MVP 2018 Winners

After months of reading and reading, weeks of deliberating and discussing, we’re incredibly excited to announce the results of the 2018 Many Voices Project competitions!

Congratulations to our winners and Editors’ Choice picks! We’d also like to thank everyone who submitted. We look forward to sharing these amazing works with you all!

Poetry

Our poetry winner this year is Rebecca Durham with Half-Life of Empathy.

Rebecca A. Durham is a poet, botanist, and artist. Originally from New England, she now calls Montana home. She holds a B.A. in Biology from Colby College, a M.S. in Botany from Oregon State University, and a M.F.A. in Creative Writing (Poetry) from the University of Montana. Nominated for a Pushcart Prize, Rebecca’s writing has appeared in Orion Magazine, Superstition Review, Pilgrimage Magazine, Riverfeet Press Anthology: Awake in the World, Mud Season Review, Meniscus, Epiphany Magazine, Pacific Review, Mantis, Bright Bones: Contemporary Montana Writing, Poetry Northwest, and is forthcoming in Cold Mountain Review and Exposition Review. You may find more of her work at rebeccadurham.net

Prose

Our prose winner is Farah Ali with her short story collection People Want to Live.

Farah Ali is from Karachi, Pakistan. Her more recent work can be found in Copper Nickel, The Arkansas International, Kenyon Review Online and Ecotone. She received a special mention in the 2018 Pushcart Prizes for a story published in the J Journal, and was the winner of the Colorado Review’s 2016 Nelligan Prize. She also won Copper Nickel’s Editors’ Prize in Prose for the fall 2018 issue. She can be reached via www.farah-ali.com.

Editors’ Choice

This year, we have two Editors’ Choice selections, both from our prose contest. Beaudelaine Pierre’s You May Have the Suitcase Now and Elsa Valmidiano’s We Are No Longer Babaylan.

Beaudelaine Pierre (You May Have the Suitcase Now) is Haitian born and raised and now lives in Minnesota with her two children, Annie and Max. Her debut novel Testaman won First Prize in the 2002 Best Creole-Language Novel Contest sponsored by the newspaper Bon Nouvel in Port-Au-Prince. Pierre is an alum of the International Writing Program at the University of Iowa. Her most recent novel, L’enfant qui voulait devenir President is published by Les Editions Harmattan. In 2012, she co-edited with Natasa Durovicova, How to Write an Earthquake, a trilingual anthology in English, French, and Creole, that constitutes a collective response from Haitian writers across the globe to the catastrophe Haiti suffered on January 12, 2010. Pierre is currently a doctoral candidate in the Gender Women and Sexuality Studies department at the University of Minnesota.

Philippine-born and LA-raised, Elsa Valmidiano (We are No Longer Babaylan) is a writer and poet who calls Oakland home. For several years, Elsa was a women’s reproductive rights activist, and incorporates much of that former activism into her writing. Her works have appeared in various literary journals such as TAYO, make/shift, As/Us, Literature for Life, Anti-Heroin Chic, Mud Season Review, Yes Poetry, Northridge Review, Memoir Magazine, and Cosmonauts Avenue, as well as various anthologies such as Field of Mirrors, Walang Hiya, Circe’s Lament, Precipice, and forthcoming in What God Is Honored Here. Elsa is an alum of the DISQUIET International Literary Program in Lisbon and Summer Literary Seminars that was hosted in Tbilisi. She holds an MFA in Creative Writing from Mills College and has performed numerous readings. She is a Best of the Net and Pushcart Prize nominee. She blogs regularly at slicingtomatoes.com.

 

Many Voices Project Poetry Finalists 2018

As we said last week with the prose finalists, it’s always a daunting task to find finalists from amongst hundreds of submissions. However, we’ve finally got our list, and just in time for the end of Poetry Month. We’re happy to announce our top ten finalists for the Many Voices Project competition in Poetry!

Francine Conley (What Sweetness from Salt) is a writer and performing artist. She has a chapbook, How Dumb the Stars (Parallel Press). After a good decade of performing multimedia solo shows as well as touring collective productions with a Franco-American theater troupe, Le Théâtre de la Chandelle Verte, she earned her MFA in Poetry from Warren Wilson in 2014. Since graduating her poems and reviews have been published in places like: American Literary ReviewThe Collagist, Green Mountains Review, Fogged Clarity, Juked, Pink Panther Magazine, The New England Review, Sky Island Journal, Tinderbox, and more. For more on her arts: http://francineconley.com

 

Rebecca A. Durham (Half-Life of Empathy) is a poet, botanist, and artist. Originally from New England, she now calls Montana home. She holds a B.A. in Biology from Colby College, a M.S. in Botany from Oregon State University, and a M.F.A. in Creative Writing (Poetry) from the University of Montana. Nominated for a Pushcart Prize, Rebecca’s writing has appeared in Orion Magazine, Superstition Review, Pilgrimage Magazine, Riverfeet Press Anthology: Awake in the World, Mud Season Review, Meniscus, Epiphany Magazine, Pacific Review, Mantis, Bright Bones: Contemporary Montana Writing, Poetry Northwest, and is forthcoming in Cold Mountain Review and Exposition Review. You may find more of her work at rebeccadurham.net

 

Eva Heisler (Lexicon of Old Devotions) is a Maryland-born poet and art historian. Her poems have been widely published in journals, including BOMB, Crazyhorse, RHINO. Poetry Northwest, and Tupelo Quarterly. She has published two books of poems: Reading Emily Dickinson in Icelandic (Kore Press) and Drawing Water (Noctuary Press). Honors include a Fulbright grant to Iceland, the Poetry Society of America’s Emily Dickinson Award, and fellowships at the Millay Colony for the Arts and the MacDowell Colony.

 

 

Amir Hussain (Still Life) is a multidisciplinary poet and scholar, whose poems have appeared in many journals, including Beloit Poetry JournalFaultlineMizna, andWater~Stone Review. He holds an MFA in Creative Writing from the University of Minnesota. He is currently a PhD candidate in Comparative Literature at Emory University, where he is working on a project on comparative poetics.

 

 

 

Megan Leonard‘s (Book of Lullabies) poetry can be found most recently in Sharkpack Annual, Outlook Springs, Transom, and Reservoir. Her digital chapbook, where the body ends, is available through Platypus Press. Megan lives and works on New Hampshire’s seacoast.

 

 

 

Nathan Manley (De Horae, The Extant Fragments) is a writer and teacher living in Loveland, Colorado. He holds a master’s degree in English literature from the University of Northern Colorado, and his first chapbook, Numina Loci, was published in the spring of 2018 by Mighty Rogue Press. His poems have appeared (and are forthcoming) in literary journals both online and in print, includingThink, About Place Journal, Flint Hills Review, and others. His has also been nominated for inclusion in Best of the Net.

 

 

Bino A. Realuyo (The Rebel Sonnets) is the author of The Gods We Worship Live Next Door, which won a 2005 Agha Shahid Ali Prize in Poetry. His poems have appeared in The Nation, The Kenyon Review, The Missouri Review, ZYZZYVA’s Resistance Issue, New Letters, Manoa: International Journal of Pacific Writing, Mid-American Review, Painted Bride Quarterly, and The Literary Review. A graduate of Harvard University, he lives in New York City and works as an adult educator and immigrant rights activist. His website: www.binoarealuyo.com

 

 

Jennifer A. Reimer (Keske), Lise Meitner postdoctoral fellow in American Studies at the University of Graz in Austria, received her PhD in Ethnic Studies from the University of California, Berkeley in 2011, and her MFA in Writing from the University of San Francisco in 2005. Jennifer has numerous scholarly and creative publications. Her first prose poetry book, The Rainy Season Diaries, was released in 2013 by Quale Press. The Turkish translation of The Rainy Season Diaries was released by Şiirden Press (Istanbul) in 2017. She is the co-founder and co-editor of Achiote Press, an independent press dedicated to spotlighting underrepresented authors and artists. A proud California native, Jennifer now lives in Austria. Follow her on FB (Jennifer Andrea) and Instagram (@jenniandreaca).

 

Susan Sonde (Evenins at the Table of an Intoxicant) is an award-winning poet and short story writer. Her debut collection: In the Longboats with Others won the Capricorn Book Award and was published by New Rivers Press. The Arsonist, her fifth collection will be released May 2019 from Main Street Rag. Grants and awards include, a National Endowment Award in poetry; grants in fiction and poetry from The Maryland State Arts Council; The Gordon Barber Memorial Award from The Poetry Society of America. Her collection The Chalk Line was a finalist in The National Poetry Series. Individual poems have appeared in Barrow Street, The North American Review, The Southern Humanities Review, The Mississippi Review, American Letters and Commentary, Bomb, New Letters, Southern Poetry Review, and many others.

 

JD Trejo-Maya (Desert Sands) was born in Celaya, Guanajuato, Mexico, where he spent his childhood in the small neighboring rural pueblo of Tarimoró and where from he immigrated in 1988. His inspirations include Netzahualcoyotl, Humberto Ak’abal, Ray A. Young Bear, and James Welch. Published in various literary journals/sites in the UK, US, Spain, India, Australia, Argentina, and Germany. Pushcart Prize nominee in 2015 and was awarded Tercer Premio from El Centro Canario Estudios Caribeños – El Atlántico – en el Certamen Internacional de Poesía “La calle que tú me das” 2016. While in ceremony with Chololo medicine men in the Tule River Reservation he dreamt the above written prophecy…

Congratulations to our American Fiction 17 winners!

We here at New Rivers Press are proud to announce our American Fiction 17 authors! This edition will be a short story anthology featuring 19 new or emerging authors, and we are very excited to bring you both the lineup of this publication and some information about our authors!

Edition 17’s first place winner is “Distinctions” by David Fuks.

David Fuks lives and writes in Portland, Oregon, where he also works as an actor. The son of Holocaust survivors, he received degrees in both English Literature and Social Work from the University of Michigan. As a writer of both humorous and poignant stories, David is often asked to read his work at public gatherings. He was a member of the successful improvisational comedy group, “Waggie and Friends”. David benefits from constant correction by his wife, DeAnn.

The second place winner of edition 17 is “Catalina” by Charles Duffie.

Charles Duffie is a writer and designer based in the Los Angeles area where he lives with his wife and daughters. His work has been published in the Los Angeles Review of Books and Role Reboot.

In third place is “Barn Find”, the debut of author Matthew Fitch.

Matthew Fitch is an attorney living and working in Hartford, Connecticut. ‘Barn Find’ is his first publication.

Congratulations to our top three authors, and congratulations to everyone who made it into the publication! The remaining 16 authors and their bios are listed below in alphabetical order.

“The Owls of El Centro” by William Burtch

William Burtch is a former investment professional. In his sixth decade he awakened a compulsion to write. His single-panel comic collaborations have appeared in national outdoor periodicals. From his wife he receives boundless inspiration and perspective as she defeats an insidious adversary, ovarian cancer. He holds an MBA from Miami University of Ohio and is a member of the Ohio Writers’ Association.

“Small Victories” by David DeFusco

Dave DeFusco has published short stories in BLYNKT, Drunk Monkeys, Halfway Down the Stairs and Literary Heist. He spent thirty years in various roles promoting universities: American, Fairfield, and Yale. He’s putting together a collection of short stories and is in revision on a novel. He has three grown children and lives a quiet life in Connecticut.

“Deceiving Angels” by Craig Demi

C.A.Demi is a writer currently living in Providence. He received a 2016 Fellowship Award in Fiction by the Rhode Island State Council on the Arts. In addition to short fiction, which has appeared in ‘Missing Providence; A Frequency Anthology’ and ‘Meat for Tea; The Valley Review’, Craig is at work on a novel set in the forests and steel and coal towns of his native Pennsylvania.

“Curses” by Kathleene Donahoo

Kathleene Donahoo’s fiction has appeared in many journals, including Bellevue Literary Review, Carolina Quarterly, Connecticut Review, and North American Review. She has a PhD in Economics from Yale, worked at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, and now lives with her husband in the Bay Area.

“The Shabbos Goy” by Kathleen Ford

Kathleen Ford has published more than fifty stories in both commercial magazines, including Redbook, Ladies Home Journal, and Yankee, and literary quarterlies, including Antioch, Sewanee, Southern Review, and North American Review. “Man on the Run,” a story first printed in The New England Review, was published in BEST AMERICAN MYSTERY STORIES, 1912. Kathleen’s first novel was published by St. Martin’s Press and she received a Christopher Isherwood Fellowship and a Hackney Literary Prize.

“Batter Swing” by L.A. Harris

L.A. Harris was born and raised in the Appalachian mountains of Southwest Virginia with detours since through Durham, North Carolina, and Baltimore, Maryland. She currently lives and writes in Denver, Colorado, and is finishing a first novel.

“Kalo Livadi” by Jennifer Lee

Jennifer Lee is a graduate of the Johns Hopkins MA Writing Program and an editor at the Baltimore Review.  Her wo rk has appeared in Painted Bride Quarterly, Phoebe, the Bellevue Literary Review, The Greensboro Review, Monkeybicycle, and elsewhere. Her work has won the Maryland Writers’ Association short fiction prize and has been nominated for a Pushcart Award. She is currently hard at work on a looming science fiction project, among other things. She lives in Baltimore, Maryland, where she teaches middle school math and pursues her interests.

Winter Grass” by Ramona Long

Ramona DeFelice Long writes short fiction, creative non-fiction, memoir, and personal essays about women, family and culture, and the foibles and quirks of everyday life. Her work has appeared in numerous literary and regional publications, and she is happiest on retreat, at a residency, or sharing stories at open mics. She is a transplanted Southerner living in Delaware.

“Lies We Tell” by Kieran McBride

Kieran McBride goes by ’kaɪ-rən, though this pronunciation is technically incorrect. He writes stories about deceased girlfriends, mafia fathers, talking islands, dystopian penguins, and soccer. He was born and raised in Lawrence, Kansas, graduating from the University of Kansas with a degree in Creative Writing. He currently resides in Kansas City with his wife and son.

“Afternoon of the Hero” by Claire Noonan

Ms. Noonan has consulted since 1985 for the Bay Area Writing Project; published short stories: “The Locavore’s Tale”- Spring 2012, The Writing Disorder and “The Laundromat Friend”- October 2017, 34th PARALLEL MAGAZINE; and writes non-fiction posts for the education blog takecareschools.com. See www.cjnoonan.com about her novel The House on Harrigan’s Hill by C.J. Noonan, Sea-Hill Press, April 2011. BA from UC, Berkeley, and MA from Teacher’s College, Columbia University, she was an elementary teacher.

“Driving Lessons” by Gordot Perdue/Christl Perkins

Christl Perkins is a writer currently living in Oakland, CA. As a travel journalist in the 1990s, she published numerous articles (under her real name as well as pseudonyms) in Beijing Scene, City Weekend, Metro, and That’s Shanghai. In the China market, she concentrated on Chinese arts, culture, entertainment, as well as business and economics. She has compiled, edited, and written travel and business guides including the Beijing Scene Guidebook and the Naga China Business Guide.

“The Way to Baghdad” by Nektaria Petrou

Nektaria Petrou’s work has appeared in The Huffington Post, Al-Monitor, Daily Sabah, Mashallah News, Panoply, East of the Web, Sixfold, The Shanghai Literary Review, and Eclectica.  Petrou received honorable mentions in Ruminate‘s 2015 Short Fiction Contest and Glimmertrain’s New Writer Contest (May/June 2017). She recently completed a novel about the Greeks of Istanbul, where she lives and works.

“Surely Goodness” by Jeremy Schnotala

Jeremy Schnotala just finished his MFA in creative writing at Western Michigan University. He lives with his husband in Grand Rapids, MI where he has taught English and creative writing and directed theater in the public schools for twenty-four years. He was the 2018 winner of both the Saints and Sinners Literary Festival fiction contest and The Tishman Review’s Tillie Olsen short story award. Other recent work can be seen in Temenos Literary Journal, Beecher’s Magazine, and Chagrin River Review. Check out his website at schnotala.com for more information.

“Three Figures of Near Silence” by Darci Schummer

Darci Schummer is the author of the story collection Six Months in the Midwest (Unsolicited Press), and the novel The Ballad of Two Sisters , which is forthcoming from Expat Press. Her fiction and poetry have appeared in Necessary Fiction , Midwestern Gothic , Compose Journal , and Synaesthesia Magazine , among other places. She teaches writing at Fond du Lac Tribal and Community College and serves as editor for the College’s literary and arts journal, The Thunderbird Review .

“Magician” by Rosanna Staffa

Rosanna Staffa is published by The Sun and Tampa Review among others. Her work appears in New Rivers Press’ American Fiction Anthology, The Best New and Unpublished Writers Vol. 15. She was selected for the Masters Review Anthology Prize, Vol. VII. Her plays have been staged in Tokyo, New York, Los Angeles, Seattle and Minneapolis. She has been awarded fellowships by the McKnight and Jerome Foundation, and an AT/T On Stage grant.

“Between My Ribs” by Riba Taylor

Through twenty years of writing I’ve often let my teaching work gobble up my time. I’m changing that now, finishing a memoir and a novel. I found out my story was a finalist on the first of five days I’d devoted to my writing, and I’m certain this gift came because I turned toward my writing in this way, my “attagirl” from the universe. I’m grateful and honored and delighted it is New Rivers Press.

A special thank you to Colin Fleming, who judged submissions for this edition of American Fiction.

Colin Fleming’s short fiction has appeared in Harper’s, Commentary, AGNI, Post Road, Glimmer Train, Post Road, Cincinnati Review, and Boulevard. He is widely published expert on art, literature, sports, music, and film, the preeminent Beatles authority, and a leading writer of op-eds, with his nonfiction appearing in Rolling Stone, Slate, Salon, The Washington Post, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Atlantic, USA Today, The Guardian, Sports Illustrated, and many other publications. He is a regular guest on numerous radio programs and podcasts, a long-time NPR contributor, and the author of Dark March: Stories for When the Rest of the World is Asleep, Between Cloud and Horizon: A Relationship Casebook in Stories, and The Anglerfish Comedy Troupe: Stories from the Abyss. His next book, coming in spring 2019, is Buried on the Beaches: Cape Stories for Hooked Hearts and Driftwood Souls, to be followed by a volume looking at the 1951 film Scrooge as the ultimate horror movie. Find him on the web at colinfleminglit.com, where there are hundreds of examples of his writing, and the accompanying Many Moments More blog, which documents the day in, day out life of an artist.

Thanks so much to everyone who submitted entries for this edition of American Fiction! Keep your eyes and ears open for the release.

Illuminating the Future: The Importance of Holocaust Literature

The Holocaust Memorial of Valašské Meziříčí, Czech Republic. Image Credit: Radim Holiš | Wikimedia Commons

April is a reminder of spring, a celebration of poetry, and the start of much new life. However, it is also a time to remember the depths of human suffering and not shy away from our horrific communal history.

In less than a month, the world will see the 73rd anniversary of V-E Day, or Victory in Europe Day, when the German military signed an unconditional surrender agreement, ending World War II on the continent. This moment started the freeing of thousands of prisoners in killing camps, work camps, and concentration camps throughout Nazi-occupied Europe. Thousands died after the camps were liberated, already too starved and sick to carry on.

The Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe, Berlin, Germany. Image via xamou-art.com

This year, April 12 marked Holocaust Remembrance Day, when we pause to reflect on our past and the millions of lives lost—and thousands saved—over the course of the Shoah. Today there are less than half a million Holocaust survivors left, including those who lived under Occupied rule during the war, even if they were not sent to camps. However, the number is dropping fast, as even the youngest survivors are now in their eighties and nineties. They are scattered all over the world, with some living in poverty and most still haunted by the loss of family and the memories of torture and dehumanization by their own governments.

As survivors dwindle and echoes of the actions leading to the Holocaust can be heard today, it is more important than ever to remember and learn from the lessons of the past so we do not risk repeating it. If you are interested in making the historical journey this month, here are some resources to get you started:

United States Holocaust Memorial Museum

The website for the famous museum, located in Washington, D.C., has countless resources for a variety of ages, both print and digital, including videos, interviews, pictures, articles, and documents.

Estelle Laughlin, Holocaust survivor and public speaker. Image Credit: Joshua Polson | The Greenley Tribune

The curators have also helpfully divided their material into themes, including Early Warning Signs, Justice and Accountability, Liberation 1945, Rescue, and American Responses. The Early Warning Signs material is especially appropriate now as the world confronts the Syrian chemical attacks and the fate of thousands of refugees.

On the site’s “Why We Remember the Holocaust” video, survivor Estelle Laughlin says it best: “That’s not enough to curse the darkness of the past. Above all, we have to illuminate the future. And I think that on the Day of Remembrance the most important thing is to remember the humanity that is in all of us to leave the world better for our children and for posterity.”

Rose Under Fire and Lilac Girls

Both of these novels tell the stories of the “Ravensbrück Rabbits,” a group of 74 female Polish political prisoners who were forced to endure heinous medical experiments. These experiments were supposedly to test the efficacy of drugs and the recovery rates of war wounds, but in practice inflicted permanent damage by cutting open the women’s legs and introducing bacteria and foreign objects and also fracturing or removing bone. Another 12 women of different nationalities were also subjected to these types of experiments. Many of the Rabbits were very young—either high school or university students—and needed medical treatment after being freed for decades in order to gain back use of their legs or even just live healthy lives.

Rose Under Fire

Rose Under Fire by Elizabeth Wein is a young adult novel and a companion to her earlier World War II book, Code Name Verity, which depicts a young female spy captured by German forces. Rose Under Fire features the desperate fight for survival by the Rabbits through the eyes of a stranded American female pilot brought to the all-women concentration camp as a political prisoner. There, she bands together with fellow prisoners to keep one another alive, and possibly even escape. The book has been a finalist for numerous awards, winning the Josette Frank Award and the Schneider Family Book Award and being named an honor book of the Golden Kite Award, the Boston Globe-Horn Book Award, and the ABA Indies Choice Award for Young Adult.

 

Lilac Girls

Lilac Girls by Martha Hall Kelly is a historical fiction novel told from the perspectives of three different women living in the U.S., Poland, and Germany. The first is Caroline, a young American woman working at the French consulate in 1939 who sees the increased desperation for visas from the French as Germany takes over Poland. She is based on a real woman who helped the Rabbits receive treatment after the war in the U. S. The second is Kasia, a fictional Rabbit who starts as a high school girl working for the Polish resistance before being captured by the Nazis. She becomes a target of the experiments carried out by real-life German surgeon Herta Oberheuser, who was the only woman to work as a doctor in the camp. As the story continues, their lives become increasingly intertwined and complicated by their experiences. Lilac Girls is unique in attempting to cover a Nazi doctor’s perspective, especially a female doctor. The book has become a New York Times bestseller since its release in 2016 and was dubbed a USA Today “New and Noteworthy” book. The true story of the Rabbits is currently being adapted into a documentary film called Saving the Rabbits of Ravensbrück by producer/director Stacey Fitzgerald, assisted by Lilac Girls author Martha Hall Kelly.

Auschwitz-Birkenau Memorial and Museum

The railway gate of the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp, now the site of a memorial and museum. Image via pexels.com

The name Auschwitz is infamous throughout much of the world, but the website dedicated to recording the history of the largest concentration camp and extermination center of the Holocaust offers tons of information.

Under the history page, visitors can find information about day-to-day life in the camps, the different classifications of prisoners and their treatment, and the systematic killing prisoners, particularly Jews. Each section is brief, but packed with facts of some of the worst crimes perpetuated against human beings. There are also further details broken down by time period, affected population, and category. The education page also has extensive online lessons for students of all ages.

While it is tempting to turn our heads from the truth of the Holocaust, there is still more to learn so we can stop the process of genocide as soon as the familiar signs start to appear. Stay vigilant, stay informed.

How to Celebrate World Book Day


Happy World Book and Copyright Day!

Dating back to April 23, 1995, this celebration was started by the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) to promote reading, publishing, and copyright. April 23 is the anniversary of the deaths of William Shakespeare, Miguel de Cervantes, and Inca Garcilaso de la Vega.

Each year since 2001, UNESCO chooses a city to act as the World Book Capital. This city then plans events and programs over the next year to promote and foster reading. The World Book Capital for 2018 is Athens, Greece, with the 2019 title going to Sharjah, United Arab Emirates.

World Book Day is observed in more than 100 countries, so how does the world celebrate?

In Spain, the king and queen present the Cervantes Prize in Alcalá de Henares, the birthplace of the famous writer. About twenty miles away in Madrid, Cervantes’ Don Quixote is read non-stop for 48 hours.

The United Kingdom celebrated World Book Day this year on March 1, with children dressing up as their favorite characters and attending school and community events. Book tokens worth £1 are handed out to children, who then use them to buy books or exchange them for specific World Book Day books.

In other countries, World Book Day is celebrated with special book discounts, costumes, and lots and lots of social media posts about gorgeous libraries.

Here are some ideas for how you can celebrate:

  1. Create a literary scavenger hunt with friends.
  2. Read an entire book today.
  3. Visit your local bookstore and/or library.
  4. Organize your bookshelf.
  5. Dress up as your favorite literary character.
  6. Attend a reading—or host your own.
  7. Download Amazon’s nine free World Book Day Kindle books.
  8. Donate your old books to pass on the gift of reading.
  9. Start a book club or book swap.  
  10. Use your favorite quote as a writing prompt.

Here at New Rivers Press, we’re celebrating by continuing our work of giving a platform to new and emerging voices. How are you celebrating? Let us know in the comments below!