The inaugural edition of Syracuse University's "Stone Canoe: A Journal of Arts and Ideas From Upstate New York" has achieved international recognition, winning a bronze medal in the anthology category of the 2007 Independent Publisher Book Awards. The University launched the community-oriented arts annual in March. "Stone Canoe" No. 1 features work from 71 artists and writers, ranging from Pulitzer Prize winners to those being published for the first time. The publication's mission is to augment the University's ongoing efforts to build creative partnerships within the larger community and to showcase the impressive range of artistic activity that characterizes life in upstate New York.
"Stone Canoe" was one of 2,690 national entries in this year's "IPPY" competition in 65 categories submitted from all 50 U.S. states, eight Canadian provinces and 17 other countries. The journal will be featured as an award winner in the upcoming Book Expo America June 1-3 and the Eighth Annual Literary Magazine and Small Press Fair June 9-10, both in New York City. It will also be included in a reading at the New York Public Library. Any proceeds from sales at the latter event will go to Housing Works, a nonprofit bookstore and cafe dedicated to helping homeless people living with AIDS.
The winner of the first "Stone Canoe" award for emerging fiction writers, E.C. Osondu, has been short-listed for the Caine Prize for African Writing. The Caine Prize is awarded to an African writer published in English, whether in Africa or elsewhere. The winner of the #10,000 prize is to be announced at the Bodleian Library, Oxford, England, in July.
The second edition of Stone Canoe is under way and will be published in January 2008. Submissions of previously unpublished short fiction, nonfiction, short plays, poems and works of visual art are being accepted for consideration until August 2007. Editors for "Stone Canoe" No. 2 are: Adam Banks, assistant professor in the SU Writing Program, as nonfiction editor; Michael Burkard, associate professor in the SU Creative Writing Program, and Paul Aviles, Onondaga Community College English department faculty member, as poetry editors; David Lloyd, Le Moyne College English department faculty member, as fiction editor; and Marion Wilson, director of community initiatives in visual arts at Syracuse University, as visual arts editor.
For more information regarding Stone Canoe, including submission procedures,
visit http://www.stonecanoejournal.org.
