The Best of the Net recognizes writers and publishers “who are building an online literary landscape that seeks to break free of traditional publishing … and bring greater respect to the continually expanding world of exceptional digital publishing.” This project was created by Sundress Publications and founding editor Erin Elizabeth Smith. For more information on their work, visit http://bestofthenetanthology.com/about/.
It is a privilege to read submissions—and we thank all of those who submit to Chautauqua. Building each issue is its own hard work.
Chautauqua is a literary manifestation of the values and aesthetics of Chautauqua Institution. Each volume is a portable Chautauqua season between covers. The sections loosely reflect the categories of experience addressed during those nine summer weeks—lifelong learning, artistic endeavors, spiritual experiences, and leisure—playing one writer’s vision off another’s in the spirit of oblique and artful dialogue.
The Chautauqua way is also reflected in how we make each issue. Each year, in partnership with the Chautauqua Literary Arts, graduate and undergraduate students in the Department of Creative Writing at the University of North Carolina Wilmington work as members of the editorial team, guided by professional editors and an advisory board. They read and discuss submissions, fact check and edit, search for art, and participate in the artistic process of building a book, to be released at the start of the summer season.
In our editorial sessions, we read aloud excerpts or even entire works, listening for the music of great writing, searching for the piece that eloquently addresses the issue’s theme through some facet of the life in art, spirit, or play, or a life lesson. Writers, ages twelve through eighteen, enjoy that same respectful attention through Young Voices.
We are happy to announce this year’s nominees for the Best of the Net award.
Art:
· Gillian Pribicko, page spread for Noah Davis, “Canada Goose, Audubon Plate L1”
· Gabi Stephens, Covers 19.2 and 19.3
Fiction:
· Vasilios Moschouris, “Next Times”
· Doug Ramspeck, “Gertrude”
Creative Nonfiction:
· Diana Hume George, “The Woman From Another Century”
· Lori Jakiela, “Prayer to the Patron Saint of Companionship”
Poems:
· C.W. Emerson, “To J, With Regret, Twenty-Five Years After”
· Karen Paul Holmes, “Driving Behind Rose in North Carolina”
· Steve Lautermilch, “Rayed Head in Basalt and Red Ochre Columbia River Narrows, ca. 1050 1300”
· Clara Silverstein, “Twigs for Mother”
· Tara Tulshyan, “a soul table for grandma’s death anniversary”
· Suzanne Tyrpak, “Haiku for Times Like These”