As we welcome the warm weather of July, we also find ourselves at the end of our third year of production as a bi-weekly, online literary magazine. At Connotation Press we run new work every two weeks for the eleven months from September through July, and then we publish our August edition, which is a retrospective issue looking back at the highlights of our publishing year.

 

We have a jam-packed first-of-the-month post for July, so without further delay let's kick this pig and see what it'll do.

 

First up, a heartfelt welcome to our friend Keetje Kuipers, this month's Featured Guest Editor. Woohoo! I had the privilege of meeting Ms Kuipers at our off-site "Gettin' Our Read On" event at this past AWP convention in Chicago. For this guest edited column, the brilliant Ms Kuipers brings us new work by Elizabeth Bradfield, Natalie Diaz, Cynthia Marie Hoffman, Jennifer Elise Foerster, Gibson Fay-LeBlanc, Holly Virginia Clark, Janice N. Harrington, and Metta Sáma. Thank you Keetje for a job well done, to all her talented contributors for their outstanding work, and to John Hoppenthaler for inviting her.

 

And speaking of John Hoppenthaler, this month's Congeries starts out with new work by Adrian C. Louis that comes complete with an interesting interview. Denise Duhamel, Gregory Djanikian, Catherine MacDonald, Pamela Uschuk, Lance Larsen, Chera Hammons Miller, Suzanne Roberts, and Kevin Dublin round out another strong column from offering from the talented Mr. Hoppenthaler. Enjoy!

From Plate to Palate with Amanda McGuire, our in-house Food Diva column, this month focuses on cooking for those on a gluten free diet. We have a number of tasty recipes and another entertaining video from Amanda & her team. Yay! Thanks, Amanda!

 

Our intrepid travel writer Nicholas Baker braved luxury hotels, fine-dining establishments, and miles of shopping to bring us his newest offering: Hong Kong Discovered. WOOHOO! This is a wonderful column with some STUNNING pictures-- be sure to click on them to enlarge the photos. And don't forget, Nicholas will be placing an open call for your summer travelogues so don't forget to bring a camera, jot down a few stories, and let us know where your summer travel plans took you. Until then, enjoy Hong Kong Discovered by our favorite travel writer on the planet, Nicholas Baker. Thanks to Nicholas & Freddy!

 

Stephanie Brown, our Book Review editor, brings us a positive review of Burt Kimmelman's newest collection, The Way We Live. Our thanks to reviewer Kip Zegers and to Stephanie for another great review. And this month our movie review column, A Movie You Gotta See, with Robin Russin, takes a look at Jiri Menzel's, Closely Watched Trains. Thanks to guest writer Brett Boham for a terrific review and to Robin for always bringing a well examined look at some of the best films released world-wide.

 

And as is our custom we provide a Fiction & Creative Nonfiction piece in anticipation of our Mid-Month post when our Poetry, Fiction, Creative Nonfiction and a grip of other wonderful columns run. This first-of-the month post we offer three Flash Fiction pieces from Mike Dell'Aquila's with a stellar Meg Tuite interview, and a new Creative Nonfiction piece by the individual with quite probably THE BEST writer name we have ever published, Elizabeth Word Gutting. Thank you to Mike and Elizabeth, and great job to Meg and Creative Nonfiction editor Robert Clark Young.

 

That's it for now. Thanks to all our new contributors, to our hard working editors, and to you, our readers, who are the reason we do what we do. You guys ROCK!

 

Connotation Press: It's All For You

 

All best,

Ken Robidoux

Publisher/Founding Editor-in-Chief