Submission deadline extended to 5/22/16 for NANCY DREW ANTHOLOGY

By popular request — including from members of the Nancy Drew Sleuths fan club — we have extended the submissions deadline to Sunday, 5/22/16 for our NANCY DREW ANTHOLOGY.

Since her 1930 appearance in The Secret of the Old Clock, amateur sleuth Nancy Drew has inspired generations of girls — including this one — with her moxie, intelligence, determination, but most of all independence. After 86 years, Nancy Drew is as popular as ever — with avid fans around the world.

Let’s celebrate this female icon and role model with the NANCY DREW ANTHOLOGY: A Collection of Poetry, Prose, Art & Photography Featuring Everyone’s Favorite Female Sleuth. 

WHAT: Poetry, prose, paintings, drawings, photographs, and other work inspired by Nancy Drew.

TYPES OF WRITTEN MATERIAL: 

• Poems (up to three — either original work or found/erasure poetry based on a Nancy Drew book)
• Short stories (up to 2,000 words)
• Essays (up to 1,500 words)
• Creative nonfiction (up to 2,000 words)
• Short plays or screenplays (approximately five typed pages)
• Other literary forms (up to 2,000 words)

TYPES OF VISUAL MATERIAL (send jpg files of at least 1MB):

• Photographs
• Collage
• Paintings
• 
Drawings

SUBMISSION DEADLINE: Sunday, May 22, 2016

ESTIMATED RELEASE DATE: Summer 2016

HOW TO SUBMIT: Please email written entries as MSWord attachments (title the file with your last name, e.g., Smith.docx or Jones.doc) and visual entries as jpg attachments to SBPSUBMISSIONS@gmail.com, along with your name, mailing address, email address, and one-paragraph bio written in the third person. (If submitting a found poem or erasure poem, provide the title, edition, and publication date of the Nancy Drew book. If the erasure is taken from one page, please also provide scan of original erasure.) For all submissions, write NANCY in email subject line. (Note: If you don’t have MSWord, send the submission in the body of your email.)

PAYMENT: Each contributor will receive a copy of the Silver Birch Press NANCY DREW ANTHOLOGY.

NOTE: The submissions will appear exclusively in a printed edition and will not appear on our blog.

SHOUT OUT: A heartfelt thank you to Jennifer Finstrom, whose poem “Nancy Drew’s Guide to Life” in our ME, IN FICTION Series and the subsequent enthusiastic feedback we received about it from readers, inspired this collection.

Cover image by Elizabeth Stark, used by permission. 

IMPORTANT NOTE: NANCY DREW is a registered mark of Simon & Schuster, Inc. This book and the contents thereof are not endorsed by, sponsored by or affiliated with Carolyn Keene, the author of the NANCY DREW series or its publisher Simon & Schuster, Inc.

Call for writing, art, and photography submissions: NANCY DREW ANTHOLOGY

Since her 1930 appearance in The Secret of the Old Clock, amateur sleuth Nancy Drew has inspired generations of girls — including this one — with her moxie, intelligence, determination, but most of all independence. After 86 years, Nancy Drew is as popular as ever — with avid fans around the world.

Let’s celebrate this female icon and role model with the NANCY DREW ANTHOLOGY: A Collection of Poetry, Prose, Art & Photography Featuring Everyone’s Favorite Female Sleuth. 

WHAT: Poetry, prose, paintings, drawings, photographs, and other work inspired by Nancy Drew.

TYPES OF WRITTEN MATERIAL: 

• Poems (up to three — either original work or found/erasure poetry based on a Nancy Drew book)
• Short stories (up to 2,000 words)
• Essays (up to 1,500 words)
• Creative nonfiction (up to 2,000 words)
• Short plays or screenplays (approximately five typed pages)
• Other literary forms (up to 2,000 words)

TYPES OF VISUAL MATERIAL (send jpg files of approximately 1MB):

• Photographs
• Collage
• Paintings
• 
Drawings

SUBMISSION DEADLINE: Sunday, May 22, 2016

ESTIMATED RELEASE DATE: Summer 2016

HOW TO SUBMIT: Please email written entries as MSWord attachments (title the file with your last name, e.g., Smith.docx or Jones.doc) and visual entries as jpg attachments to SBPSUBMISSIONS@gmail.com, along with your name, mailing address, email address, and one-paragraph bio written in the third person. (If submitting a found poem or erasure poem, provide the title, edition, and publication date of the Nancy Drew book. If the erasure is taken from one page, please also provide scan of original erasure.) For all submissions, write NANCY in email subject line.

PAYMENT: Each contributor will receive a copy of the Silver Birch Press NANCY DREW ANTHOLOGY.

NOTE: The submissions will appear exclusively in a printed edition and will not appear on our blog.

SHOUT OUT: A heartfelt thank you to Jennifer Finstrom, whose poem “Nancy Drew’s Guide to Life” in our ME, IN FICTION Series and the subsequent enthusiastic feedback we received about it from readers, inspired this collection.

Cover art by Elizabeth Stark, used by permission. 

IMPORTANT NOTE: NANCY DREW is a registered mark of Simon & Schuster, Inc. This book and the contents thereof are not endorsed by, sponsored by or affiliated with Carolyn Keene, the author of the NANCY DREW series or its publisher Simon & Schuster, Inc.

Detective Story, poem by W.H. Auden

DETECTIVE STORY
by W.H. Auden

For who is ever quite without his landscape,
The straggling village street, the house in trees,
All near the church, or else the gloomy town house,
The one with the Corinthian pillars, or
The tiny workmanlike flat: in any case
A home, the centre where the three or four things
that happen to a man do happen? Yes,
Who cannot draw the map of his life, shade in
The little station where he meets his loves
And says good-bye continually, and mark the spot
Where the body of his happiness was first discovered?
An unknown tramp? A rich man? An enigma always
And with a buried past but when the truth,
The truth about our happiness comes out
How much it owed to blackmail and philandering.
The rest’s traditional. All goes to plan:
The feud between the local common sense
And that exasperating brilliant intuition
That’s always on the spot by chance before us;
All goes to plan, both lying and confession,
Down to the thrilling final chase, the kill.
Yet on the last page just a lingering doubt:
That verdict, was it just? The judge’s nerves,
That clue, that protestation from the gallows,
And our own smile . . . why yes . . .
But time is always killed. Someone must pay for
Our loss of happiness, our happiness itself.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Wystan Hugh Auden (1907–1973), who published as W. H. Auden, was an Anglo-American poet, born in England, later an American citizen, regarded by many critics as one of the greatest writers of the 20th century. His work is noted for its stylistic and technical achievements, its engagement with moral and political issues, and its variety of tone, form and content. The central themes of his poetry are love, politics and citizenship, religion and morals, and the relationship between unique human beings and the anonymous, impersonal world of nature. (Read more at wikipedia.org.)

Illustration: From L.A. Noire video game, available at Amazon.com.

Reviews for Silver Birch Press NOIR Erasure Poetry Anthology

The Silver Birch Press NOIR Erasure Poetry Anthology (December 2013) — a collection of erasure poems based on the writings of a range of noir authors, including James M. Cain, Raymond Chandler, Dashiell Hammett, Patricia Highsmith, Walter Mosley, Robert B. Parker, and Cornell Woolrich — has earned some outstanding reviews at Amazon.com.

Here are some excerpts:

…a wonderful concept.”

…an interesting mix that pays homage to both the works of the noir genre and the poetic form…”

…one of the most fun and just amazing books of erasure poetry that I have ever read.”

… I am intrigued by the many different ways in which these poems were shaped from the original texts of noir writers’ novels. These marked-out passages combined with Budziak’s shadowy woodcut cover art throws the reader into the low-key and mysterious setting of the noir.”

The 122-page anthology features the work of 46 writers from around the world:  Jeffrey C. Alfier / Beth Ayer / Jenni B. Baker / David Barker / Kathy Burkett / Candace Butler / Freda Butler / Kim Cooper / Subhankar Das / Andrea Dickens / Barbara Eknoian / Chris Forhan / Laura Hartenberger / Paul Hawkins / Deborah Herman / Sandra Herman / Mathias Jansson / Jax NTP / Rosemarie Keenan / Wm. Todd King/ Joseph Lisowski / Renee Mallett / Adrian Manning/ Karen Margolis / Catfish McDaris / Marcia Meara / james w. moore / Sarah Nichols / Winston Plowes / David S. Pointer / D.A. Pratt / David Rachels / Jonne Rhodes / Van Roberts / Daniel Romo / Tere Sievers / Gerald So / Sherry Steiner / Caitlin Stern / Scott Stoller / Thomas R. Thomas / Mary Umans / Melanie Villines / Mercedes Webb-Pullman / Richard Wink / Joanie Hieger Fritz Zosike

A special note of appreciation to you the anthology’s contributing editors: Jenni B. Baker, Catfish McDaris, james w. moore, and Gerald So. Major thanks, too, to Guy Budziak for allowing Silver Birch Press to feature his woodcut of William Conrad — as seen in the 1946 film The Killers — on the cover of the collection. For more of Guy Budziak‘s work, please visit filmnoirwoodcuts.com.

For fans of mystery, crime, and hardboiled fiction, as well as film noir, the Silver Birch Press NOIR Erasure Poetry Anthology is an interesting, unique, and inexpensive holiday gift. The book is currently available for $10.58 from Amazon.com.

The Night Before Christmas by Raymond Chandler as told to CJ Ciaramella

The Night Before Christmas

by Raymond Chandler as told to CJ Ciaramella

It was the night before Christmas, when I first saw the red man. I was settled in my chair in the midst of a long bourbon nap, hand still clutching a highball glass of the stuff, when I heard a clatter, like a body tumbling down a flight of stairs.

I sat up in the chair to see what was the matter. The room was dark, save for the glow of Christmas lights on the tiny tree by the window. At first I thought it was nothing but a dream, when what to my wondering eyes should appear but the outline of a heavyset man creeping slowly out of the fireplace and into the room.

Then I thought about my gat, but it was in my suit coat, which was hanging by the doorway with care.

I sized him up as he moved closer. He was about six-foot-even, dressed from head to toe in a heavy red suit, like some two-bit hustler. His face was hidden under a thick, white beard. Under the suit I could see he was a big man. His belly jiggled like a bowl of jelly as he crept through the apartment. He moved quiet for his size and age. He had a big bag slung over his shoulder. I pegged him for a professional cat burglar or something.

He was halfway to the Christmas tree by the window when he spied me sitting in the chair. We had a nice, quiet moment where we considered each other’s presence.

“Expected me to be in the bedroom, I’m guessing,” I said. “What’s in the bag, Mac?”

He turned his head and laid his finger aside his nose with an impish grin. I stood up slowly from the chair and put the glass on the table.

“Okay, funny guy,” I said. “Okay.”

I went for the coat. He was on me as quick as a flash, awful fast for a big man. The bag clocked me in the back of the head as I reached the coat. Lights popped behind my eyes, and stars and sugar-plums and other silly things danced in front of them.

When I could see straight again, the red man was hoisting me to my feet. He spoke not a word, but went straight to work, planting one of his big, gloved mitts in my stomach, which doubled me over, and another on my chin to straighten me out. Then he tossed me, casually as he probably tossed that bag around, across the room.

“Merry Christmas, shamus,” the red man said real jolly like, throwing me a wrapped package from his bag as I sprawled on the floor. “Have a swell night.”

“How about next time just mail a card,” I said, rubbing my jaw.

He ignored that, walked over to the table, drank my bourbon, and walked out my door, leaving it swinging open.

The package was addressed to me from “St. Nick.” The name meant nothing to me. Inside was a new hat and an emptiness that only gift boxes on dark, solitary nights possess.

I put the tag in my pocket, the hat on a hook, closed the door, and poured another couple fingers of bourbon into the glass. Sat in the chair and waited for dawn or sleep, whichever found me first.

###

CJ Ciaramella has written for the Washington Free Beacon, The Awl, The Daily Caller, the San Diego Union-Tribune, The Weekly Standard, the Oregon Daily Emerald, the Oregon Quarterly and the Oregon Commentator, among others.

Illustration: Sodahead

New Release: Silver Birch Press NOIR Erasure Poetry Anthology

Silver Birch Press is excited to announce the December 2013 release of the NOIR Erasure Poetry Anthology — a collection of erasure poems based on the writings of a range of noir authors, including James M. Cain, Raymond Chandler, Dashiell Hammett, Patricia Highsmith, Walter Mosley, Robert B. Parker, and Cornell Woolrich.

The 122-page anthology features the work of 46 writers from around the world:  Jeffrey C. Alfier / Beth Ayer / Jenni B. Baker / David Barker / Kathy Burkett / Candace Butler / Freda Butler / Kim Cooper / Subhankar Das / Andrea Dickens / Barbara Eknoian / Chris Forhan / Laura Hartenberger / Paul Hawkins / Deborah Herman / Sandra Herman / Mathias Jansson / Jax NTP / Rosemarie Keenan / Wm. Todd King/ Joseph Lisowski / Renee Mallett / Adrian Manning/ Karen Margolis / Catfish McDaris / Marcia Meara / james w. moore / Sarah Nichols / Winston Plowes / David S. Pointer / D.A. Pratt / David Rachels / Jonne Rhodes / Van Roberts / Daniel Romo / Tere Sievers / Gerald So / Sherry Steiner / Caitlin Stern / Scott Stoller / Thomas R. Thomas / Mary Umans / Melanie Villines / Mercedes Webb-Pullman / Richard Wink / Joanie Hieger Fritz Zosike

For fans of mystery, crime, and hardboiled fiction, as well as film noir, the Silver Birch Press NOIR Erasure Poetry Anthology is an interesting, unique, and inexpensive holiday gift. The book is currently available for $11.40 from Amazon.com.

A special note of appreciation to you the anthology’s contributing editors: Jenni B. Baker, Catfish McDaris, james w. moore, and Gerald So. Thanks to you, a wide range of established authors contributed their work to the collection. Fedoras off to you!

Major thanks, too, to Guy Budziak for allowing Silver Birch Press to feature his woodcut of William Conrad — as seen in the 1946 film The Killers — on the cover of the collection. For more of Guy Budziak‘s work, please visit filmnoirwoodcuts.com.

Private Eye Lettuce, poem by Richard Brautigan

PRIVATE EYE LETTUCE
by Richard Brautigan

Three crates of Private Eye Lettuce,
the name and drawing of a detective
with magnifying glass on the sides
of the crates of lettuce,
form a great cross in man’s imagination
and his desire to name   
the objects of this world.
I think I’ll call this place Golgotha
and have some salad for dinner.

Detective Story, poem by W.H. Auden

DETECTIVE STORY
by W.H. Auden

For who is ever quite without his landscape,
The straggling village street, the house in trees,
All near the church, or else the gloomy town house,
The one with the Corinthian pillars, or
The tiny workmanlike flat: in any case
A home, the centre where the three or four things
that happen to a man do happen? Yes,
Who cannot draw the map of his life, shade in
The little station where he meets his loves
And says good-bye continually, and mark the spot
Where the body of his happiness was first discovered?
An unknown tramp? A rich man? An enigma always
And with a buried past but when the truth,
The truth about our happiness comes out
How much it owed to blackmail and philandering.
The rest’s traditional. All goes to plan:
The feud between the local common sense
And that exasperating brilliant intuition
That’s always on the spot by chance before us;
All goes to plan, both lying and confession,
Down to the thrilling final chase, the kill.
Yet on the last page just a lingering doubt:
That verdict, was it just? The judge’s nerves,
That clue, that protestation from the gallows,
And our own smile . . . why yes . . .
But time is always killed. Someone must pay for
Our loss of happiness, our happiness itself.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Wystan Hugh Auden (1907–1973), who published as W. H. Auden, was an Anglo-American poet, born in England, later an American citizen, regarded by many critics as one of the greatest writers of the 20th century. His work is noted for its stylistic and technical achievements, its engagement with moral and political issues, and its variety of tone, form and content. The central themes of his poetry are love, politics and citizenship, religion and morals, and the relationship between unique human beings and the anonymous, impersonal world of nature. (Read more at wikipedia.org.)

Illustration: From L.A. Noire video game, available at Amazon.com.

Farewell My Lovely by Raymond Chandler, Read by Michael Caine

“The coffee shop smell was strong enough to build a garage on.”

RAYMOND CHANDLER, Farewell My Lovely

May is “Get Caught Reading” month, and during the past few weeks we’ve posted a range of familiar faces reading a variety of books. In the photo above, Michael Caine — in the role of Jack Carter in the 1971 movie Get Carter — reads Raymond Chandler‘s 1940 novel Farewell My Lovely. And, as the excerpt at the top of his post proves, Chandler was a master of the original metaphor.