September 16, 2009

Versal 8 general call

Versal wants your poetry, prose, and art for its eighth issue due out in May 2010. Internationally acclaimed literary annual published in Amsterdam, bringing together the world's urgent, involved, & unexpected.

See website for guidelines and to submit:
http://versal.wordsinhere.com

Inquiries (only) can be directed to: versal AT wordsinhere DOT com

Deadline: January 15, 2010

September 15, 2009

Versal 8 Art Submission Call



Seeking art submissions from around the world for Versal 8.
Help spread the word. Download this flyer and pass onto friends.

September 11, 2009

New editors join the pages

We're a few days away from the opening of the reading period for Versal 8. So a bit of news: I'm very pleased to welcome four new editors to Versal:

Jennifer K. Dick joins our poetry team. She is the author of Fluorescence (Univ. of Georgia Press, 2004) and Enclosures (Blazevox, 2007). Originally from Iowa and now living in Paris, she has just completed her PhD at Paris III in Comp Lit, teaches for L’EHESS & creative writing for the École Polytechnique. She writes regular columns for Tears in the Fence in the UK (on poetry) & EyePreferParis (on artists working in Paris). She also co-coordinates the IVY writer's series in Paris and with poet Sandy Florian started the 60-poet collaborative project Rewords.

BJ Hollars is joining the fiction team. BJ is a 25 year old MFA grad student at The University of Alabama where he lives with his wife and his dog. He edited the recently released anthology You Must Be This Tall To Ride: Contemporary Writers Take You Inside The Story from Writer's Digest Books and he also edits YouMustBeThisTallToRide.net (currently taking submissions!). He's the former nonfiction editor for Black Warrior Review and former assistant fiction editor.

Matthew Sadler is coming on board our poetry team. His first chapbook is coming out with Flying Guillotine Press, in Brooklyn, and he publishes poems in literary magazines around the US. He lives with his family in Detroit, Michigan where he teaches English composition and essay writing, as well as film studies.

Shayna Schapp is joining our art team. Shayna is an American artist living and working in Amsterdam. Shayna received a B.A. in Art from Houghton Wesleyan College in 2003. Her photographs, drawings and sculptures have frequently been exhibited in the U.S. and are a part of several private collections. In addition to her work as an artist she is an instructor for the Interactive / Media / Design department at the Royal Academy of Art in the Hague and runs Lately 3, a creative collaboration focusing on book projects and other printed matter.

It's exciting to welcome these editors to our pages, all talented writers & artists themselves. They have all been involved in Versal in some way in the past. Matt and I go back a long way together. We met in an undergrad poetry class with Patricia Goedicke at the University of Montana. That would have been 1998. He's been in three issues of Versal over the years: 1, 3 and 5. And many of us have known Jennifer since a Versal reading in 2005 at The Red Wheelbarrow in Paris - which I still remember clearly because I had the honor to read alongside Marilyn Hacker that day. A selection from Jennifer's translation of work from Albane Gellé is published in Versal 7. BJ's short story "Kin" is found in Versal 6. And Shayna co-created the HERE project with Sarah last year, and yes we're also getting married.

So a big welcome to the new editors! And a reminder to all of them to download Skype or update their apps to the latest version, because we're going to need it. Versal's transatlantic on all teams this year save art.

September 09, 2009

HERE: HP-09-07-023



ID number: HP-09-07-023
Location: St. Catharines & Algonquin Park, ON, Canada
Reader: Magdolene Dykstra




Versal ID HP-09-07-023 started with me on the plane from
Amsterdam
to St. Catharines, ON - and on to Algonquin Park (ON).

I found the only way to respond to these this collection was to
respond visually to particular pieces.






Versal and my visual responses will travel with my sister
to Japan and S. Korea. It will be left with her friend in S.K.


Versal ID HP-09-07-023 was well loved and well worn.