We will be presenting this event virtually, using Zoom. RSVP here.
This is a launch reading, and an issue of Mudfish, you shouldn't miss. Better than ever — our constant theme — is true once again. Mudfish 22 is bursting with beautiful outrageous poems, lavish selections from diverse poets, and new art by young New York-based artists. The readers include the judge of the Mudfish Poetry Prize, Erica Jong, the winner from Kentucky, two honorable mentions from Canada and Texas, a new poet from London, the guest art editor, John Yau, and many others. Thanks to McNally Jackson, poets the far winds and Zoom have brought us.
Erica Jong is a celebrated poet, novelist & essayist with over 27 published books that have been influential all over the world. Her latest book of poetry titled The World Began With Yes was published by Red Hen Press. Erica’s most popular novel, Fear of Flying celebrated its 47th anniversary in 2020. Never out of print, it has sold over 35 million copies in over 50 languages including Chinese and Arabic. Erica’s poetry has appeared in publications worldwide, including The New Yorker, and L.A. Times, The Paris Review, Haaretz, and many more. She lives in New York with her husband and two poodles. Her daughter, Molly Jong-Fast is a writer and political essayist.
Mark Schimmoeller is the author of SLOWSPOKE: A UNICYCLIST’S GUIDE TO AMERICA (Chelsea Green Publishing, 2014), a memoir which received a starred review from “Publishers’ Weekly” and was shortlisted for the Saroyan Prize. His poems have been published in journals such as “Orion” (and “Mudfish!”) and an essay about his unicycle journey published in “The Christian Science Monitor.” He is currently working on a novel. When he's not writing, he lives close to the land with his wife Jennifer in a north-central Kentucky woods, in an off-the-grid cabin they built ourselves. They harvest sunlight and rain and much of their own food. Some of his passions include building with earthen plasters, taking walks under tall trees, and cooking for Jennifer in a solar cooker.
Cornelia Hoogland’s chapbook, titled Dressed in Only a Cardigan, She Picks Up Her Tracks in the Snow, is forthcoming with Baseline Press (2021). Her latest book is Cosmic Bowling (Guernica, 2020), a collaboration with the visual artist Ted Goodden. Trailer Park Elegy and Woods Wolf Girl were finalists for Canadian national awards. Two recent short-list nods from the CBC Literary Prizes include “Sea Level” (nonfiction) published by Baseline Press. Hoogland was the 2019 writer-in-residence for the Al Purdy A-Frame and the Whistler Festival. She lives and writes on unceded Puntledge and K’omox territories on Hornby Island in the Salish Sea. http://www.corneliahoogland.com/
James Trask's poems have appeared or are forthcoming in Mudfish, The Windward Review, The Heartland Review, Best Austin Poetry and elsewhere. In 2020, he was the recipient of awards from the Austin Poetry Society and the San Antonio Writers’ Guild. He is an MFA candidate at Texas State University, a veteran, and a recovering MBA holder and corporate minion. His poems explore the loss and reclaiming of the emotional self, new, dead and revolutionary Romanticism and intuitive imagination.
Stephanie Dickinson lives in New York City with the poet Rob Cook and their senior feline, Vallejo. Her novels Half Girl and Lust Series are published by Spuyten Duyvil, as is her feminist noir Love Highway. Winner of the 2020 Bitter Oleander Press Poetry Award Blue Swan Black Swan: The Trakl Diaries was recently released. Razor Wire Wilderness, a true crime memoir, based on her longtime correspondence with inmates at the Edna Mahan Correctional Facility for Women is forthcoming from Kallisto Gaia Press.
Paul Wuensche is a visual artist based in London who has exhibited widely including in the National Portrait gallery. He trained at the New York Academy of Art in the late 1990s during which time he was also an associate editor of Mudfish. His art has been featured in Mudfish ever since. Presently he is completing a first book of poems.
Jill Hoffman is the Founding Editor of Mudfish and Mudfish Individual Poet Series. The press is named Box Turtle Press because it is slow work. In 37 or so years she has, nevertheless, brought forth 22 issues of Mudfish and 16 volumes by individual poets. Her first book of poems, Mink Coat, was published by Holt, Rinehart and Winston in 1973, and she was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship; her first novel, Jilted, was published by Simon & Schuster in 1993. In 2000, Box Turtle Press released black diaries, her second collection, and in 2018 a book-length-poem, The Gates of Pearl. Her paintings are on the covers of many of these books. Her daughter, Jennifer Belle, is a best-selling novelist. Jill teaches a writing workshop, now on Zoom, and lives in Tribeca with her partner Jack and her Pomeranian, Vermeer.
John Yau, is a poet and art critic, and guest art editor of Mudfish 22. His forthcoming book of poetry is "Genghis Chan on Drums" (Fall 2021,Omnidawn). His reviews appear every Saturday in Hyperallergic Weekend.
