Telling Stories Talking Craft

Sycamore Review's collection of interviews with contemporary fiction writers, including Michael Chabon, Richard Ford, Jane Hamilon, and many more, is now available from our publishing partner, Parlor Press.
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FICTION by Conor Broughan, Fiction Editor
After careful reading, guest judge Aimee Bender has selected Cate Fricke’s story “Fox and Girl: A Bestial Romance” as the winner of Sycamore Review’s 2012 Wabash Fiction Prize. Aimee Bender said of the prize winning story: “First off, this story charmed me completely, gloriously. The author has a beautiful sense of the visual; each time I could picture perfectly the scene described, as if it were an illustration by an artist of a children’s book that is really not at all a children’s book. But the writing is sly, like a fox, because yes, it’s full of wonder and charm and delight, but underneath there’s real depth here, and a genuine exploration of a relationship and the two struggling characters in it. Both Fox and Girl, iconic as they are, feel real, dimensional, sympathetic, flawed. So …MORE
BLOG by Corey Van Landingham, Poetry Co-Editor
We were lucky enough to be able to ask Miriam some questions about her poem “It’s Hard to Forget,” which will run in the forthcoming issue of Sycamore Review. Check out Miriam talking about pica, world-making, and her manuscript All night in the new country.
Sycamore Review: Where did the material for”It’s Hard to Remember” come from? Is it part of a larger project, and, if so, how does this particular poem fit into that larger scope?
Miriam Bird Greenberg: This is part of a book-length manuscript of poems called All night in the new country which forms the loosely interlocking narrative of a woman fleeing unnamed upheaval a hundred years hence, partially set in the rural dystopian future of the East Texas Piney Woods. A historically diverse and lawless …MORE
BLOG by Jacob Sunderlin, co-editor of poetry
Listen up: Ryan Teitman is writing the kind of poems you sometimes hear about but rarely see, poems in which the usual becomes unusual. He’s going places, and was kind enough to correspond with me via email about his exciting new poem “Viola, Bound“ from the forthcoming issue of Sycamore Review. And this ain’t his first rodeo. Here, he schools us on Shakespeare, eroticism, and how to end a poem like a pro.
Sycamore Review: “Viola, Bound” feels so received, but poems almost never are. What can you tell us about the writing of this?
Ryan Teitman: I’m glad to hear it felt received, because this poem was anything but. Writing it felt like pulling a tooth. Like many other poems, this one began as a different, failed poem. I live in Berkeley, and one day as I was …MORE
NEWS We’re having a contest! Like us on Facebook between now and the end of April, and you’ll be entered into a drawing to win one of five free subscriptions to Sycamore Review. That’s one whole year of great literature for only a click.
ART By Adam Lefton, Managing Editor
Kathleen Lolley’s artwork is suffused with dark magic. Flowers bloom from the hollowed out faces of a donkey and a girl. A tree bleeds from an arrow’s wound. A swarm of moth-like owls with beady eyes hides in a tree stump. We love the world her work inhabits, a kind of surreal dream infused with the earthy tones of nature, and we’re honored to feature some of her pieces in the most recent issue of Sycamore Review. We’re also thrilled to be using her art on our website.
To see more of her work, you can visit Lolleyland. We promise the experience will not disappoint.
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