Congratulations to our 2016

Jeff Marks Memorial Poetry Prize Winners

We are pleased to announce Anthony Marra (Fiction) and Eula Biss (Nonfiction) will judge our 2016 Curt Johnson Prose Awards. $1,500 and publication in our Fall/Winter 2016 issue for First Place (fiction and nonfiction); $500 and publication in our Fall/Winter 2016 issue for honorable mention (fiction and nonfiction). For more information about the Curt Johnson Prose Awards, click here.

Anthony Marra is the New York Times-bestselling author of A Constellation of Vital Phenomena, longlisted for the National Book Award and winner of the National Book Critics Circle’s John Leonard Prize, the Anisfield-Wolf Book Award in fiction, and the Barnes and Noble Discover Award. His most recent book, The Tsar of Love and Techno was released in 2015. Marra attended the Iowa Writers Workshop and received his MFA in 2009. He was a 2011–2013 Stegner Fellow at Stanford University. Currently, he teaches at Stanford University as the Jones Lecturer in Fiction.

Eula Biss is the author of three books: On Immunity: An Inoculation, Notes from No Man’s Land: American Essays, and The Balloonists. Her work has been supported by a Guggenheim Fellowship, a Howard Foundation Fellowship, an NEA Literature Fellowship, and a Jaffe Writers’ Award. She holds an M.F.A. in nonfiction writing from the University of Iowa. She teaches at Northwestern University and her essays have recently appeared in the New York Times Magazine, The Believer, Gulf Coast, Denver Quarterly, and Harper’s.

Our submission period opens April 1, 2016.  For more information click here to see our guidelines.

Recently The Paris Review published an interview with Gordon Lish, a contributor and editor for december during its early days.  Here is a link to that article.  In Vol. 10 (1968) of december Gordon Lish interviewed none other than himself, and the result was rather sardonic and humorous.  This was one of the many times Lish appeared among the pages of december. We are looking forward to posting a full december archive soon.

december is proud to announce its nominations for the 2016 Pushcart Prize. These works appeared in december Vol. 26.1 and 26.2 in 2015.

Daniel Donaghy – Making Shepherd’s Pie on St. Patty’s Day While
My Neighbors Have Make-up Sex (Poetry Vol. 26.1)

Albert Goldbarth – Untitled (The grasses bend) – (Poetry Vol. 26.1)

Bernie Hafeli – The Shortest Day of the Year (Fiction Vol. 26.1)

Juned Subhan – The Bride’s Tale I (Poetry Vol. 26.1)

Michael Bourne – Stories Are Like Water (Fiction Vol. 26.2)

Sam Roxas-Chua – Papel (Poetry Vol. 26.2)

We are pleased to have Marge Piercy judging our 2016 poetry awards.  Marge Piercy is the author of 17 novels, including the bestsellers Gone To Soldiers, Braided Lives, and The Longings of Women; 19 volumes of poetry, including The Hunger Moon: New & Selected Poems 1980-2010 and most recently Made in Detroit, and a critically acclaimed memoir.

Our submission period opens October 1, 2015.  For more information click here to check out our guidelines.

Did you miss our launch event for issue 26.1?  If so, you can watch now and see Marvin Bell, Steven Schreiner, and Sally Van Doren share their poems from our recent issues.  December Vol. 26.1 Event – Reading.  Like what you hear? Subscribe or order a back issue of december here.

Select “Playlist” in the top left corner of the video below to select the video you want to watch.  Watch one or all.

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december is proud to present audio recordings of our winner Chelsea Jennings reading her poem “Heirloom”

HEIRLOOM

As close to the past as maps can get to rivers
A boat full of stones     A handful of water

*

This is the dressmaker’s frame
where we hang our fear of the dark

Again and again we thread it
though the eye of sleep is small
*

It could have been a locket with a lock of hair inside
It could have been a mirror     A set of silver     A coin
*

There was a pewter cup and a patron saint
for each of the children who lived

They kept their records in the Bible
They shared a single bridal dress

*

This is the watchmaker’s shop
where the balance wheel can be fixed

*

We wear their scrimshaw earrings
and are called by their given names

We dream that we’re drowning   We dream that
we wake     And we eat our meals from their plates

and Sam Roxas-Chua, our honorable mention, reading his poem “A Beast in the Chapel.”

A BEAST IN THE CHAPEL

Several times I asked my father
to pull on my ears
until my feet were lifted off the ground.

Several times I asked him
to look into my eyes
and blow out the red lanterns—

those soft pendulums
that keep me up at night,
twin stars of vermillion arias.

Several times I placed my hand
inside his mouth and fished for summer,
moon, winter, and tow.

Several times I hid my name
behind my ears
when he called me Bakla!

Several times my hands shimmied
under the breakfast table
where my mother sat me down

and said he wasn’t coming home—
it was Christmas, I wore a red tie.
And on that same day,

a man was found in the river,
his face eaten by fish. Several
times I asked Who was he?

Who was he? Several times
I sucked on plums to think of him.
Several times I dreamt I had gills.