Deadlines are as follows
March 1 – Spring
June 1 – Summer
September 1 – Autumn
December 1 – Winter
Please read this section before submitting work.
Please include some form of identification in the work itself.
All submissions must be in electronic form. Our preference is an MS Word file uploaded through the system below.
By submitting work to us you grant us a non-exclusive license to publish your work in any form we see fit. You may withdraw a submission up until the issue deadline (see above).
We don't pay so you retain all copyrights. If we publish your work online we may include it in a printed edition.
Poetry may be submitted in any length. Please don't submit 100 poems and ask us to pick 3.
Fiction may be submitted in three formats:
very short stories less than 500 words in length
short stories less than 1000 words in length
Short stories that don’t fit the above should be less than 3000 words.
We also accept longer forms of fiction occasionally.
Non-Fiction is just that so lets see some
interesting footnotes. Non-fiction should be short, (a lot) less than 5000
words
Book Reviews should be positive unless the author
is a well-known blowhard. Our mission is to encourage literature not
discourage it..
Any form of art may be submitted with the constraint that
it must be something that can be published in 2 dimensions. It’s hard to
publish sculpture but illustrations together with some intelligent prose
count.
Published works are welcome with proper attribution.
Welcome to the 39th issue (Volume 10, no 3) of the Wilderness
House Literary Review. WHLR is a result of the collaboration between a
group of poets and writers who call themselves the Bagel Bards (who keep publishing their anthologies).
The stories, articles, poems and examples of art have
been presented as PDF files. This is a format that
allows for a much cleaner presentation than would otherwise be available on
the web. If you don’t have an Adobe Reader (used to read a PDF file) on your
computer you can download one from the Adobe website. These files are large and we hope you will be patient when downloading
then, however we think the beauty of the words deserves a beautiful presentation.
Finally, the
copyrights are owned by their respective authors whose opinions are theirs
alone and do not reflect the opinions of our sponsors or partners.
It happens every year about this time. I don't know why I should be surprised but I am, … every year. I look out the window, next to my desk, and all of a sudden there is a burst of color. The Sumac and ivy have been turning red for a couple of weeks. The Birch grove deep in the woods has been yellow almost as long but the maple have withheld their color until the last couple of days.
We've been in a drought, not as extreme as the one in California or Asia-Minor but enough to cause worry. The lake the beavers built across the street in Bumblebee park is almost dry. The only evidence of the once full lake are the channels the beavers carved in the lake floor. They are the watery superhighways that should provide unencumbered travel to any part of the lake. The channels still have water in them and provide a last refuge of the little minnows that used to dart away when anyone approached the ponds deep end by the beaver dam. The beavers themselves are nowhere to be seen. I hope they have survived.
Normally it is the Swamp Maples that turn yellow and orange first but they are still green if a little sad looking. In years past a drought would forced the Swamp Maples to shut down early in a blizzard of still greenish yellow leaves. I've been expecting that for weeks but it hasn't happened … yet.
There are three or four different kinds of maple trees visible from my window.
The big Norway Maple is considered an invasive species by some. They are not very colorful, yellow and brown, mostly, and their roots are shallow which means they are the first to get blown over in a hurricane. Fortunately we haven't had a really good blow in years. The Norway maple is always the last to let go for the winter, usually in the first wet snowfall in November.
I already mentioned the Swamp Maple. I've been told that there are a couple of kinds of these but they all turn a motley yellow and orange and occasionally red.
Then there is the Sugar Maple, the iconic staple of the New England forest. It's the Sugar Maple that sets New England ablaze every October in brilliant reds, oranges and yellows. The Sugar Maple at the edge of my yard just exploded in colors right before my eyes.
Two days ago the world was green with red fringes where the ivy filled the forest floor or climbed the trunks of trees. Yesterday I noticed a few red patches in the trees in the valley across the street.
It rained yesterday for the first time in almost two months. It rained a lot. This morning, when the sun came out, I looked out my window to see a red, orange and yellow flame crowning the top of the Sugar Maple at the edge of my yard. It's cool and brisk today, it is finally fall.
A wonderful collection of essays came in over the transom this Spring. Our essays range from the story of a 50th year high school reunion to a eulogy for Lulu the Dog and lots more.
Our fiction editor loves Anton Chekhov and despairs the notion that there are no latter day Chekhov's submitting works for her consideration. This is not to say that the work she receives isn’t excellent … it’s just not Chekhov. To that end WHLReview announces a new prize for fiction to be called “the Chekhov Prize.” A Google search reveals several other Chekhov prizes with cash. Alas we’re not offering cash. We will look for a bearded bobble-head doll. In the mean time we have T-shirts with the Chekhov Prize logo available. Just click on Chekhov's head.
For your reading pleasure we offer an outstanding collection of short stories by:
Our poetry editor, not wanting to be outdone by our fiction editor is pleased to announce the Gertrude Stein "rose" prize for creativity in poetry. Anyone published in Volume 3 (and beyond) is eligible. We don't have any idea what the prize will consist of - a T-shirt for sure. Perhaps we can find a Plaster of Paris bust of Julius Caesar, put a rose in its mouth and decorate it to look like Gertrude Stein. In the mean time we have T-shirts with the our rose prize logo available. Just click on Gerturde's head.
The widget server that once provided a smooth scrolling region for our reviews has gone the way of the Dodo and no replacement has been found so we'll just have to point you to The Boston Area Small Press and Poetry Scene
As we said when we started this is a joint
production of Wilderness House Literary Retreat and the “bagel bards”.
The “Bagel Bards” have just published their nineth
anthology. You may purchase them here:
