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Thanksgiving Edition 2011
Hello, friends. There’s certainly much to be thankful around the virtual offices of Sport Literate. On the personal home front, my wife (she’s new) bore my son, James Taylor (he’s newer), on November 8. For a baby, he’s relatively over-sized like me and long like his mother. I know the big adventure begins as we see what he’ll actually grow into.
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One and a half men, and two dogs. |
On small press literary matters, we appreciate everyone who entered our most recent contest. Our winners, as selected by Mark Wukas, our guest judge for essays, and Frank Van Zant, who made his pick of poetry finalists, are Joey Franklin for his essay “How to be a T-ball Parent” and Matthew Crady for his poem “Downeast.” All who entered the contest will receive an issue (maybe by year’s end).
We’re offering a sample of Crady below with a November poem that will appear in the print edition alongside his winning entry. If you haven’t signed up for a subscription, I’d encourage you to at least try a $12 sample with the latest. It’s a PayPal click away here.
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SL Poetry
On Returning to Knobs State Forest
--Kentucky, November 2007 | By Matthew Crady
Follow your feet. Trust them
in the way you knew harm
only befell the wicked. Same way
you believed staring blue sky
in the face long enough could
strip it to bone, give just a glimpse
beyond what adults see. Once
you knew these trails – rabbit
and boar and deer. Beside the pond,
tracks of doe and faun harden, are
brittle and frail. You forget what
such signs mean – therein lies
the rub. When did the haunts
of children grow riddled
with cliché? How did babbling
brooks and rustling wind
between oak saplings turn
from magic to weak image? Perhaps
it was quick and easy, the way bodies
break. Or imperceptibly slow,
an unraveling sweater snagged
on briar, the secret way a child
at play’s laces come undone.
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Matthew C. Crady holds an MFA in fiction from Virginia Commonwealth University. His work has appeared in Makeout Creek, Miracle Monocle, The Giles Corey Press, and online at the Virginia Museum of Fine Art's Web site. Both his fiction and nonfiction have won or been short-listed for various awards, including PRISM international's fiction contest and the VCU Graduate Nonfiction Award. He currently resides in Louisville, KY, where he teaches at the University of Louisville and serves as senior editor of Miracle Monocle. |
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SL Best American Breakthrough
We are pleased as punch to note that two of the essayists from Sport Literate’s 15th anniversary issue were recognized in The Best American Sports Writing 2011. Mark Pearson’s wrestling essay, “The Short History of an Ear” is our first to make the pages of the anthology. It’s tucked in there between entries from The New Yorker and the Los Angeles Times. Nice to see that a small, but broke, but hardworking Chicago press made it in there. And congrats to Pearson on the breakthrough honor. Jay Lesandrini received a nod for “Notable Sports Writing of 2010” for his essay, “Waiting on Deck.”
For an interesting interview with Jane Leavy, the guest editor, on NPR’s “Talk of the Nation,” go here. |
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