writing

2nd Annual MU Undergraduate Reading

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We want to take another opportunity to acknowledge all of the wonderful writers who participated in our second undergraduate LED writing contest at the University of Missouri. Last Wednesday, we were lucky enough to hear from the winning writer and three fantastic finalists. We were also so pleased to see their friends, family and faculty turn out to celebrate their accomplishments.

We love hosting this event in the George Caleb Bingham Gallery — the showcase of undergraduate visual art is a perfect complement, but it seemed particularly meaningful this year. The works that were read all offered insight into the writers’ generation, into their experiences in an era of gun violence and political paralysis. It was powerful to hear these readers raise their voices in a room full of visual art through which their peers are engaging many of the same issues and ideas. Their art and writing sincerely gives us hope for a better future.

We were also fortunate to have a great photographer on hand. The photos above are from Jovani Jones.

Jovani Jones is a senior at the University of Missouri majoring in Health Science. He runs his own photography business with Fisheye Focals and can be found with a camera in hand most of time. His goal is to capture the life of the community through his photography and bring light to local talent and other venues.

Thanks again to Catherine Armbrust for hosting our event, and Jeff Wasserboehr for judging the contest!

Second Annual MU Undergraduate Runners Up

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Just like last year, we were fortunate to receive a number of outstanding works for our University of Missouri Undergraduate Writing Competition.

In addition to this year’s winner, Annalee Roustio, we’d like to acknowledge three other talented undergraduate writers:

  • Darren Baker for his incisive poem, “New Old Game”
  • Gabrielle Hesse for her tragic piece ,”The Weight You Borrow”
  • Alyssa Ripley for her brisk yet intimate poem, “Bargaining”

If you want to hear these works, join us for a reading on December 5th, at 5:00 p.m. in the George Caleb Bingham Gallery.

Thanks again to Jeff Wasserboehr for judging the competition.

Winner of the 2nd Annual MU Undergraduate Writing Competition

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We are proud to announce that Annalee Roustio is the winner of the 2nd Annual MU Undergraduate LED Writing competition!

Annalee is in her third year at MU, where she studies English and plans to declare a second major in French. She’s a tutor and outreach representative for the campus Writing Center, a copywriter at Marketing by Emma, and an intern for the poetry division of Persea Books. In terms of future plans, beyond traveling to AWP this spring with Persea Books and hopefully studying abroad this summer, Annalee has begun exploring MFA programs. She should probably complete her personal website. Until then, feel free to add her on LinkedIn; her brief (and with luck, ever-growing!) smattering of publications and prizes can be found there. Special thanks to Rebecca Pelky for her helpful feedback and encouragement.

Our judge, Jeff Wasserboehr, selected Annalee’s moving, contemplative poem, “Ether” for publication on our scrolling LED display.

You can hear Annalee read “Ether” at on December 5th, at 5:00 p.m. in the George Caleb Bingham Gallery, and you can read it yourself anytime in December on the display outside the gallery.

We’re very grateful to all the MU students who shared their writing with us as well as the instructors who encouraged their students to do so. Thank you!

Sonnet (51) by Nikki Wallschlaeger

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Our April installation is up! If you’re in Columbia, you can stop by SRLBX x THERETHERENOW (207 Hitt St.) to read Nikki Wallschlaeger’s poem, Sonnet (51). If you’re not local, then wait just a little bit longer and we’ll have a video of the complete piece scrolling along our LED display.

In the meantime, here are few pictures from our blustery installation tonight (featuring a steely, parka-clad Carley). We’ll have more when the wind dies down enough to use a tripod!

Sonnet (51) was originally published in Nikki’s book, Crawlspace (Bloof). We’ll also be creating a limited edition Risograph broadside for Sonnet (51), to add to our LED broadside series. Check back for news about the printing.

Introducing Our Contest Judges

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Now that we’ve congratulated our winner and runners up, it’s time to say thanks to the two fabulous readers who judged the entries for the 2018 undergraduate competition. We are so grateful that Jordi Alonso and Anna Wehrwein made time for our contest amid the demands of writing and art-making and teaching!

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Jordi Alonso graduated with an AB in English from Kenyon College in 2014 and was the first Turner Fellow in Poetry at Stony Brook University where he received his MFA. He is the Gus T. Ridgel Fellow in English at the University of Missouri where he is a PhD candidate studying the cultural transmission of nymphs in literature. He’s been published in Kenyon Review Online, Noble/Gas Qtrly, Roanoke Review, Levure Littéraire, and other journals. Honeyvoiced, his first book, was published by XOXOX Press and his chapbook, The Lovers’ Phrasebook, was published by Red Flag Poetry Press in 2017.


Anna Wehrwein is an artist originally from the Boston area. She received her BS in Art and BA in English/Creative Writing from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and her MFA in Drawing and Painting from the University of Tennessee. Her work has been featured in New American Paintings and Friend of the Artist and has been exhibited nationally. During the summer of 2017 she was a resident at Vermont Studio Center. She currently lives in Columbia, MO where she is a Visiting Assistant Professor of Painting and Drawing at the University of Missouri.

Midland at Makes Scents

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At last! We installed Rebecca Pelky’s poem, “Midland,” at Makes Scents this evening… and then it rained. A lot.

So here are a couple photos for those of you without umbrellas. Don’t worry – the installation will up until mid-September, so there will be plenty of good weather for an enjoyable read.

As always, the LED display will be running 24/7, so stop by anytime you have a hankering for poetry.

As I photographed through the rain from the comfort of a parked car, I captured two moments that seemed fitting: “windows” and “salt-rot.” Come and see the rest in person!

 

Tribune Contest Runners Up

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“First Time Out” by Ida Bettis Fogle and “Spider’s Song” by Mike Robertson have been selected as the runners up in the Tribune’s LED Writing Contest! Our judges, Aarik Danielsen and Jennifer McCauley, selected these works from among many great submissions.

Congratulations to our two very talented runners up!

Ida Bettis Fogle is a resident of Columbia, Missouri, a city with a thriving arts community. She has been writing poetry since childhood, and makes it a habit to read at least one poem every day. In the past few years, she has diversified her writing portfolio to include short fiction and memoir pieces, as well as a novel in progress. Her writing has appeared in various literary magazines and anthologies, most recently “Eternal as a Weed: Tales of Ozark Experience” and “Well Versed.” She blogs at Nomadic Noesis (thedamari.wordpress.com.)

Mike Robertson, a retired programmer, has written over a hundred short stories and poems of various lengths. Some have won minor awards and are included in online compilations of short fiction.

His books include Butterfly Woman, a collection of short stories; The Lazlo Mission, a novel; and a novella, Natural Boy.

Mike is also a musician and electronic music composer. He continues writing in short bursts and is currently working on a series of detective stories set in the heartland of Missouri.

You can find some of his essays and links to his books at http://mgrobertsonhimself.blogspot.com/

Our gracious host, Makes Scents, has awarded these runners up with a gift card and a reed diffuser of their (very apropos) Old Book Smell. So congratulations Ida and Mike! Thank you for sharing your writing with us, and thanks to Makes Scents for celebrating local writers!

Unbound Book Festival – Sat. April 22

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A quick update about the Unbound Book Festival.

We will have our new LED installation at Stephens College all day Saturday, April 22 (not Friday and Saturday as previously announced).

Here’s why you should stop by:

See you there!

 

Pre-Order the LED Anthology

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We’re eagerly awaiting a proof of the paperback LED Anthology, which means it’s time for you to place an order. If you pre-order the anthology, we’ll ship your copy with some sweet letterpress ephemera, hot off the press. Don’t wait though, once we approve the proof and our books ship, any purchase will just be a regular ol’ order (still a pretty swell deal at only $6.00).

You’re probably wondering where you can place your order. Allow us to introduce our new website! Partial Press is the umbrella organization behind LED (you may have noticed it on our about page) and now that LED is moving on to this exciting new phase, we decided it was time to launch Partial Press and begin rolling out other exciting publishing projects. Visit the Catalog Page to ore-order the LED Anthology and be sure to check out our other publications for sale.

LED news will continue to be posted here with our archive, but you’ll want to check Partial Press for other announcements and opportunities in the realm of experimental and small press publishing. The Partial Press Facebook page (formerly our LED page) will continue to feature LED content. You can also follow Partial Press on Tumblr if you’re into that.

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Here’s a mock-up we’ve made in the meantime. Designing a cover that spoke to the nature of the LED display and still took advantage of the codex form was a fun challenge. We can’t wait to feel it in our hands!