Events and News
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Forthcoming
The Ballad of Johnny Bell by John Mort
Fierce Muse: Ozarks Nature and Poetry (Eight Poets)
Crytozarkia by Mark Spitzer
Stories Hills: Contemporary Ozarks Fiction, edited by C. D. Albin
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Released Januaray 1, 2022
Field Trip: Stories by James Fowler
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Steve Wiegenstein's Scattered Lights has been shortlisted
for the PEN/Faulkner Award
Ozarks Alive Story and Interview
News Story by Steve Yates in Clarion-Ledger / Hattiesburg American Mississippi Books Page
Review by Craig Albin in Elder Mountain: A Journal of Ozarks Studies
Listed among the 25 favorite books of 2020 by the editors of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch
Review by Aarik McDanielsen in the Columbia Tribune
Review by Dale Singer in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch
Review by John Mort on Down Along the Piney
Interview with Steve Wiegenstein by Steve Yates at Skylark Bookshop
The New Ozarks Literary Renaissance (Rolla Public Library)
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Steve Wiegenstein's short story "Magic Kids," first published in Elder Mountain and now collected in Scattered Lights, received an honorable mention in the Mary Mackey Short Story Prize contest, sponsored by the National League of American Pen Women___________________________________________
Two New Poems by Amy Wright Vollmar in Elder Mountain
Poet Amy Wright Vollmar Visits Phelps School
In December of 2020, Amy Wright Vollmar was pleased to be the visiting poet in the Words at Play class at Phelps Center for Gifted Education in Springfield. Words at Play, a writing class for students from 3rd to 8th grades, meets online four days a week with teacher Gina Wyckoff at the helm. During her visits, Vollmar shared stories about the process of creating a book of poetry with Cornerpost Press, wrote poems with students in Zoom Chat, and read poems from Follow (fox and crow poems were in high demand). The students told of their stress and sadness due to social isolation, and they felt that the poem "Crow Song" resonated most with their feelings, for in that poem, imagination helps a person survive a difficult time. The students decided that, after Covid, there will be a poetry-writing contest at their school, with the prize to be a signed copy of Follow. “As you wish!” said the poet.
Web Links
Missouri State University News
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Jim Hamilton's Ozarks RFD: Selected Essays received the 2020 Best Nonfiction Book Award from the Ozarks Writers League.
https://www.westplainsdailyquill
https://www.ozarkswritersleague
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Steve Wiegenstein's short story collection Scattered Lights
is now available online at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and other booksellers!
Copies will be available from the author and from Cornerpost Press. Contact the author to order a signed copy.
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Review of Jim Hamilton's Ozarks RFD
in the October 2020 issue of Roundup Magazine (Western Writers of America)
In “A Mind Like a Bucket of Bolts,” Jim Hamilton philosophizes on those collections of nuts and screws a lot of us keep in coffee cans – potentially useful little things you can’t bear to throw away. That’s how his mind works, he says, and his 109 short essays, originally appearing in newspapers from the small Missouri towns of Buffalo and Bolivar, are accordingly eclectic: how mud used to plague small farms; the smells of childhood (new sawdust, horses, smoke); fishing for the fighting carp; the pleasure of wearing overalls; and, though Hamilton eschews any sort of politics, memories of the Kennedy assassination and 9/11. Always nostalgic, Hamilton is homespun without being sentimental. Keep this handy for those times when you need a shot of hard-earned, humble wisdom.
– John Mort
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