaving our personal podunks and striving for something greater and more communal, especially these days.

Also of note in Peauxdunque-land (and also speaking of cool), Andrew Kooy will see his short story, “Clap Your Hands,” published by Apex Magazine (which is currently at the top of Duotrope’s list of “most challenging fiction markets”). Andrew also recently received an Honorable Mention designation in the “Writers of the Future” competition!

Kooy in Stockholm!

Peauxdunquian Andrew Kooy has had his short story, “Perfection,” accepted for publication by the Stockholm Review of Literature. Some would say Andrew’s Viking-like good looks would make him a natural fit for such Scandinavian dreams, but this is, indeed, Andrew’s first European publication. When SRL‘s new issue goes live with Andrew’s story next week, we’ll post the link to our Facebook page.

Andrew Kooy at Hopedale Writers’ Camp, March 2017

Kooy with a publication; Choate to read at W&M

The writers and artists of Peauxdunque are dedicated to fighting, protecting, and expressing the strength of humanity, the love of our complex natures and collective worth, and the true freedoms of a people together. And we will never stop. With that …

We are all very excited to learn that Andrew Kooy will have his creative nonfiction piece, “Masochistic Tendencies,” published in Barely South Review in an upcoming issue! We will post a link on our Facebook page when the piece goes live.

And TODAY, at the Words and Music Conference in New Orleans, Emily Choate will be a selected reader (at 4 p.m. at the Hotel Monteleone), reading from her novel-in-progress. Don’t miss it!

New Publications forthcoming by Kooy and Bartlett

More publications are forthcoming from Peauxdunquians Andrew Kooy and Tad Bartlett.

Andrew‘s short story, “Big and Strong,” will appear in the “Saints”-themed issue of Montreal-based journal, Ricky’s Back Yard. The issue will be released in May 2016.

Tad‘s short story, “The Non-Artists,” will be published in The Mulberry Fork Review, an online journal run out of Vancouver, Glasgow, and Hanceville, Alabama. Their latest issue with Tad’s story will be released the week of April 11, 2016.

Finally, big news is the publication of Tad‘s novella, Marchers’ Season, by the Boston-based Novella-TNovella-T has come up with a new distribution and compensation model for the hard-to-publish novella form. They serialize novellas and distribute installments weekly to subscribers, splitting the subscription revenue with the authors. Marchers’ Season will appear in six installments beginning on April 18, 2016.

Links to these publications and other news will appear as they become available on our Facebook page, so go Like us there!

Andrew Kooy and Tad Bartlett on either side of the group at Peauxdunque's 2016 Writers' Camp in Hopedale, Louisiana. Left-to-right: Andrew Kooy, Maurice Carlos Ruffin, Susan Bennett Vallee, Denise Moore, Cassie Pruyn, Emilie Staat, Terri Shrum, Emily Capdeville, J.Ed. Marston, Susan Kagan, Emily Choate, and Tad Bartlett.

Andrew Kooy and Tad Bartlett on either side of the group at Peauxdunque’s 2016 Writers’ Camp in Hopedale, Louisiana. Left-to-right: Andrew Kooy, Maurice Carlos Ruffin, Susan Bennett Vallee, Denise Moore, Cassie Pruyn, Emilie Staat, Terri Shrum, Emily Capdeville, J.Ed. Marston, Susan Kagan, Emily Choate, and Tad Bartlett.

A Peaux/Real World!

PeauxRealThe New Orleans Fringe Fest has grown and evolved into the Faux/Real Festival, two and a half weeks of theater, music, dance, art, and writings on the edge. And this year they have given over their writers’ space, the Faux/Real Cafe, to the Peauxdunque Writers Alliance, on Wednesday night, November 11, from 6:30 to 9:30.

What happens when eight writers leave their personal podunks and come to New Orleans and start getting fo’ real? Come to the Faux/Real Cafe to find out! Maurice Carlos Ruffin, Cassie Pruyn, Zach Bartlett, Terri Shrum, Andrew Kooy, Emilie Staat, Tad Bartlett, and Caroline Goetze take the stage at 6:30 (along with a special spectral appearance by Susan Kagan), and the verbal slings and arrows don’t stop flying until 9:30. Cafe Faux/Real is a venue set up just for the Faux/Real Festival, where coffee and drinks and books will be for sale while the readings go. THIS READING IS FREE, though all Faux/Real events can be attended with a Faux/Real Button ($5 gets you an awesome collectors’ button that also happens to get you into more than two weeks of premier art out beyond the boundaries).

See you there! (At 2161 N. Rampart)

Kooy, Carson, and Pruyn publications added to the list

Another publication update for Peauxdunque denizens:

The newest Peauxdunquian, Andrew Kooy, will have his short story “Eclipse” published by Blood and Thunder: Musings on the Art of Medicine, at the end of October.

And our Peauxdunque-in-L.A. man of letters, Tom Carson, will have his poem “Moby Dick Joins the Circus” published in the next issue of Black Clock (though under a different title).

Also, Peauxdunque peaux-et Cassie Pruyn recently had three poems published in Issue 3 of Big Big Wednesday, which you can purchase here.

Looking forward to reading all of these! More updates soon.