MOST RECENT OPA NEWS
North Coast Squid call for submissions
Read all of this item.Attention Oregon Coast or those who have strong connections here.
The 8th North Coast Squid literary magazine releases October 2021
Submit your work from May 1-31, 2021All submissions are selected in a blind judging by authors/poets outside the
coastal area. You’re invited to submit to any combination of categories.
There is a $3 fee per submission. All work must be submitted electronically
via the submissions page of hoffmanarts.org and must arrive by midnight, May 31, 2021.
Complete guidelines on format are at hoffmanarts.orgFiction
Judge: Deb Vanasse, author of Wealth Woman: Kate Carmack and the Race
for Klondike Gold
One submission, 1,500 words in lengthNonfiction (to include memoir)
Judge: Apricot Irving author of The Gospel of Trees: A Memoir
One submission, 1,500 words in lengthPoetry
Judge: Margaret Chula, author of Daffodils at Twilight
Up to three poems per submission.Art, photography, or photographs of sculpture
The Editorial Team selects the images and magazine ...
MEMBER NEWS
- Posted: March 20, 2021
Related to Loon: a first year teacher in Tuluksak by Jackie McManus
Related to Loon: a first year teacher in Tuluksak has been accepted for publication by Finishing Line Press. Kathleen Flenniken, former WA Poet Laureate says “McManus is a skilled storyteller, playful, respectful…This book is an absolute delight.” Further reviews and ordering information can be found at www.finishinglinepress.com or the ...
LATEST BOOK REVIEW (EXCERPT)
OPA reviews Grim Honey, by Jessica Barksdale, reviewed by Alicia Hoffman
Read all of this item.
Reviewed by Alicia Hoffman
Grim Honey by Jessica Barksdale
Sheila-Na-Gig Editions, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-7354002-1-1
Available at https://sheilanagigblog.com/sheila-na-gig-editions-quick-shopping/jessica-barksdale/Exigence and Apocalypse
The past is never dead. It’s not even past.
– William FaulknerLike the horrific tragedy of 9/11, everyone will remember where they were when Covid19 shut down the globe. In early March 2020, days before nation-wide school closures, I was standing in a room full of maskless high schoolers, reviewing for the upcoming AP Language exams. We were studying the rhetorical concept of exigence, the idea that writers often come up against a situation that demands action or remedy. It is this impulse, this urgency, that often calls us to act, that prompts utterance, that begs us to better understand our place in the world’s vast and complicated chess game.
When the pandemic came ...
MOST RECENT POET’S SPOTLIGHT
2020 Spring Contest Winners: Poet’s Choice: 1st Place Winner
June 3, 2020Baby, It’s Cold Outside
(a Vivianne sonnet variation)
As embryos we each explore the wall
of womb that holds us. It’s the first place joy
is felt—mom’s heartbeat like a lullaby.
Cocooned in touch, that’s how we interact.
We’re chastised just as soon as we can crawl
or walk. Just look! Hands off! That’s not a toy.
We’re told to view, to listen, smell that, try
a taste of this—but touch … and hands are smacked.
And so begins our isolation. All
those inhibitions finally destroy
instinctive comfort found in touch, deny
the core of who we are. Our lives contract.