- We're pleased to say that PRACTICE: NEW WRITING + ART is now distributed by Ingram Periodicals. Fancy, fancy.

- Huge congratulations to Christi Kramer who is featured in the forthcoming Best New Poets 2007 anthology for her poem "Biography of Awe" - the lead-off poem in our debut issue. "Biography of Awe" is from Kramer's remarkable manuscript Reading "The Throne". PRACTICE Issue 1 includes nine poems from the collection and That. Alone. Is worth the price of admission. See below for ordering information. And congratulations again to Christi.

- Submissions: As of July 1 we are reading work for ISSUE 3, due out in early 2008. See below for more information.

- Our utterly bare-bones website will be replaced shortly by something equally bare-bones but nicer looking. FYI.

- In response to questions about subscriptions: a donation (via check or Paypal to editor@practicejournal.com) will guarantee to you a copy or copies of the next issue.

Many thanks for the interest and support. Please stay tuned. 

The journal includes a detour into landscape, nature, encounter, memory, and history - among other diversions - and features new work by:

Christian Peet (ten postcards/poems from Big American Trip);

Brandon Shimoda (seven poems from Lake M);

Allison Cobb (poetry/essay: Green-Wood);

Rusty Morrison (five poems from Landscape, Not Fable);

J. Michael Martinez (two poems);

Ed Skoog (two poems);

Danika Myers (seven poems from My Risky Undertaking);

Joshua Edwards (four poems from The Departures);

Dieter Graf (a long poem: Record Player);

Mark Yakich (two poems);

Grzegorz Wroblewski (five poems);

Tony Lopez (Only More So); 

Renee Angle (Salamandra, Salamandra);

Michael Heller (three poems from The Tibet Sequence);

Alec Finlay (a conversation about his worldwideletterbox project, and ten circle poems);

Dan Fost (a travel essay/memoir that takes us to the mouth of an erupting volcano in the South Pacific);

Paddy Sutton (four photographs from the Atlantic series);

Shawn Records (five photographs);

Mary Daniel Hobson (three images from Bottle Dreams);

Aaron Cruse (five photographs);

Emily Ginsburg (three images from Social Studies);

Peter Koch (four excerpts from the Nature Morte manuscript/portfolio);

and Colette Calascione (five paintings - and one cover). 

Editor: Adrian Lurssen

Poetry Editor: Susan Tichy

Art + Design: Merel Kennedy and Holly Holmquist 

Printer: Hemlock, British Columbia, Canada

Or to order by mail, send a check for $15 ($12 + shipping) to the address available on this site.

-Thanks to the artists and writers for trusting us with their work. Thanks to friends and family members (see page 184) for funding this issue. Thanks to the Practice Press board of directors for their support. Thanks to all for your interest.

-Practice Press is a 501(c)(3) literary arts organization. Donations are most welcome and tax-deductible. Please send a check to the address available on this website, or via PayPal.

The first issue includes:

Poetry by Dan Beachy-Quick, G.C. Waldrep & John Cross, Graham Foust, Eleanor Graves, Christi Kramer, H.L. Hix, Janet Holmes, Aaron McCollough, Semezdin Mehmedinovic, Rod Smith, Peter Streckfus, Cole Swensen, Susan Tichy, Caroline Walker, and Joan Wilcox. 

Prose by Betsy Andrews, Jamy Bond, Gerald Tiffany, and Gabe Weisert.  An interview with Semezdin Mehmedinovic by Brian Brodeur.

Art and photography by Karen Barbour, Angela Buenning, Paula McCartney, Ryan Mrozowski, and Anne Wilson.

(If you e-mailed a freebie request prior to this posting, you will receive one.)

We received a tremendous amount of kind and excellent feedback for issue one (including an award for design excellence from Mohawk Paper company). Alas, we haven't yet asked any of our new friends if we may quote them on this site, and so -- we're going to do it anyway. We've eliminated names to protect the innocent but will credit people once they've allowed it. Here is some of the feedback:

"I think it's the most beautiful journal I've ever seen." - excellent poet with hyphenated last name (you'd know it if we used it here).

"I'm very glad to have stumbled into this particular gravitational pull." - professor and director of certain amazing and well-thought-of Books Arts program in the SF Bay Area.

"Both a beautiful object, and shrewdly edited..." - Josh Corey, on his blog. 

"I find patient editorial intelligence here, composed and improvisatory--rare qualities for a journal just starting out." - anonymous, but clearly brilliant. 

Here is what we said last year, at time of debut:

The word PRACTICE brings to mind notions of craft. Writers and artists and photographers are skilled practitioners of craft, and magazines such as this one celebrate this fact in all of its beauty and diversity. This is all true. But what we also had in mind when we settled on the title was Reading, which is its own form of practice. We want more readers. We like to believe that more people should experience this interesting and worthwhile work -- we'd even venture to say that outside of academia more people want the chance to "understand" it -- and so we are trying to create a publication that immediately addresses the issue, these issues. For one small example, most contributors are provided the chance to introduce themselves or their work in a dedicated page at the start of their "section." These artist statements vary greatly (no constraints except in word count) and first feedback tells us that they are helpful to folks who might be arriving at this type of work for the first time. We also mix "traditional" prose (tending to an international focus, though not exclusively) with "innovative" poetry (awkward labels) because both offer a form of travel that we enjoy. We also believe that the disciplines belong together, and that readers who are drawn into the publication through more familiar essays will likely stick around for the challenging stuff -- especially if there are signposts along the way. You might fairly argue that none of this is particularly original. Even so, we wanted to let you know what we have in mind. When we say PRACTICE, we also mean reading. (And tea, but that's another story.)

Congratulations Betsy Andrews! New Jersey is available at UW Press.  

Greetings!

- THE SECOND ISSUE: of PRACTICE: NEW WRITING + ART will be out in April. Thank you to everyone for such a rich pile of submissions. We are even now making final final decisions -- if you sent work and have not yet heard back please forgive us and know that you will soon. Very soon. PRACTICE2 includes new work by Renee Angle, Allison Cobb, Joshua Edwards, Dieter Graf, Michael Heller, Tony Lopez, J. Michael Martinez, Rusty Morrison, Danika Myers, Christian Peet, Brandon Shimoda, Ed Skoog, and Grzegorz Wroblewski, as well as an interview with Alec Finlay, and more to be announced shortly.

-  CONGRATULATIONS: 1) to H.L. Hix, whose Chromatic (Etruscan Press) was named a finalist for the 2006 National Book Award (poems from the book appear in our debut issue); and 2) to our poetry editor Susan Tichy, whose third book, Bone Pagoda, is now out from Ahsahta Press.

 - SCOTLAND: Through the Center for Global Education at George Mason University, Susan Tichy will be hosting a poetry workshop in Scotland this summer. This announcement is meant for you - you should sign up. Today. The workshop runs from June 14th to July 1st; starts in Edinburgh, with trips to Ian Hamilton Finlay's Little Sparta, Dumfries, and elsewhere. Faculty and guests include Tom Pow, Thomas A. Clark, Kathleen Jamie, and others; there'll be Renga writing with Alec Finlay and Ken Cockburn, a visit to Andy Goldsworthy's studio, walking & writing excursions on the Isles of Skye and Raasay, and much more. For more information see the Poetry Scotland web site. Apply before March 6, 2007, for a $100 discount.

- SUBMISSIONS: PRACTICE: NEW WRITING + ART is an annual magazine of writing and art, favoring work that might otherwise be cloistered because of genre, form, content, subject, or place of origin. We are open to everything but tend toward the innovative and experimental. We publish annually; this may change in the near future. We are currently only looking for new prose and art submissions, will announce our 2007 reading period shortly. For more on this, please read about PRACTICE defined here.

- SUPPORT: The magazine is published by Practice Press, Inc., a 501(c)(3) literary arts organization based in the San Francisco Bay Area. Read more here. Donations are welcome, via Paypal to editor@practicejournal.com or to our mailing address. Thank you!

-ISSUE ONE: Is still available. If you asked for a freebie, you'll get one. If you ask, you will get one (via media mail). If you make a donation -- you'll get one even sooner.

Thanks for the interest and support. Please stay in touch.

P:NW+A

This Just In:

- The debut issue of PRACTICE: NEW WRITING + ART was so thoughtfully designed (we've heard) that you can actually use the piece as a fan after reading it. We knew our designers were good, but this is something else. It probably has to do with paper thickness, page size, cover stock, and whatnot. Who would've thought that experiencing new work by an array of amazing artists and writers (see below for the full list of contributors) could keep you that cool?! Really. Who?

- Which is why we are still giving away free copies. E-mail us (information below) a mailing address and we'll send you issue one via media mail, which is slow but affordable.

- We are also taking donations of any size. Happy to send freebies but we're also happy to use your cash (sent via Paypal to editor@practicejournal.com) towards the incredible cost of printing P2.

- We're still reading submissions; please send work no later than September 1 of this year. (Further guidelines below.) We've read most of the work that was submitted prior to June 30th. In the coming weeks we will post names of artists and writers whose work will be giving shape to issue two.

- Another reason to pick up a copy of issue one. It was chosen as a finalist in the seventh annual Mohawk Show, "a celebration of higher thinking in graphic design." Mohawk provides the paper we use to print PRACTICE: NEW WRITING + ART, and we are thrilled and honored to be included in the company's nationwide exhibition.

Stay cool, beat the heat, PRACTICE: NEW WRITING + ART. Wave that mag...

Poetry Editor: Susan Tichy

Art & Design: Holly Holmquist, Merel Kennedy

Tom C. Delay, President; Diana Iles Parker, Treasurer; David Price, Secretary; Adrian Lurssen, April Arisian, Desanne Martin, David Brian Ward, Patricia Blanc, Thomas Ingalls 

                                                                                              -Martha Graham

 
        prac·tice      

VERB:
tr.

   1. To do or perform habitually or customarily; make a habit of: practices courtesy in social situations.
   2. To do or perform (something) repeatedly in order to acquire or polish a skill: practice a dance step.
   3. To give lessons or repeated instructions to; drill: practiced the students in handwriting.
   4. To work at, especially as a profession: practice law.
   5. To carry out in action; observe: practices a religion piously.
   6. Obsolete: To plot (something evil). Trick, scheme, or intrigue.

                        - The American Heritage Dictionary

The word PRACTICE brings to mind notions of craft. Writers and artists and photographers are skilled practitioners of craft, and magazines such as this one celebrate this fact in all of its beauty and diversity. That is all true. But what we also had in mind when we settled on the title was Reading, which is its own form of practice. We want more readers. We like to believe that more people should experience this interesting and worthwhile work -- we'd even venture to say that outside of academia more people want the chance to "understand" it -- and so we are trying to create a publication that immediately addresses the issue, these issues. For one small example, most contributors are provided the chance to introduce themselves or their work in a dedicated page at the start of their "section". These artist statements vary greatly (no constraints except in word count) and first feedback tells us that they are helpful to folks who might be arriving at this type of work for the first time. We also mix "traditional" prose (tending to an international focus, though not exclusively) with "innovative" poetry (awkward labels) because both offer a form of travel that we enjoy. We also believe that the disciplines belong together, and that readers who are drawn into the publication through more familiar essays will likely stick around for the challenging stuff -- especially if there are signposts along the way. You might fairly argue that none of this is particularly original. Even so, we wanted to let you know what we have in mind. When we say PRACTICE, we also mean reading.

For donations, make out checks to Practice Press, Inc. and mail to above address. Or e-mail your donation  via Paypal to editor@practicejournal.com -- any amount helps and is appreciated.

Thank you also to editors & designers Susan Tichy, Holly Holmquist, and Merel Kennedy.

A final debt of gratitude to the writers and artists who trusted us with their work.