Content Tagged ‘toni tipton-martin’

Last night, students in the MFA program here at UNCW hosted their End of the World Reading. School is over, and many of our students–some who have worked so hard on Ecotone and Lookout–are leaving us. We’re sad to see them go, but so excited about the possibilities ahead for them. In honor of this end-of-the-world feeling, and because we have so much good news to share this week, a request: read the following bits of news quickly, and to the tune of REM’s “It’s the End of the World As We Know It (And I Feel Fine).”

Like the whole rest of the world, we were saddened by the death of Prince this week. Ecotone Sound contributor shirlette ammons wrote this tribute for a Triangle-based Indy publication.

“Uh oh, overflow!”

This week saw the first annual Edith Pearlman Creative Writing Award given at Brookline High School. Congrats to Alma Bitran! And to Edith Pearlman, whose work continues to inspire and change us.

Speaking of Lookout authors, Matthew Neill Null’s forthcoming story collection (from Sarabande) was reviewed by the Rumpus this past week, and they had nice things to say about Honey from the Lion too:  “It has become one of the laziest clichés to claim that the place in which a story is set becomes a character in that story. Works of fiction as great as Matthew Neill Null’s epic evocations of West Virginia deserve better.”

“Feeling pretty psyched.”

Ecotone contributor Melissa Pritchard was awarded the 2016 Marguerite and Lamar Smith Fellowship for Writers at the Carson McCullers Center for Writers and Musicians in Columbus, Georgia. She’ll be living in Carson McCuller’s childhood home for three months this fall.

Ecotone Sustenance issue contributor Toni Tipton-Marton won a James Beard Award this week for her book The Jemima Code (which was excerpted in our issue).

“Offer me solutions, offer me alternatives, and I decline.”

Guernica did a nice interview with Ecotone issue 19 contributor Paul Lisicky, largely about The Narrow Door (we excerpted that too).

Clare Beams, author of Lookout’s forthcoming book We Show What We Have Learned, has a great Ploughshares blog about the difference between flashy short stories and longer ones that go for the “slow reveal.” Also, here’s a photo of Clare holding a galley of her book. So much greatness in one photo!

“Leonard Bernstein!”

Speaking of Ploughshares, this blog post by Ecotone issue 13 contributor Emilia Phillips about lyric essays, and how she turned to them after she had cancer removed from her face, is so very moving.

Ecotone contributors Christopher Cokinos and Eric MaGrane will be doing a reading and discussion about the Sonoran Desert tonight at Tucson’s Antigone Books.

“You symbiotic, patriotic, slam but neck, right? Right.”

Orion is finishing up its national poetry month feature, curated by Ecotone contributor Aimee Nezhukumatathil–photographs of poetry books in the wild. Here’s Anna Lena’s (Ecotone‘s edtitor).

“Birthday party, cheesecake, jellybean, boom.”

Ecotone contributor Shawn Vestal has a novel coming out called Daredevils. Check out this excerpt from LitHub.

I’ll leave you with this final lyric to ponder: “It’s the end of the world as we know it (It’s time I had some time alone).” Join me back here next week when we’ll start a new world all over with the best news of the week.

It is holiday feast season so I thought I would rummage through Ecotone’s Sustenance Issue to get some ideas for avoiding that same dried-out poultry and canned cranberry sauce. The bounty therein was plentiful, and I couldn’t stop with the traditional five-item list. So give your Aunt Henrietta an extra glass of white zinfandel and let your tastebuds celebrate alongside you in this collection of fantastic recipes.

Appetizer:

1. Reading Camille T. Dungy’s essay “Differentiation” I found myself wandering the snowy planes of an Alaskan town discovering a food culture I had no knowledge of. Since I am not in the habit of catching and processing my seafood by hand, I decided on the next-best thing: to start our feast with a salmon fish cake courtesy of BBCGoodFood.com. I’m not suggesting that you go crazy and make your own mayonnaise tarter sauce but I am alsohttp://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/rachael-ray/braised-mustard-greens-recipe not not suggesting that.

Main Course:

2. It is a challenge to read Randall Kenan’s essay “Greens: A Mess of Memories About Taste” and not imagine the tangy savory flavor of mustard greens filling you up and making you feel at home. You don’t have to be a Southerner to appreciate the mastery of imagery and sensuous textures Kenan weaves into his essay. Being a firm believer in the power of bacon to make anything better, I found a recipe, courtesy of Rachel Ray, that combined the two. If Aunt Henrietta is huffing and puffing about not having those mashed potatoes, just give her a taste of these greens and ask her, “Ain’t it good? Ain’t it good?”

3. I am particularly excited about this next one. Sarah Becan’s comic “Les Curds du Mal” is both savory and enraging. After spending time learning about the politics of importing French cheese, you’ll want to jet off to Paris directly for a bit of Brie. Although we now know that our imported cheese is subpar, we’ll take what we can get and, after finding this recipe, courtesy of Saveur, we want it. And this recipe for a Tartiflette might make it taste even better.

4. Many of us here at Ecotone and Lookout have holiday histories that are steeped in tradition. But after reading “Breaking the Jemima Code: The Legacy of African American Cookbooks,” an excerpt from the book The Jemima Code: Two Centuries of African American Cooks, we’ve learned that many of our tried-and-true traditions have origins we’re unaware of. In the spirit of acknowledging that Toni Tipton-Martin gives us, let’s get rid of that salty swine and savor something new. I’m sure by this point Aunt Henrietta is on board and ready for whatever the table delivers—just make sure no one starts talking politics! Here’s a recipe for Herb Roasted Leg of Lamb offered up by Toni Tipton-Martin herself via the JemimaCode.com

Dessert:

5. The Sustenance Issue of Ecotone is a trip not only through physical sustenance, but also the emotional and historical kind. Here at Ecotone we celebrate the knowledge and healing the comes through the sharing of stories. This next recipe is inspired by Matthew Gavin Frank’s essay “Spoon Bread.” Frank’s candid examination of his own family and cultural history in Nebraska is awe inspiring. And mouth watering. This recipe for spoon bread is courtesy of Martha Stewart.

6. Emily Hillard’s essay “Heavenly Work: The Fleeting Legacy of the Shakers” asks us to imagine how a community interacts with its history. I couldn’t imagine a sweeter way to end a foray into new traditions. So, we perused Emily’s blog, Nothing in The House, and found a recipe for Red Wine-Poached Seckel Pear Tarlets that will have Aunt Henrietta dreaming about next year (and after all that white zinfindel we doubt she’ll turn down anything poached in red wine). If this particular tartlet is not your style, check out Emily’s blog for a plethora of options.

From all of us here at Ecotone and Lookout, we wish you a season filled with good sustenance of all kinds: good friends, fiesty family (wink wink, Aunt Henrietta), tasty food, and robust literature.

–Reneé LaBonté, Lookout intern

Friends, it’s been an incredibly busy week here at Ecotone and Lookout HQ. The last week of classes! Finishing up edits on Lookout’s new story collection! Getting ready to upload Ecotone’s fall/winter issue! Buying holiday trees! Our contributors have been busy too. In the spirit of the honoring the busyness in all of us, this week’s roundup is coming at you rapid fire. Ready, set: literature!

Ecotone contributor Jeff Sharlet and collaborator Neil Shea announce a new project with Virginia Quarterly Review: #TrueStory, which will build on the experiments with “Instagram journalism” Neil and Jeff have been making. They start with a dispatch from Meera Subramanian. Each week there’ll be a new selection of reported stories, and they’re looking for submissions. The work will also be published online at VQR, and select essays will appear in the print journal.

In other submission news, submissions are open for the Rose Post Creative Nonfiction Contest from the North Carolina Writers’ Network, and first-place winners could potentially see their essays on the pages of Ecotone.

If you’re in the area, Lookout’s debut novelist, Matthew Neill Null,  will read from Honey from the Lion at his alma mater Washington and Lee on December 7 at 7 p.m.

Up for a laugh? At the Rumpus, Lookout author Steve Almond very comically shares his “fan mail” (See those quotes? This mail is full of loathing and violence!) from Against Football and then responds to them.

New work is out from a bunch of Ecotone contributors: Elizabeth T. Gray Jr. has a lovely poem featured on Women’s Voices for Change. Jamie Quatro has a new short story in the Oxford American. Matthew Gavin Frank had part of his new book (about Chicago pizza!) featured in Longreads last week. 

Good news abounds too! Ecotone contributor Toni Tipton-Martin fetched some glowing words from the New York Times for Breaking the Jemima Code. And both Lookout author Edith Pearlman and Ecotone contributor Lauren Groff made the New York Times list of 100 Notable Books of 2015.

And unless you’ve been living under a rock, you’ve already heard about Claire Vaye Watkins’s amazing essay on the Tin House blog. But if you just crawled out, head on over.

Bam! A slew of amazing reads to keep you busy in your down time. Thanks for taking the time to check in. We hope your week ahead is filled with busyness and rest in perfect balance.

This week’s Roundup is brought to you by the letter M! You may recognize her from marketing campaigns like this one or songs from the ’90s like this one. But this week we’ve got Ms up to a bunch of literary magic.

First up is a two-fer: Lookout author Matthew Neill Null who asked this week on Paris Review Daily, “Will anyone in America give a damn about Maria Beig?” The German author remains largely unread in America, sadly. Matt says, “Her writing, so invested in the disappearing rural world, is particular, yes, but universal: her characters love and long and pine away. She would be totally unknown here if not for the good labor of the novelist Jaimy Gordon and her husband Peter Blickle, a German academic, who have translated and published Lost Weddings and Hermine for small presses.” We cannot wait to read the work of ninety-five-year-old Beig, available in the U.S. from New Issues Poetry & Prose.

Matt Null is meeting up with a couple of other Ms at the Boston Book Festival this weekend, Ecotone contributor Megan Mayhew Bergman and Matt Bell. They’ll talk about fiction grounded in real places or real life stories, read from their work, and answer your most pressing questions. Don’t miss these three fantastic writers on Saturday from 1–2 p.m.

And if you’re in the Provincetown area, you won’t want to miss another one of Matt’s events at the Provincetown Public Library. Matt will be in the (wait for it) Marc Jacobs Reading Room on Thursday, October 29 at 6 p.m., where he will read from Honey from the Lion.

In the category of things that make you go mmmm:

Ecotone contributor Toni Tipton-Martin was featured on NPR’s All Things Considered, discussing African-American culinary history, and her forthcoming book, The Jemimi Code.

We have two Notables (and two more Ms) in Best American Nonrequired Reading 2015 both from issue 17: Matthew Clark, for his essay “Shedders,” and Matthew Neill Null for his story “The Island in the Gorge of the Great River.”

We hope your weekend is filled with marvels, mysteries of the best kind, and as much literary magic as you can muster!

This week, as you all know by now, was publication week for Honey from the Lion! We’ve been shipping books, publicizing, and getting ready for Matt’s book tour. Big thanks to a grant from South Arts for helping us make these workshops and panels, as well as a special visit to Hawbridge School, possible. You can find all event dates and details for the tour here, but if you’re in North or South Carolina, you can find him whirlwinding over the next couple of weeks in these cities:

Friday, September 11, 7 p.m., Scuppernong Books, Greensboro, NC
Saturday, September 12, 2:30 p.m., Bookmarks Festival, Winston-Salem, NC
Saturday, September 12, 7 p.m., Malaprop’s, Asheville, NC
Sunday, September 13, 3 p.m., University of North Carolina Asheville, Osher Lifelong Learning Institute
Monday, September 14, 5:30 p.m. panel, 7 p.m. reading, Flyleaf Books, Chapel Hill, NC
Tuesday, September 15, 6 p.m. workshop and book signing, Weymouth Center for the Arts & Humanities, Southern Pines, NC
Tuesday, September 15, 6 p.m., Fiction Addiction Southern Storytellers event (ticketed), Greenville, SC
Wednesday, September 16, 3 p.m., Hub City Bookshop, Spartanburg, SC
Thursday, September 17, 7 p.m., Main Street Books, Davidson, NC
Friday–Saturday, September 18–19, Southern Independent Booksellers Alliance Discovery Show, Raleigh, NC

In case you missed any of the goings-on around the book this week, here’s a quick recap: find excerpts of the novel at At Length and American Short Fiction, and find interviews from Kirkus and Tin House’s the Open Bar. And tune in on Thursday, September 17 at noon to hear Matt on the State of Things from WUNC.

We’ve been working long hours to get all preorders mailed. If you’re one of our lucky customers, the books are on the way thanks to the hard work on the Lookout staff (Megan and Morgan seen here; overhead ladder shot courtesy of Liz).

In other news, Ecotone contributors are all over the web this week. Claire Vaye Watkins and Lauren Groff talk about their new books on Salon with Alexandra Kleeman, Helen Phillips, Matthew Salesses, and Steve Toltz. One of the most fun interviews we’ve read in a while. Kazim Ali wrote this open letter to contributor Aimee Nezhukumatathil in response to this week’s Best American Poetry scandal. And Toni Tipton Martin got some attention from the New York Times for her book The Jemima Code.

That’s the news for the week! On this September 11 we hope you are surrounded by those you love and words that bring you comfort and connection.

Many Ecotone contributors have been busy launching books this fall, and we love to see their names on best-of lists! Claire Vaye Watkins and Lauren Groff made Bustle’s list of most anticipated fall books, Lauren’s book was featured again on Electric Literature, and Luis Alberto Urrea’s new book got a nice review in High Country Times. 

Contributor Toni Tipton-Martin’s fantastic new book, The Jemima Code: Two Centuries of African American Cookbooks is the new selection for the Bitter Southerner’s Well Read Book Club. Toni has amassed an amazing collection of cookbooks by little-known African American cooks—one of which was featured in Ecotone’s sustenance issue—and her book explores what they have to say about our culture. Toni was also consulted in this NYT piece about food and race in the South.

In event news, Ecotone contributor Randall Keenan will discuss Ta-Nehisi Coates’s book Between the World and Me at Durham’s The Regulator Bookshop next Tuesday, which is also the official launch for Lookout’s sixth title, Honey from the Lion by Matthew Neill Null! (But if you can’t wait until then to start reading, At Length magazine published this stunning excerpt from the novel.) Tonight at 7 p.m., Matt joins host Jenny Zhang and writers Leopoldine Core, Doreen St. Félix, Alice Kim, and Anna North for Alienation Produces Eccentrics or Revolutionaries at Housing Works Bookstore Café. You won’t want to miss his first official reading from Honey from the Lion. And on Sunday, he will launch the novel in his hometown of Provincetown at Tim’s Used Books. Next week, Matt kicks off his tour of the Carolinas, thanks in part to a grant from South Arts. He’ll be giving public readings and teaching historic fiction writing workshops along the way. Check out the events page on his website for dates, times, and details.

During UNCW’s fall break on Monday and Tuesday, some of us curled up with a good book, while others hit the road. Lookout intern Katie Prince ventured west to Asheville, NC, and photographed the stunning fall colors.

“I’m so glad I live in a world where there are Octobers.”
—L. M. Montgomery, Anne of Green Gables

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After a long hiatus, we’re finally back with our weekly Lit News Roundup.

Hearty congratulations are in order for several Ecotone contributors:

Shawn Vestal recently won the $25,000 PEN/Robert W. Bingham Prize for Debut Fiction for his story collection, Godforsaken Idaho, and we couldn’t be prouder that two of the stories in the book, “Winter Elders” and “Opposition In All Things,” first appeared in the pages of Ecotone. “Winter Elders” also has a home in our best of Ecotone fiction anthology, Astoria to Zion.

And Ecotone 16 contributor Molly Antopol’s stunning story collection, The UnAmericans, made the 2014 longlist for the National Book Award in Fiction. You can read “My Grandmother Tells Me This Story” in full on the Ecotone website.