Learning such communication skills is an important part of The Missouri Review internship program. Not only are our interns immersed in reading and discussing manuscripts, but they also learn about the larger business of running a magazine. Last semester, that included teams of interns producing video podcasts. These students experienced all aspects of production, including storyboarding, the capturing of video, and editing audio and video tracks. Video subjects included author and staff interviews, an interview with our poetry editor, and a short on the “The Life of a Manuscript.” For a brief insight in what happens to a submitted manuscript, click here. And thanks for the creativity and diligent work by this team of interns (which, by the way, does include more than English majors): Scott Scheese, Kate McIntrye, Lindsay Sihilling, Cody Horton, and Emily Wunderlich. Original music by Kyle Stokes. We’ll post more video podcasts in the coming months.

Richard Sowienski

Take a look behind the scenes of a literary journal as The Missouri Review reveals what happens to a manuscript once it arrives at our offices. Thanks for the creativity and diligent work by our team of video production interns: Scott Scheese, Kate McIntrye, Lindsay Sihilling, Cody Horton, and Emily Wunderlich. Original music by Kyle Stokes.

Narrative Essay
First place, $1,000: “Dayenu,” by Judith Sloan
First runner-up: “What’s Your Status,” Judith Sloan
Second runner-up: “‘Reverie’” Reclaimed, Nancy M. Williams
No student entries/winners

Documentary
First place, $1,000: “Love Triangle,” Lauren Kirby
First runner-up and best student: “Dad’s Naughty Pictures,” Ken Cormier
Second runner-up: “Love, War, & PTSD: Peter and Anna Mohan”

Voice Only

Fiction
First place, $500: “Annunciation of the Baby Jesus One Block North of Riverfront Dr.,” Ann Rosenquist
First runner-up and best student entry: “Glorie in a Small Town,” Kristin S. vanNamen

Creative nonfiction
First place, $500: “Smoke Rings,” Rachael Hanel
First runner-up: “Mary Lee,” Robert V. Wolf
Second runner-up: “Foreign Land,” Sue Mell
Best student entry: “Personal Assistant Needed,” Kristin S. vanNamen

Poetry
First place, $500: “Living the Life of the Great Buster Keaton,” Douglas Collura
First runner-up: “Fear of Moving Water,” Alex Grant
Second runner-up: “There’s a Guy in L.A. Who Charges a Premium Teaching Men How To Get Women,” Todd Boss
Best student entry: “The Life Expectancy of a Fruit Fly,” “Some Revisions,” Marcus Wicker

Video

Creative Short
First place, $500: “Separate Vacations,” Anne Lewis
First runner-up: “A Length of Time Is Measured By the Space Between 2 Hands,” Ryan Scammell
Second runner-up: “The Clam Diggers,” Tim Wilson

Documentary
First place: $500: “The Unhappy Traveler: A New Yorker in India,” Basia Winograd
First runner-up: Inventing the G-Suit: the Life Story of Dr. Earl Wood,” Bill Bonde
Second runner-up: “Coming Home,” Dmae Roberts
Best student entries: “Nokota,” Lucie Schwartz; and “The Palmyra Massacre,” Brian White

That’s right.

New postal rates go into effect Monday, May 11. This means envelopes large and small. When enclosing a SASE for an editor’s response, the stamp for the #10, self-addressed business envelope will cost you 44 cents. And we like, even encourage, you to use the correct amount of postage.

See, while our office tries to cover the additional postage required during these times of rate transitions, we don’t always catch ALL of the envelopes with insufficient postage. Then those same envelopes dribble back to us over the course of several months marked “undeliverable, postage due” or sit as “postage due” unclaimed at your local mail stop. You drop your story or poems or essay in the mail to us, then wait and wait, chew your nails, swear and think how inconsiderate and unresponsive that Speer Morgan is.

We don’t want this to happen to you.

So, if you want to increase the chances that the U.S. Postal Service will actually deliver our editor’s response to your submission, we recommend you use “Forever” stamps on those SASES.

In case you’re interested, here’s the breakdown of the new rates for first-class mail:

Letters – first ounce (3-4 sheets of paper) $0.44
Large envelopes (manuscript-sized) – first ounce $0.88
Additional ounces $0.17
Postcard $0.28

The search continues for missing poet Craig Arnold. The following message comes once again from Jess Piazza, one of the primary forces in marshaling resources that first raised the alarum and is continuing to work with Craig’s friends and family to keep up search efforts:

With the assistance of the University of Wyoming, a fund has been established to support the search efforts to find Craig. Even the smallest contribution would be of use. Thank you so much for your love and support.

Donations can be made via the Paypal link here: https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_s-xclick& hosted_button_id=5149253

Or by sending checks made out to “Find Craig Arnold” to the following address:

UNIWYO Federal Credit Union
1610 East Reynolds Street
Laramie, WY 82072

This fund has been created to support the search efforts for Craig Arnold. The outpouring of concern for Craig has been remarkable, and your donation will be deeply appreciated. Thank you for your help and support.

Your donation will be used for the following purposes:

To fund the inclusion of an independent non-profit expert international search and rescue team, 1 SRG (http://www.1srg.org/)

To (potentially) fund the expense of continuing to engage local Japanese resources beyond Sunday, should that prove necessary.

To fund Craig’s safe return to the United States and, should there be any, medical expenses to bring him back into full health either in Japan or here or both.

In the event that there should be any funds remaining in this account after the search has been concluded and Craig has been recovered, any and all remaining funds will be used to establish an educational fund for Craig’s son Robin.

Full disclosure: the account “Find Craig Arnold” has been opened in the name of Beth Loffreda (the director of the MFA in Creative Writing at the University of Wyoming, where Craig teaches). This was done to create the fund quickly, with the full permission of Rebecca Lindenberg. Control of the account will be transferred as soon as possible to members of Craig’s family.

Again, confirmed news can be found at the Facebook site or findcraigarnold.blogspot.com.

Last night I received an urgent message from my friend, the poet Jessica Piazza, a friend of the poet Craig Arnold. As those who travel through the literary blogosphere already know, Craig went missing on April 26th (or even Monday, April 27th, Japan time) while visiting a small Japanese island to research volcanoes. Support and information networks have sprouted all over the internet, with the two primary sites being the Facebook group Find Craig Arnold and, for those without a Facebook account, findcraigarnold.blogspot.com. There have been several reports today from various media outlets, and other information is searchable by Google. If there is anything you can do to help invigorate the search for this wonderful poet and beloved family member and friend, please don’ t hesitate to contact someone through the above sites. Below you will see Jess’ original message along with the document she refers to which gives further background on Craig and the current situation, which although slightly behind the times, still contains pertinent information and a plea to contact your state representatives.

From all of us here at TMR, we wish his friends and family the best possible outcome to a terrifying situation, and assure them that our hopes and prayers are with them.

Hi all…

I’ m writing because a dear friend of mine and an exceptionally talented poet, Craig Arnold, whom some of you know, has gone missing on a small volcanic island in Japan while on a creative exchange fellowship. Craig, an experienced explorer of volcanoes, never returned to his inn after leaving alone to research the island’ s active volcano for the afternoon. The authorities are on the third day of searching for Craig, and are scouring the small island (of only 160 inhabitants) with dogs and helicopters. If he is not found by the end of the day, the authorities will call off the search.

We need your help to insure that the search will continue. The island and areas surrounding the volcano are small enough that an extended search will surely lead to Craig’ s discovery. WE NEED PEOPLE TO CONTACT THEIR LOCAL CONGRESSPEOPLE AND SENATORS TO PRESSURE THE JAPANESE STATE DEPARTMENT TO CONTINUE THE SEARCH. WE ALSO NEED HELP SPARKING MEDIA ATTENTION FOR THIS STORY, WHICH WE ALSO HOPE MIGHT INCREASE PRESSURE ON JAPANESE AUTHORITIES TO FIND CRAIG. Please feel free to use this as reference material

Political affiliation and current events knowledge aside, Prejean should be commended for having achieved accidentally through some miracle of ineloquence what many of us strive to do each waking hour: invent and advance a new term. Let’s face it. That’s no easy feat.

No? Go ahead, then. Come up with something and get it to catch on. I dare you.

While the embattled former Miss USA contestant has drawn criticism for her opinions on gay marriage, I, for one, welcome opposite marriage into the lexicon. This could be because I’m alarmed at the number of English words and phrases that are falling out of use — more, it seems, than are entering — and, at this point, I’ll take what I can get.

It could also be that I admire the unintentionally subversive element in the term opposite marriage. It defines itself (or tries to define itself, as best it can, with the awkward omission of the word sex) through opposition to the term same-sex marriage, which has had to define itself in relation to the term marriage. So Prejean used opposite marriage to mean marriage, and in doing so privileged the term gay marriage, and marginalized marriage by presenting it as a term that requires definition through that which it is not.

As a nonfiction writer, I’m all for getting a rhetorical piece of that linguistical action. The day is nigh, my friends, when we will wander our local bookstores in search of some inspiring new poetry, nonfiction, or opposite nonfiction.

I will remember you on that proud day, Miss California ‘09.

What I like most about opposite marriage is that the term seems to skip over any meaningful commentary on gender, sexual preference, or state law to precisely describe a much more mysterious social phenomenon:
the pairing of one person, who is attractive, smart, graceful, charming, and dazzling in every possible way, with another person, who is really just some big, stumbling goob. Consider this recent engagement photograph. Note how my fiancée remains poised and elegant even while beach wrangling what looks to be a pigmy tyrannosaur that just ransacked a Banana Republic.

Opposite marriage, ladies and gentlemen. It may not mean what Prejean would have liked for it to mean, but it’ll come in handy, nonetheless. My only regret is that the Miss America Pageant at which it was uttered was held after we had the wedding invitations printed up. Imagine: “Please join us in celebrating the beginning of our life together in opposite marriage.”

Has a nice ring to it, right?

]]> http://www.missourireview.com/tmr-blog/archives/1282/feed http://www.missourireview.com/tmr-blog/archives/1280 http://www.missourireview.com/tmr-blog/archives/1280#comments Sat, 18 Apr 2009 16:18:07 +0000 Speer Morgan http://www.missourireview.com/tmr-blog/?p=1280 I’m going to try Twitter. My user name is speerladdie (pardon the cuteness; everything simple was already used). So join with me. I’m particularly interested in authors, writers at all career phases (we specialize in “firsts”, so I’m very interested in writers at the struggle phase), good new books, and other editors, including those at literary magazines and publishing houses. Writers and editors of the world unite!

By the way, we are close to finishing up the next issue in production, which in fact has to do–directly and indirectly– with the struggles of writers and artists. We still need one more essay or piece of fiction. So if you’ve got a good one, submit it online.