Month: March 2022

Winners and Writers

Announcement

A QUICK ANNOUNCEMENT

FOR THOSE who haven’t heard, we have a winner in our first cash prize contest, one Tom Ray. Check out our NPL News story about it.

ON OTHER FRONTS, we’ve been using our revamped Special Projects blog for quirky writings, often of a humorous nature, as well as for sneak previews of pop lit things-to-come. Peruse our latest offering, “Sending the Dog to a Farm” by Gregg Maxwell Parker. Next up there will be amusing fiction from Wred Fright— before we move on at last to our planned collaborative novel– which should be fun!?

Plus much more.

(Art: “Organization” by Arshile Gorky.)

Fiction: Reality and Illusion

Pop Lit Fiction

WE DECIDED at the start of this year to avoid the predictable. Toward that end we have imaginative new fiction set near a beach, “The Longboarders” by talented writer Nikki Williams.

Physicists tell us time is an illusion. Is it? As Shakespeare’s Hamlet said, “There are more things in Heaven and Earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.”

We hope you enjoy the story!

A man sat between two peaks in lotus pose, his back turned to them. Theo looked back at her, put a finger to his lips. The Maori raven tattooed on the man’s back seemed to wink at Sasha. Then he drew in a long breath, his exhale sounding like a sigh.

ALSO: We’ll be announcing soon the winner of our impromptu Contest. Stay tuned.

(Art: “Painterly Architectonic” by Lyubov Popova.)

Contests!

Announcement

PART of our mission with the arts grant we received will be to continue developing new forms for the short story. New structures and shapes, not unlike modernist shapes in the plastic arts. Experiments in structure.

As with anything, there’s a steep learning curve involved in perfecting the multidimensional short story. We’re working through several iterations. The end goal: A better reading experience.

TOWARD THAT END–

Our first announced contest is a short and modest one. A one-month contest, with a prize of eighty dollars ($80) for the FIRST competent and readable story we receive written from two different viewpoints. Alternate and connect the two viewpoints however you like. If we don’t receive an adequate story within those parameters at the end of one month, the contest will be extended for another month, and so on– until we have a winner. The winning story will be featured at our site.

The contest is open to anyone except New Pop Lit‘s two editors.

6,000 word maximum, 1,000 word minimum.

Send all entries to newpoplit@gmail.com, with “Contest” in the subject line.

The contest begins now, today: March 4, 2022.

Again, this is the first of several contests we’ll be running this year.

Thanks in advance to anyone, or all, who participate– and good luck!

Poetry For Ukraine

Poetry

A TOPICAL POEM

WE SCRAMBLED to insert a new feature into our line-up, one related to the ongoing war in Ukraine. We’re fortunate to have received a poem– “Kyiv In a Winter Evening”— about the crisis by Bruce Dale Wise, who uses anagram pen names as authors of his work– in this instance, Radice Lebewsu. Whatever, it’s a very good poem, and we thank Radice/Bruce for submitting it to us.

Now scenes of devastation follow streets with spitefulness,
tanks, drunk with power, roll into the city’s frightful mess.

ALSO be sure to check out our previous poetry feature, “Heaven Bound” by Alisha J. Prince, as well as new literary satire by Stuart Ross.