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 licence to publish your work in any form we see fit. You may withdraw a submission up untill 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 34th issue (Volume 9, no 2) 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.
There are times when we really don’t have a lot to say. Our mind is at ease and on idle. That happens in the Summer. The urgency of autumn and winter has passed and the vibrant energy of spring has yielded to the placid pace of summer. It’s a time to relax, go to the beach, go sailing (if you are near the water and so inclined) or just lay back and smell the roses. Out in the yard the grass needs mowing, the garden needs watering and it’s hot and sweltering in this tiny, overcrowded office even with it’s overtaxed air conditioner running 24 hours a day. The sun gets us up at 6 o’clock and by 9 we’ve read and replied to all our emails, fed the dog (who is now sunbathing) and written as much as we’re going to today. Of course, we’ll make another stab at working off and on during the day but for all practical purposes, we’re done.
We'd like to congratulate the Bagel Bards who are celebrating their tenth year meeting every Saturday to palaver by publishing their 9th anthology. Yes that makes sense.
One last thing, Zvi A. Sesling wrote a story in Ibbetson Street magazine about how mean literary editors are. Steve Glines replied in last fall’s issue. We reprint it here. As many of our writers know, we are finicky. Here’s why: Steve Glines -
A Literary Editor's Complaint
Our fiction editor loves Anton Chekhov and despairs the notion that there are no latter day Chekhovs 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 scroling 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:
