November/December Release of the Katherine Press Review

We are excited to release yet another issue of the Katherine Press Review.  There are three wonderful stories to delight in over the next several weeks.  We are also offering an excerpt from The Last Bridesmaid by our very own Inga Gardner.  Our website has had a bit of a makeover so be sure to check out our new page for books.

Emily Lahut
Publisher
Katherine Press

A Day Of Thanks

Here in the United States of America we gather for Thanksgiving.  This day traditionally celebrates the skills the Pilgrims acquired from the Native Americans in order to survive on the gifts of the land.  The Native Americans suffered greatly from European settlement however their giving nature is at the heart of this holiday.  We can look at the roots of this day to remind us the true spirit of giving and nurturing the survival of others.  We should honor the Native Americans by being thankful of the gifts in our own lives.  This is a time for us to acknowledge that we owe at least part of our survival to those around us.   We give thanks to the people who accompany us through life, giving us the skills or support to get through every day, every challenge.  These are the people who love us, the people who help us, and the people who nurture us.   To me this is the holiday that brings people together.  It is the holiday that reminds us we are not alone.  It is a time to celebrate humanity.  Happy Thanksgiving.

Emily Lahut

Publisher

Katherine Press

We are gearing up for our next issue of the Katherine Press Review and we can't wait to share more great stories with you.  Even though the next issue is called the November/December issue, we will not be skipping a month of the review.  As Inga stated in the last blog, we are just changing the name of the issues so when the review is released it will reflect the name of the upcoming month.
I continue to be impressed with the quality of submissions we have been receiving.  There are a lot of amazing writers out there.  Keep the submissions coming.  Remember we are looking for poetry, short fiction and personal essays for the Katherine Press Review (800 - 5,000 words) or for e-book publication (5,000 - 30,000 words), and novels.

Emily Lahut
Publisher
Katherine Press

Programming Note

We just have a couple, quick updates about some of the upcoming issues of the Katherine Press Review:

Each issue that we've published, we've titled the month it came out.  So, the issue published on September 20th was called the September issue and the issue published on October 18th was the October issue.  We've found that this has caused some confusion.  Monthly magazines traditionally publish the month's issue before the month begins (so, November's issue would come out at the end of October). 

To make things a little clearer going forward - and since we already publish at the end of the month anyway - we're going to follow suit.  The next issue, which will be published on November 29th will be called the November/December issue.  The issue after that, published December 27th, will be called the January issue and so on.  This change only affects what the issues are called and we will continue to have an issue every month with no breaks. 

The only other thing we wanted to mention is that we are going to be standardizing the publication dates of the review so that people know when to anticipate them. From now on, issues will be published on the last Tuesday of the month. 

As always, if you have any questions you can feel free to email us at KatherinePress@hotmail.com or by going to our website, KatherinePress.com, and filling out the Contact Us form.

Has reading aloud with friends become a thing of the past?

One of the many pleasures in my life is watching my friends and family read to their young children.  We put so much care into the choices of stories we read to these impressionable minds and the tone in which we present the stories.  They soak up the words, characters, and the plots asking us to read them over and over until they can “read” them back to us from memory.  As we get older we seem to gravitate to the television in order to share the experience of stories instead of reading them to each other.  But I believe there is immense value in reading to each other throughout our lives.  I have delightful memories of my parents loading us all up into a canoe so my mom could read us The Secret Garden while we leisurely paddled around a lake.  Later, when my sister and I moved into an apartment together, with no television, we entertained ourselves by reading books to each other.  Steinbeck was a favorite to read aloud.  A book I have read over and over with friends on traveling adventures is A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole for its bizarre humor that you just can’t help but share with the people around you.  I have even earned a good scolding at a campground for laughing too loud while a good friend of mine read me excerpts from a David Sedaris book.  And what romantic hasn’t read poetry to their lovers?  I am getting warm fuzzy feelings recalling these times but it occurred to me that I have not shared a book or story with someone in this fashion in quite a while.   I wonder… has reading aloud with friends become a thing of the past? In this modern time when everything moves so fast and time seems so hard to come by, we should still be able to find the time to at least share short stories with each other.  If you don’t already do this, give it a try.  We would love to hear about your experiences.

Emily Lahut

Publisher

Katherine Press

Seeking longer submissions

We are always looking for submissions of all kinds from talented writers, but what we haven't received much of is medium lenth pieces.  We've gotten a ton of short stories (which have been so much fun to read through - thanks, guys!), and we've gotten several full length novels.  However, we've gotten almost no 10,000 to 40,000 word pieces.

I'm beginning to think that maybe people just don't write novellas anymore.  And I understand why: up until now there simply hasn't been a market for them.  However, e-books mean that we don't have to print in larger volumes, and can sell pieces that are going to retail for $2.50 a piece.  Considering how busy we all are, it would be nice to have some pieces that can be read in the span of a few hours or a day or two.  Nothing against full length novels - goodness knows I love them.  But it would be great to see some medium length pieces as well. 

If you've got a piece like this kicking around your hard drive, go ahead and send it along to us at KatherinePress@Hotmail.com!  We can't wait to read them.

Inga Gardner
Editor

October Issue of the Katherine Press Review is up!

The October issue of the Katherine Press Review is now up and, if we do say so ourselves, it's a really good one!  Here's the letter from the editor that accompanies the issue:

Welcome back to the Katherine Press Review!

By far one of the greatest and most unexpected pleasures of editing the Katherine Press Review has been the sheer amount and quality of the writing talent that is just... out there.  It's not even hiding; it's just waiting to be noticed.  This issue is a perfect example of some of the wonderful writing that only had to be discovered.

Take Isadora Gruye's 3C.  By the end of the story, I was literally in tears.  And yet there were moments when I laughed out loud.  Stories that can do that to a reader and not feel remotely manipulative are a rare and wonderful treat (on a related note, Ms. Gruye has completed a novel and I would be lying if I said I wasn't kind of dying to read it).

On the other hand, I wasn't sure how I felt about If You Knew Mary, Rehka Ambardar's story of expats in Sri Lanka.  I knew I liked the setting and I knew I liked the idea of the story, but as I was reading it, I wasn't sure whether I liked the story itself.  In the following days, though, I found myself thinking about the titular character, thinking about her as though she was someone that I, well, knew.  A story that stays with you for days after you've read it is a story worth returning to.

And of course, there is Shelley Burbank's unspeakably delightful I Was Never That Fond of Kafka.  It should surprise exactly no one to learn that I am a bit of a literature geek.  Mashing Kafka-esque themes with chick lit was truly inspired and I can only say that I wish I had thought of it first.  And if you're not a literature geek and have never read Kafka, don't be put off: the story is funny and charming and weird and absolutely wonderful.

I would love to say that my editing had anything to do with the strength of this issue of the Katherine Press Review, but all Emily and I have done here is recognize that these were talented writers and give them a forum.  I will be very surprised if these writers don't turn up again in settings much more prestigious than ours.  Honestly, though, and I think I speak for Emily here as well, we're just thrilled to be a part of these exciting writers' careers.

Happy reading! 

Inga Gardner
Editor-in-Chief

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Also, if you were unlucky enough to miss the September issue, don't worry: you've still got time to read it before it disappears into the internet ether.  Click here to check out our previous issue.