Red Bull Poet Writes Humorous Odes to Black Coffee

With a tip of the campaign hat to both April Fools’ Day and National Poetry Month, Middle West Press LLC has today launched a new digital chapbook featuring 10 humorous “war poems” about coffee.

The $3 sampler, available as a Kindle e-book, collects new and previously published poems by the award-winning citizen-soldier-poet Randy “Sherpa” Brown, as well as the classic drill-sergeant essay “Listen Up, Maggots! It's National Poetry Month!”

Find the digital chapbook at Amazon here at this link.

Red Bull Rising mil-blogger Randy “Sherpa” Brown embedded with his former Iowa Army National Guard unit—the 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 34th Infantry “Red Bull” Division—as a civilian journalist in Afghanistan, May-June 2011. He served in uniform for 20 years, with one overseas deployment in 2003. He subsequently authored the award-winning poetry collection “Welcome to FOB Haiku: War Poems from Inside the Wire.”

He is a former editor of community and metro newspapers, as well as national trade and consumer newsstand magazines, and is now a freelance writer, editor, and independent publisher. His essays, journalism, and poetry have appeared widely both on-line and in print.

His on-cover book credits include co-editing the anthologies “Why We Write: Craft Essays on Writing War” and “Things We Carry Still: Poems & Micro-Stories about Military Gear.” Brown is a three-time poetry finalist in the annual Col. Darron L. Wright Memorial Writing Awards, administered by the Chicago-based literary magazine Line of Advance. 

Learn more about Randy Brown at: linktr.ee/randysherpabrown

Middle West Press LLC (www.middlewestpress.com) is a Johnston, Iowa-based editor and publisher of non-fiction, journalism, and poetry. As an independent micro-press, it publishes one to four titles annually. Its projects are often inspired by the people, places, and history of the American Midwest.

Two 'Red Bull' Soldier-Writers Featured in New Book!

Featuring more than 60 leading and emerging writers of military- and war-themed fiction, non-fiction, journalism, poetry, and more, the anthology "Why We Write: Craft Essays on Writing War" launches TODAY, Dec. 10, 2019 in both print and Kindle e-book formats! The Middle West Press LLC project is in partnership with the Military Writers Guild. Contributors include service members past and present, as well as scholars, historians, journalists, and civilians with experiences in international relations and national security.

The book coincidentally features a number of current and former Iowans—including two former members of the Iowa National Guard's 2nd Brigade Combat Team (B.C.T.), 34th Infantry "Red Bull" Division. Steven L. Moore, author of "The Longer We Were There: A Memoir of a Part-Time Soldier," served in Laghman Province during the brigade's 2010-2011 deployment to Afghanistan. Anthology editor Randy Brown helped produce a print collection of the brigade public affairs journalism from that same deployment.

The anthology's title echoes Frank Capra's patriotic "Why We Fight" films of World War II, the cover by illustrator Paul Hewitt of Battlefield Design reinterprets propaganda poster images from the same era.

Response to the anthology from other war writers has been overwhelming and positive:

"Page by page, line by line, these men and women—veterans and civilians of various eras and nations—speak the truth about what it is like not just to fight, but to write," notes U.S. Army veteran Doug Bradley, author of "Who'll Stop the Rain: Respect, Remembrance, and Reconciliation in Post-Vietnam America" as well as other non-fiction and fiction about that war. "'The power of a good story is as important as the sharpest policy paper,' writes one Vietnam-veteran senator's son. As a U.S. Navy chopper pilot who himself flew in Afghanistan, he couldn't be more accurate. Read this book and discover what he means!"

U.S. Marine veteran and literary agent Tracy Crow says: "A notable first, 'Why We Write' delivers immeasurable, experiential wisdom from an impressive range of military voices regarding the power and impact of writing—on the self, on the truth, and ultimately on the world. […] The courageous contributors within 'Why We Write' are filling a disturbing void for humanity by expressing a sense of urgency and historical reflection about the complexities of war—whether writing and reflecting on the insanely humorous, or the insanely atrocious."

Crow also serves as president of the national non-profit MilSpeak Foundation, Inc., and is the author of six military-themed fiction and non-fiction titles, including "On Point: A Guide to Writing the Military Story."

The "Why We Write" anthology comprises four sections, each loosely organized around a theme:

• Calls to Action, Calls to Arms: Stories of how-to and inspiration toward engaging the public and/or the military profession through writing!

• War Stories: Stories of writing success and lessons-learned!

• Building Bridges & Platforms: Stories of how-to and inspiration toward building connections, communities, organizations, author platforms, etc.!

• The Arts of War & Writing: Essays about writing literary fiction, genre fiction, poetry, history, and more!

Women make up approximately one-third of the anthology's contributors. Approximately two-thirds of the contributors are past or present members of their respective countries' armed forces, with the remaining one-third being "civilians"—journalists, scholars, historians, and more. Military Writers Guild members comprise approximately one-fifth of contributors.

To order the $19.99 (U.S.) print version via Amazon.com, click here!

To order the $9.99 (U.S.) Kindle e-book version, click here!

To order via an independent bookstore, contact Beaverdale Books, Des Moines, Iowa at: 515.279.5400. Phone orders only. Shipping & Handling approximately $4 (U.S.).

Anthology co-editor Randy Brown is an award-winning war poet (Welcome to FOB Haiku: War Poems from Inside the Wire) and U.S. Army veteran who embedded as civilian media in Afghanistan in 2011. A former newspaper and magazine journalist, he previously edited the book Reporting for Duty: U.S. Citizen-Soldier Journalism from the Afghan Surge, 2010-2011.

Widely published in literary journals and anthologies, he has also written the Red Bull Rising military blog since December 2009. He writes about military-themed writing techniques and markets at The Aiming Circle blog. He is a member of the Military Writers Guild. On Twitter, follow him at: @FOB_Haiku

Steve Leonard is a retired U.S. Army strategist, a program director in organizational leadership at the University of Kansas, Lawrence, and the creative force behind the web comic Doctrine Man!! He is published widely, including in the anthologies Strategy Strikes Back: How Star Wars Explains Modern Military Conflict, and Winning Westeros: How Game of Thrones Explains Modern Military Conflict. He is a member of the Military Writers Guild. On Twitter, follow him at: @Doctrine_Man

Established in 2017 for the purpose of promoting professional collaboration in the practice of writing, the national non-profit Military Writers Guild has grown to comprise more than 150 past and present service members, as well as civilians with experiences in international relations, national security, journalism, and intelligence.

Middle West Press LLC is a Johnston, Iowa-based editor and publisher of non-fiction, fiction, journalism, and poetry. As an independent micro-press, it publishes one to four titles annually. “Why We Write” is the first of its projects conducted in partnership with an association, and the fifth of its titles involving war and military themes.

Same Mission, Different Verse: The Aiming Circle

When I first started writing the Red Bull Rising blog in December 2009, it was partly because I needed to learn about blogging technology and practice for a then-upcoming full-time Army job, and partly to document for my very young children what had been so gosh-darn important that I had to leave home for a year.

Later, when I got dropped off the deployment list for Afghanistan, I found myself writing in order to translate and document the experience for my buddies' families.

I eventually traveled to Afghanistan on my own dime (and my wife's airline miles), and embedded with my former unit as civilian media in May-June 2011.

In each and all of these endeavors, I've followed the same mission statements:

• To explain in plain language the roles, responsibilities, and routines of the U.S. citizen-soldier, with particular focus on the U.S. 34th Infantry "Red Bull" Division.

• To illuminate ways in which citizen-soldiers past and present--as well as their families--can be remembered, supported, and celebrated.

After I retired from the Army National Guard, I found myself exploring different forms of art and writing other than journalism, often during events that brought service members, families, and veterans together to share military experiences. Since then, I've been published many times as a poet and essayist.

I wrote an award-winning book, "Welcome to FOB Haiku: War Poems from Inside the Wire," which was published in 2015.

I also helped collect and edit a 668-page book of news articles and photographs generated by the 2nd Brigade Combat Team (B.C.T.), 34th Infantry "Red Bull" Division during its deployment. That book is "Reporting for Duty: U.S. Citizen-Soldier Journalism from the Afghan Surge, 2010-2011," published in 2016.

As I've continued to generate poetry, essays, and other military-themed writing, I've sought to encourage and enable others do to the same. I regularly signal-boost publishing opportunities via a special "Get Published" page on the Red Bull Rising blog. I conduct how-to workshops and seminars. I edit the poetry section of the non-profit Military Experience & the Arts' "As You Were" literary journal. I peer-mentor via conversations with my fellow members of the Military Writers Guild.

Having grown beyond military blogs, "Veterans Lit" is now a vital and vibrant field of practice. I'll include in this label any man or woman, military or civilian, who attempts to build community and mutual understanding through art and writing. This is not just writing to express one's feelings (as it is so often dismissively regarded)—this is doing the hard work of stitching society back together.

It may be time to expand the effort to include more fronts, and to ask for more active engagement by my fellow practitioners.

You can continue to read about citizen-soldiers and how to support them at the Red Bull Rising blog here, and at the related Facebook page here. That includes occasional humor, news, events, and reviews of books, movies, and other media of potential interest to military service members and their families.

You can continue to read about my adventures as citizen-soldier-poet at the FOB Haiku blog here, and at the related Facebook page here.

And now, if you are a fellow practitioner of military writing—poetry, fiction, non-fiction, essay, you name it—you can help support and explore a growing amount of how-to coverage at The Aiming Circle blog here, and at the related Patreon page here.

'Best Defense' Blog Features Pro-Tips in Haiku Form

The Thinker on the Butte de Warlencourt,
watercolor, 1917, William Orpen

The Pulitzer Prize-winning Tom Ricks, who writes the "Best Defense" blog for Foreign Policy magazine and who has been a long-time supporter of the Red Bull Rising blog, is currently running a micro-essay contest (150-word maximum) on the theme: "What should a military professional profess?"

"It isn’t as easy as it sounds," he writes. "It can’t be just 'patriotic,' because it should have application to the militaries of other countries. […] I’m asking this now because I suspect we will see some tests of military professionalism in the coming weeks and months."

Read his full pitch here.

The contest, which is likely only for professional-bragging points, will run through the end of February. Any "winners" (defined as the "best or at least most interesting") will be posted in March. In the meantime, Ricks is occasionally featuring responses he's received so far. You know, to help people get the creative juices flowing.

Those familiar with my work in the award-winnng collection "Welcome to FOB Haiku" will not be surprised that my own attempt to address Ricks' question was a series of pithy, Japanese-style poems.

One of my favorites:

Your moral compass
should be red-light readable
for work in the dark.

You can read them all here on Ricks' blog.

Send your own micro-essay entries to: ricksblogcomment AT gmail DOT com

Re-run: 25 Days of Sherpa Family Christmas

Blog editor's note: This post originally appeared on the Red Bull Rising blog Dec. 25, 2014.

Earlier this month, I started a daily exercise using the following phrase as a writing prompt: "Day X of 25 Days of Sherpa Family Christmas." My intent was to generate (mostly) new material, inspired by actual holiday happenings around the Sherpa family FOBstead. It was like writing tactical fortune cookies while channeling my inner Martha Stewart.

Listed below are collected all of the "25 Days of Sherpa Family Christmas." (Thanks to the Facebook friends of Charlie Sherpa, who inadvertently served as a daily writers' workshop!) For fun, I've hyperlinked to some definitions and explanations. Best wishes to all for a safe and rewarding holiday!

1. "This is our Christmas tree. There are many like it, but this one is ours."

2. Poncho liner makes surprisingly effective field-expedient tree skirt.

3. Three cups of Peppermint chai before one talks of holiday business.

4. First test of homemade MICLIC rocket for deploying holiday lights across perimeter of FOB Sherpa. Essayons!

5. Tinsel works as a festive and fabulous ghillie suit. Chaffs a bit, though.

6. Lutefisk is the MRE omelet of the holiday-food world.

7. Ask your chaplain if she'll accommodate Saturnalia services on the 17th. 'Tis the season!

8. Lesson-learned: Infrared twinkle lights require night-vision egg-noggles.

9. "Over the river and through the woods" should not require a formal convoy clearance. An extraction plan, however, is recommended.

10. In the mailbox today: "Season's greetings from the IO section."

11. Glitter is a persistent agent. Deploy it wisely.

12. Tactical Advent wreath? Use IR chemlights as candles.

13. Mistletoe can also be ordered in bulk as a Class IV barrier material.

14. "We're dreaming of a Red Bull Christmas."

15. Sherpa kids initially not interested in crafting pine-cone birdfeeders using peanut butter and suet this past weekend. Told them we were making festive sticky bombs instead.

16. You know something? Engineer tape makes for some darned fancy ribbon!

17. "Treat Christmas like a Key Leader Engagement."

18. Santa's challenge coin is the one that rules them all.

19. Psyop section always has the best holiday music playlist. And they'll DJ.

20. Just like ACU trousers, Christmas stockings can be used as floatation devices in the unlikely event of a water landing. "Knowing is half the battle."

21. Notes and maps left for Santa should be red-light readable. Santa is tactical. And an aviator.

22. Roasting chestnuts by an open MRE heater is ... not recommended.

23. Trail camera mounted on Christmas tree. RC drones on stand-by. Sherpa kids have put Santa on the HVT list this year. Then again, like they say, "the jolly old elf also gets a vote."

24. Airborne Santa says: "Geroni-mo-ho-ho!"

25. Message of the day: "Peace on earth! Goodwill toward all personnel!"

One Last Shot on Patton and Poetry ... and Humor

U.S. Army Maj. George S. Patton during World War I

Blog-editor's note: It's still National Poetry Month, and Patton wrote poetry! Posted at Foreign Policy magazine's "Best Defense" blog yesterday, April 12, 2016, was an essay written by the author of the Red Bull Rising blog, titled "What Patton's Poems Tell Us about Today." (As a bonus, "Best Defense" journalist and mil-blogger Tom Ricks also posted a poem he wrote about the Iraq War: "Baghdad, April 2004.")

Offered below is an additional anecdote regarding Gen. George S. Patton's poetic life.

*****

According to biographer Carlo D'Este ("Patton: A Genius for War", 1996) Patton was a dedicated practitioner of poetry, starting in his first years at Virginia Military Institute and West Point […]

One final war story: As a practical matter, Patton thought the memorization of poetry to be a brain exercise, and paid his daughters Beatrice and Ruth Ellen to memorize a poem per week. Ruth Ellen even once memorized one of Patton's own poems on reincarnation, and recited it at school. The poem "Mercenary's Song (A.D. 1600)" reads, in part:

In wantonness of appetite,
In women, wine and war,
In fire and blood and rapine
In these my pleasures are. […]

Then here's to blood and blasphemy!
And here's to whores and drink!
In life you know you're living
In death we only stink.

When the scandalized school teacher and headmaster sent his daughter home with a note, Beatrice observed to Patton that other parents were not quite so permissive as he.

Patton, writes biographer D'Este, thought it was hilarious.

Read "What Patton's Poems Tell Us about Today."

Another Consequence of Fear: Loss of Humor

Blog editor's note: Consequence magazine—a publication that regularly explores aspects of culture and war—recently featured a series of non-fiction "flash-essays" by literary magazine editors. The essays ranged from approximately 50 to 300 words each. The theme, perhaps unsurprisingly, regarded "the consequences of fear." Installments in the series included humanity, callousness; parsing texts; knowledge and compassion; cloaking; and "the story of our time."

Using the theme as a personal writing prompt, I offer some quick scratches of my own:

*****

A Consequence of Fear: Loss of Humor
By Randy Brown

A college-era friend of mine once gave me this dipstick check: After graduation, when Joe and I were each single and living in different cities, we kept each other sane via monthly marathon phone sessions. Once, after I had delivered a long monologue involving a general lack of pay or sex or happiness, he asked, "Yeah ... But are you still funny?"

That cracked me up.

The phrase became shorthand for quickly assessing if the other guy was really hurting, or just kvetching. It proved to be a good self-assessment tool, too. Whenever I found myself without a sense of humor, at work or at home, I knew things had gotten serious—maybe too serious. I could then stop digging myself any deeper, and start the work of filling in the emotional potholes.

It's like that Catch-22 about sanity: "If you're sane enough to ask yourself if you're crazy, you're probably sane." Maybe, if you can still ask yourself if you still have a sense of humor, you're sane. If you can't, it's time to regroup. Maybe even seek professional help.

Comedy is a high-stakes game, I know—always one step away from tragedy. No, I'm not advocating bottling it all up, or always viewing life through Groucho glasses. Graveyards are littered with jokers, after all, who kept their pains all to themselves. Remember Freddy Prinze Sr. Remember Robin Williams. Remember the punch line about the depressed clown:

"But, Doctor, I AM Pagliacci!'"

Alas, poor Yorick.

The physiological engine of all humor is surprise. Or, more accurately, the recognition and relief that a new thing isn't going to kill us. Don't believe me? Play peek-a-boo with an infant. First, he startles. He makes eye contact with his mother. Mom's calming presence (I'm assuming that you haven't chosen to experiment on a stranger's child, and that parents are nearby) says it's OK for him to laugh.

Bottom line: The kid learns to laugh by learning that you're not a mountain lion. That you're not a danger. That you're supposed to be funny.

After 15 years of war, we seem danger-close to losing our capacity for collective good humor. Our pockets are empty. Our skins are stretched thin. We are no longer surprised. Neither are we entertained. Instead, we're making jokes at each other's expenses: Playground bully jokes. Vulgar, short-fingered jokes. Racial jokes. Meanwhile, 9-1-1 is a joke. Our social fabric is torn, our civil bonds broken. We seem no longer capable of laughing with each other. We're laughing at each other.

We are, in short, no longer funny.

*****

Randy Brown embedded with his former Iowa Army National Guard unit as a civilian journalist in Afghanistan, May-June 2011. He is the poetry editor of Military Experience & the Arts' As You Were literary journal. Brown authored the poetry collection "Welcome to FOB Haiku: War Poems from Inside the Wire" (Middle West Press, 2015). Also in 2015, he received the inaugural Madigan Award for humorous military writing from Negative Capability Press, Mobile, Ala. As "Charlie Sherpa," he blogs about military culture at: www.redbullrising.com.

Holiday Traditions: The Annotated '25 Days of Sherpa Family Christmas'

Blog editor's note: This post originally appeared on the Red Bull Rising blog Dec. 25, 2014.

Earlier this month, I started a daily exercise using the following phrase as a writing prompt: "Day X of 25 Days of Sherpa Family Christmas." My intent was to generate (mostly) new material, inspired by actual holiday happenings around the Sherpa family FOBstead. It was like writing tactical fortune cookies while channeling my inner Martha Stewart.

Listed below are collected all of the "25 Days of Sherpa Family Christmas." (Thanks to the Facebook friends of Charlie Sherpa, who inadvertently served as a daily writers' workshop!) For fun, I've hyperlinked to some definitions and explanations. Best wishes to all for a safe and rewarding holiday!

1. "This is our Christmas tree. There are many like it, but this one is ours."

2. Poncho liner makes surprisingly effective field-expedient tree skirt.

3. Three cups of Peppermint chai before one talks of holiday business.

4. First test of homemade MICLIC rocket for deploying holiday lights across perimeter of FOB Sherpa. Essayons!

5. Tinsel works as a festive and fabulous ghillie suit. Chaffs a bit, though.

6. Lutefisk is the MRE omelet of the holiday-food world.

7. Ask your chaplain if she'll accommodate Saturnalia services on the 17th. 'Tis the season!

8. Lesson-learned: Infrared twinkle lights require night-vision egg-noggles.

9. "Over the river and through the woods" should not require a formal convoy clearance. An extraction plan, however, is recommended.

10. In the mailbox today: "Season's greetings from the IO section."

11. Glitter is a persistent agent. Deploy it wisely.

12. Tactical Advent wreath? Use IR chemlights as candles.

13. Mistletoe can also be ordered in bulk as a Class IV barrier material.

14. "We're dreaming of a Red Bull Christmas."

15. Sherpa kids initially not interested in crafting pine-cone birdfeeders using peanut butter and suet this past weekend. Told them we were making festive sticky bombs instead.

16. You know something? Engineer tape makes for some darned fancy ribbon!

17. "Treat Christmas like a Key Leader Engagement."

18. Santa's challenge coin is the one that rules them all.

19. Psyop section always has the best holiday music playlist. And they'll DJ.

20. Just like ACU trousers, Christmas stockings can be used as floatation devices in the unlikely event of a water landing. "Knowing is half the battle."

21. Notes and maps left for Santa should be red-light readable. Santa is tactical. And an aviator.

22. Roasting chestnuts by an open MRE heater is ... not recommended.

23. Trail camera mounted on Christmas tree. RC drones on stand-by. Sherpa kids have put Santa on the HVT list this year. Then again, like they say, "the jolly old elf also gets a vote."

24. Airborne Santa says: "Geroni-mo-ho-ho!"

25. Message of the day: "Peace on earth! Goodwill toward all personnel!"

How Sherpa Wrote a Book: 'Welcome to FOB Haiku'

First of all, before you call out the Poetry Samurai (they're like the Grammar Ninja, but more figurative), let me say that, yes, I'm aware of the difference between haiku and senryu. Haiku is a three-line, 5-7-5-syllable Japanese-inspired poetic form regarding a moment in nature. Senryu is similarly structured—three lines, 5-7-5—but focuses on human foibles.

I write about the military. That roots me firmly in the human terrain. (In the U.S. Army, we brief all other forms of nature under "enemy situation.") So, technically, it would be more correct to say that I write senryu. I still call it "haiku," however, because I also know my audience. You don't need an M.F.A. to know what "haiku" is. Even the @#$%ing Infantry knows haiku.

Back in the day, we learned haiku in grade school. We also learned Robert Frost in junior high, and Shakespearian sonnets in high school. Fast-forward to today, and my Fifth-grade warrior-princess and Third-grade video game technician are both accomplished haiku practitioners. They also learned it in school. "All this has happened before, and all this has happened again."

Because people of all ages and abilities recognize the haiku form, it makes it both accessible and (pun intended) versatile. The best haiku deliver a surprise, a shift in the action or focus. Sometimes, it can be enough to surprise readers with the fact that they just read a poem—or that they learned something in grade school that's still useful.

Given the restrictions of haiku, I personally enjoy the technical challenge of finding just the right words and punctuation, to make my poetic shot-group as tight as possible. As a writer, I don't aspire to lyrical greatness—I want my language to be understandable. I want to entertain someone, and maybe get them to think about things in a different way.

I write for my buddies who don't read poetry, after all—guys who sometimes barely read the instructions to complicated things. That doesn't mean they're not open to new ideas, however, or to seeing old things in new light.

For example, I'm pretty sure that a couple of them will find this haiku, written about emplacing an anti-personnel Claymore, to be both familiar and fresh:

Point *this* side at Them.
Spool yourself away from harm.
Click three times and ... Boom.

After a couple of decades away from the practice—during which I wrote daily newspaper and how-to magazine and Army lessons-learned articles—I started writing poetry again in 2011. I was at a free weekend writing workshop on the campus of the University of Iowa, run by Emma Rainey and the non-profit Writing My Way Back Home.

The prompt had something to do about capturing a moment of wonder. I had been stewing for months, having earlier that year embedded with my former Army colleagues deployed to Afghanistan, about an interaction I'd had with my former commander while downrange. I kept wondering what it meant. Rainey gave us a few minutes to write, mental brakes off, with some soothing music playing in the background. I started writing about my first meeting downrange with Ryder-6. Ten minutes later, I had the start of a book.

I didn't realize that then, of course. It took years to admit I might be a poet. In the meantime, I still considered myself a just-the-facts non-fiction guy. Over the years, my journey was shaped and influenced by meeting many fellow travelers, such as poet Jason Poudrier ("Red Fields") at the first (and later, the second) Military Experience & the Arts Symposium.

I also met poet Suzanne Rancourt there—she of the sharp wit and long knives—who led by example and humor, and later convinced me to take over for her as the poetry editor for the group's literary journal, "As You Were." (FREE PDF of the latest issue here!)

At the 2012 Sangria Summit for writers of military fiction and non-fiction, held in Denver, Colo., I learned about independent and electronic publishing as methods to overcome obstacles to market—barriers such as having too narrowly focused a niche. Little did I realize how much of that information would factor into my actions in 2015. More on that in a minute.

I learned to use poetry to dig at the moments and memories that didn't quite make sense, or that didn't immediately seem to support a larger narrative. Sometimes, in my explorations, I found myself at the bottom of an intellectual hole. Sometimes, I found myself at the crest of a hill. Perhaps most importantly, I learned to accept the risks of sharing my work with others.

I started to get poems published in veteran-friendly venues, such as "The Pass in Review," "Line of Advance," the Veterans Writing Project's "O-Dark-Thirty," and the annual anthology series "Proud to Be: Writing by American Warriors" from Southeast Missouri State University Press, Cape Girardeau, Mo.

Later, I began to get traction in non-military but Midwestern-themed outlets, such as the Kurt Vonnegut Memorial Library's "So It Goes" literary journal, and "Midwestern Gothic." Each of the above titles represents an editorial staff that is open to exploring ways to bridge the gap between civil and military experiences. We need more such bridge-builders.

Earlier this year, I found I had enough poems—published and unpublished—to produce a chapbook. I started to submit manuscripts to chapbook contests and publishers, recognizing that "light-hearted verse about the light infantry" is more of a rabbit- than a fox-hole—a niche within a niche within a niche. (I joke that I've finally discovered a vocation that pays less than newspaper journalist—that of "military poet.") Meanwhile, I added pages. The manuscript grew to book-length.

I began to realize that my poems, collected and curated, roughly reflected the narrative arc of my Army career, from Boot Camp to Bagram and back home again. The sum might be greater than its parts.

Having set a personal 2015 deadline for getting at least one major writing project off my desk, I published this month via Middle West Press LLC, Johnston, Iowa. This was the same entity that had, in 2011, endorsed my freelance media credentials when I applied to embed for a few weeks in Afghanistan. The result is a 90-page trade paperback, which is also available in various e-book formats, including the Amazon Kindle, and others via Smashwords.

The cover design of "Welcome to FOB Haiku" mimics the hardcopy Army doctrine and technical manuals we once shlepped to the field by the truckload: Matte finish. Subdued colors. Comforting and camouflaged. Theoretically fits in a cargo pocket, just like the brigade TACSOP.

The cover image is a pencil drawing by Aaron Provost, the original of which I proudly display in my undisclosed writing location. Long-time readers of the Red Bull Rising blog may remember my crush on the Mine-Resistant, Ambush-Protected ("M-RAP") trucks that epitomized so much of our country's thinking and tactics during Operation Enduring Freedom. I'm pleased to put that love on display. Even wrote a sonnet about it.

I continue to write haiku, while also working on my non-fiction muscles. A couple of pals from the Military Writers Guild and I are mutually resolved to make 2016 the year of non-fiction. On the Chinese Zodiac, it's also the year of the Monkey. That seems appropriate.

So stay tuned. And thanks for your continued readership. As always, I look forward to your questions, comments, insights, and now ... reader reviews?

Like the Red Bull says: "Attack! Attack! Attack!"

*****

You can buy "Welcome to FOB Haiku: War Poems from Inside the Wire" in print here and here. ($9.99 U.S.)

You can buy the e-book on Kindle here, or in a variety of e-book formats via Smashwords here. ($5.99 U.S.) More vendors to be listed soon!

War Poetry Potpourri and a Corn Belt Cornucopia

"You've been writing a lot about poetry lately," says Archer.

I know.

I guess you could say I'm writing what I know. Or what doing what I know. Which, this summer, is poetry. Also, comic books. And constructing foam-armor costumes with the Sherpa kids. It's summertime, after all, and we have a couple of weeks of "Camp Dad" on the calendar.

So, I've slowed down the blog a bit, shifted the frequency of posts to once a week.

Behind the blog-scene, I'm shopping to publishers and contests a manuscript of my own military-themed poetry, while also wrestling with the harder parts of that never-ending "Red Bull in Afghanistan" non-fiction project. I'm also ramping up to help out some of my veterans-lit buddies at Military Experience & the Arts with a larger, on-going editorial project. More on that in a future post.

Summer is here! That's Annual Training season!

Through press releases and social media, I've been watching members of the Minnesota National Guard's 1st Brigade Combat Team (B.C.T.), 34th Infantry "Red Bull" Division (1-34th BCT) engage in a large-scale training event at Camp Ripley, Minn. They're getting ready for a 2016 rotation "in the box" at the National Training Center (N.T.C.), Fort Irwin, Calif. Meanwhile, members of the Iowa National Guard's 2-34th BCT are prepping for a rotation later this summer at Joint Readiness Training Center (J.R.T.C.), Fort Polk, La. "All this has happened before, and all this will happen again."

Good times, good times ...

That reminds me: I should write a humorous essay titled "Ways that Camp Dad is like Annual Training." Something akin to that time I compared/contrasted working in a Tactical Operations Center and working in a daycare. It seems to me that I haven't been bringing the funny much lately. 

Unless you're talking poetry, of course. Which I am. No big surprise here, but the stuff I write usually tends toward the humorous. Even with all the summer household chaos and logistics, I've had some recent good fortune in getting my work out there and published.

One recent arrival is The Corn Belt Almanac, a cornucopia full of essays, fiction, poetry, recipes, fun facts, and other good stuff about agriculture—about how and what we eat.

The almanac is the third such project from The Head & The Hand Press, a small press located in Philadelphia, Penn. Previous years brought about 2013's The Rust Belt Almanac (on themes of urban renewal) and 2014's The Asteroid Belt Alamanac (on themes regarding science and space). Writers, take note: There's also soon to be an open call for The Bible Belt Almanac, to be published in 2016. Editors will be looking for work regarding religion and philosophy.

You can buy The Corn Belt Almanac here. The 116-page journal not only includes "10 haiku about a state fair," written by the writer of the Red Bull Rising blog, but also a recipe for "Kick-@$$ Corn" from Household-6! It's also chock-full of literary goodness!

But what's the connection to military writing, Sherpa?

Well, an early draft of "10 haiku …" did include one about military recruiters working at a state fair. That, however, grew into its own, non-haiku work. It hasn't yet been published.

There's also probably something grand and theoretical to be said about the natural evolution of artist- and writer-veterans. At some point, we each have to be open to considering topics other than war. At some point, we each might drop the hyphenated "-veteran." (Heck, some might even call that "reintegration" into civilian life.)

More directly, however, I first came across The Head & The Hand Press when reviewing Adrian Bonenberger's 2014 memoir "Afghan Post." They're a hardworking and creative "craft publisher"—check out their "community-supported" business model, for example—and bring a lot to our collective literary table.

Friendly reminder: You can buy Bonenberger's book through Amazon, your local bookseller, or direct from the publisher.

In other war poetry news, fellow Military Writers Guild member Mikhail Grinberg recently wrote a two-part review and interview with self-published war poet Stanton S. Coerr's 2013 collection "Rubicon". Coerr is a former Marine attack-helicopter driver, and he has some good things to say in person and in print.

I commend both the review and the interview to you, although I think that modern military-themed poetry has a larger footprint than either writer suggests. Does it enjoy the same reach and financial success as the latest summer blockbuster? Probably not. But it's doing important stuff, and there's a market for it. Grinberg's review personally influenced me, for example, to seek out and purchase Coerr's work.

I've also taken the liberty of adding Coerr's work to my "Mother of All 21st Century War Poetry Lists," which was first posted last April, and now appears as a static page on the Red Bull Rising blog.

"Attack! Attack! Attack!"

For the Poet-Sherpa, April is the Coolest Month

April, in addition to being both cruel and full of showers, is National Poetry Month.

When I started the Red Bull Rising blog in late 2009, a more-established mil-blogger contacted me, gave me some blogging tips, and also shared that she was also a journalist by day, and also a poet. Then serving as a citizen-soldier, I'm not sure which part of that mix sounded more alien to me at the time. Blogger? Journalist? Poet?

Now, however, I find myself routinely pointing people toward opportunities to document, explore, illuminate their military experiences through expressive arts. And that includes poetry, as well as fiction and non-fiction writing. I'm also a fan of visual, theatrical, and performing arts, although I'm not usually a direct participant.

Evoking Sherpatude No. 26 ("Humor is a combat multiplier …"), most of my poetry goes for the joke, rather than the jugular. I write goofy haiku. I write light verse about the light infantry.

I don't consider myself a "war poet," any sooner than I'd call myself a "combat correspondent" for having once briefly travelled to Afghanistan. And the term "warrior-poet" suggests someone like actor George C. Scott's stanza-spouting character in the movie "Patton" (1968):

As if through a glass, and darkly
The age-old strife I see —
Where I fought in many guises, many names —
but always me.

"Do you know who the poet was?" [George S. Patton asks Omar Bradley]

"Me."

On a good day, I might call myself a "soldier-poet." Or a "mil-poet."

And, for me, April 2015 is full of good days.

In November 2011, during a "Writing My Way Back Home" veterans writing workshop in Iowa City, Iowa, facilitator Emma Rainey offered a prompt following a session that featured readings of poems written from conflicts ranging from World War II to the Iraq War. While I've forgotten what the prompt was exactly, I haven't forgotten that a poem sprang to my notebook nearly fully formed. It had been generated by a fragment of memory, a half-anecdote of something that had happened upon my arrival as a civilian reporter to Afghanistan. My travel was there was relatively fresh—I'd embedded with my former military unit in May-June 2011. I hadn't yet figured out what this particular story meant, and it wasn't big enough for a even a blog-post. It generated a poem, however. And no one was more surprised about that than I.

More on that poem in a minute.

As I've mentioned elsewhere, 2014 was an extremely productive year for me, in terms of writing and publishing. It just wasn't in ways that I'd have been able to predict back in 2009. Editors at a number of literary journals and publications chose to publish my work. I am humbled and grateful and thrilled.

Recently, for example, the Veterans Writing Project's literary journal "O-Dark-Thirty" published a poem that I'd originally written for a love-themed book store poetry contest in 2014. Earlier, I'd become infatuated with a library find: "77 Love Sonnets" penned by Garrison Keillor.

If you live in Minnesota—a.k.a. 34th Inf. "Red Bull" Division territory—you know Keillor's work on the radio staple "Prairie Home Companion." Also, his daily poetic reflections on the nationally syndicated "Writers Almanac." (True-believer Red Bull Rising readers might even remember my serendipitiously encountering the latter while visiting Iowa's 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 34th Inf. Div. at Camp Shelby, Minn. in 2010.)

So, when Keillor's own Common Good Books, St. Paul, Minn., announced a 2014 contest for love poems—to be directed at nearly any person, place, or thing—I was inspired to write about the time Uncle Sam took away troops' World War II-era M1 helmets ("steel pots"), and gave us the heavy, Kevlar helmets that were part of the "Personnel Armor System for Ground Troops" (PSAGT, pronounced "paz-get"). The new "K-pot" headgear had some decided advantages. For example, they could actually stop a bullet. But they lacked some of the utilities of their predecessors—like being to cook, bathe, and carry spent brass in them. They also gave me headaches.

Your greater weight now floats on donut foam,
and creases lines across my forehead bared—
with leathered sweatband held in place like Rome
once clipped a crown of thorns, my skull is snared.

My poem didn't win, but, in contest notes, my "love sonnet to a new K-pot" was quoted by Keillor himself:

But, fragile shell that’s spun from Kevlar thread,
you have one purpose: Save my pounding head.

You can now read the whole work in its entirety (although some language may not be suitable for work) here. Enjoy!

April 2015 will also see the publication of my military-themed poetry in Midwestern Gothic No. 17. (Available in print or Amazon Kindle here.) The work fuses experiences of growing up listening to farm reports on the early morning radio; catching up on community happenings at a small town diner; and reading perennial news items about the start of "fighting seasons" downrange in Afghanistan. In war, baseball, and farming, hope springs eternal.

And, finally, about that poem that I'd originally penned in that 2011 weekend writing workshop: It will soon see "print" via my favorite military science-fiction writer and artist Howard Tayler. The creator of "Schlock Mercenary" and the 70 Maxims of Maximally Effective Mercenaries promises to release "The Unofficial Anecdotal History of Challenge Coins" as a free PDF on or before April 14! (Per comments section here.)

The anthology was a bonus project from Tayler's 2013 use of Kickstarter to crowd-fund "Schlock" challenge coins. He's about to launch another Kickstarter project—this one for a role playing game—but his personal code of ethics won't let him move on until all aspects of his earlier project are final. Rather than submit a challenge coin anecdote, I sent a poem.

As always, I'll keep you posted as to when it hits the Internet. And yet more of my work is forthcoming this summer and fall: the Water Wood Press war poetry anthology "No, Achilles"; the Corn Belt Almanac from The Head & The Hands Press; and the U.S. Air Force Academy's literary journal "War, Literature and the Arts," to name just a few!

Will all this poetry and nonsense change the war or change the world? Probably not. But it's fun, and I'm learning new things. And maybe, I'll be able to teach a thing or two as well.

Happy National Poetry Month! The Red Bull says: "Attack! Attack! Attack!"

Get Published! Veteran-friendly Literary, Art Markets

Here is an alphabetical list of anthologies, contests, and literary journals that are soliciting visual or written work on themes related to military service, or have specifically called for work by military service members, veterans, and/or family members.

This list will also appear as a static page on the Red Bull Rising blog.

Please direct corrections, additions, and updates via e-mail to: sherpa AT redbullrising.com

List updated as of Feb. 27, 2015.

THE ART OF FUTURE WAR PROJECT (THE ATLANTIC COUNCIL)

Deadlines: By announcement
Frequency: Every other month
Accepts: Short fiction, flash fiction, and some visual art
Simultaneous submissions? NA
Previously published materials: NA
Limited to military service members, veterans, and/or families? No
Submissions link: http://artoffuturewarfare.org/tag/writing/

Website: http://artoffuturewarfare.org/

As part of an ongoing 2015 project working toward an anthology of near-future military-themed science fiction, The Atlantic Council regularly solicits new stories illustrating the military/political world as we're about to know it.

Examples: One past flash-fiction contest asked writers to imagine a "Day of Infamy" speech given after an 2041 attack on the United States. A past short-story contest called for stories of 1,500- to 2,500 words, in the form of journalistic accounts akin to a front-page story describing the outbreak of a future great power conflict.

*****

AS YOU WERE: A MILITARY REVIEW

Deadline: On-going
Frequency: Quarterly
Accepts: Fiction, non-fiction, poetry; also visual art and photography
Simultaneous submissions? No
Previously published materials: No
Limited to military service members, veterans, and/or families? Yes
Submissions link: http://militaryexperience.org/submissions/

Website: http://militaryexperience.org/as-you-were-vol-1/
Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/militaryexperienceandthearts?ref=br_tf

Having published four separate on-line annual titles for fiction, non-fiction, poetry, and PTSD narratives in 2013, the Kentucky-based Military Experience & the Arts non-profit in 2014 recombined those publications into a quarterly literary journal titled "As You Were." The title replaces "The Blue Falcon" (fiction); "Blue Nostalgia" (PTSD narratives); "The Blue Streak" (poetry); and the flagship "Journal of Military Experience" (non-fiction and academic writing).

Submissions go through a unique peer-editing process prior to publication. Acquires first North American and anthology rights.

*****

ASH & BONES

Deadline: On-going
Frequency: Twice-annual
Accepts: Fiction, letters, essays, poetry; also visual art and photography
Simultaneous submissions? Yes
Previously published materials: Yes, with notice.
Limited to military service members, veterans, and/or families? No
Submissions link: http://ashandbones.com/submissions/

Website: http://ashandbones.com/
Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/pages/Ash-Bones/1470754909873935

"For those brave and creative souls who have dedicated their lives to the armed forces, for those witnesses to the impacts of war and military life, and for those who crave understanding of the experiences incited by war and aftermaths, Ash & Bones presents a myriad of insightful readings."

Submit poems, letters, essays, or short stories in response to the following themes: Letters from War; War Stories; Human Waste; Military Life; Military Afterlife.

*****

BELLEVUE LITERARY REVIEW (NEW YORK UNIVERSITY SCHOOL OF MEDICINE)

Deadline: On-going
Frequency: Twice-annual; one-shot special Spring 2015 issue titled "Embattled: The Ramifications of War" [special issue closed Feb. 1, 2015]
Accepts: Fiction, non-fiction, poetry
Simultaneous submissions? Yes
Previously published materials? Only with prior permission of editors
Limited to military service members, veterans, and/or families? No
Submissions link: http://blr.med.nyu.edu/news/2014/call-submissions-theme-issue-war

*****

BLUE NOSTALGIA: A JOURNAL OF POST-TRAUMATIC GROWTH

Deadline: On-going
Frequency: Annual
Accepts: Trauma narratives
Simultaneous submissions? No
Previously published materials? No
Limited to military service members, veterans, and/or families? Yes
Submissions link: https://mea.submittable.com/submit/37537

Website: http://militaryexperience.org/blue-nostalgia-a-journal-of-post-traumatic-growth-vol-1/

Published by the Veterans PTSD Project of the non-profit Military Experience & the Arts: "Blue Nostalgia gives us a medium to connect to our brothers and sisters, while allowing the civilian community a glimpse into our world. There are many of us who have experienced the trauma that comes with armed conflict, but there are many more who have not, and never will. We veterans hold in our minds and bodies the history of our wars, and if the non-veteran community is to grasp who we are, what we have experienced, and what we are capable of as productive citizens, we must tell our stories.

In addition to experiencing war trauma, some of us have experienced military sexual trauma or trauma outside of a deployment. The stories of such trauma and the growth that follows need to be told."

*****

CONSEQUENCE

Deadline: June 1, 2015

Frequency: Annual

Accepts: Fiction, non-fiction, poetry

Simultaneous submissions? Yes

Previously published materials? No

Limited to military service members, veterans, and/or families? No

Submissions link: http://www.consequencemagazine.org/submit/

Website: http://www.consequencemagazine.org/

Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/ConsequenceMagazine

"Consequence is an international literary magazine published annually, focusing on the culture and consequences of war. "

*****

DEADLY WRITERS PATROL

Deadline: On-going

Frequency: Annual

Accepts: Fiction, non-fiction, poetry

Simultaneous submissions? Yes

Previously published materials? Yes

Limited to military service members, veterans, and/or families? Yes

Submissions via e-mail to 2015 editor Craig Werner: cwerner52 AT yahoo.com

Website: http://deadlywriterspatrol.org/

Madison, Wis.-based Deadly Writers Patrol was started by a cadre of Vietnam War-era veterans, but issues since 2013 have included work from veterans of all eras. The magazine's editors welcome veterans' contributions of poetry, fiction, and more. Submissions by non-veterans should regard in some manner a theme of war or its effects. In addition to short stories and poems, past submissions have included excerpts from novels and memoirs, as well as personal essays.

*****

DRESS RIGHT DRESS: THE UNIFORM AND ITS STORIES

Deadline: March 30, 2016
Frequency: One-shot print anthology
Accepts: Fiction, non-fiction, poetry
Simultaneous submissions? Yes
Previously published materials? Yes
Limited to military service members, veterans, and/or families? No
Submissions link: https://vickihudsonwriting.submittable.com/submit/19812

From the call for submissions: "The military uniform is a symbol of the service and a tool for the wearer. The accoutraments have meaning, some tell of the wearer's valor, of sacrafice, of loss, of conquest, accomplishment or rite of passage. Some parts are hard won, like the tab on the right shoulder. Some mark a history, like the overseas ribbon on the sleeve. The combat shirt, the bloused pants, belt exact upon the gig line...each part of the uniform has meaning. Each who has worn the uniform has a story. What is your story, with what aspect of your uniform as symbol or character that calls back to your service?

Submissions of nonfiction (750 - 5000 words) or poetry (any form,  up to 5 poems) wanted. Please include an author's bio under 200 words."

*****

IOWA REVIEW: JEFF SHARLET MEMORIAL AWARD FOR VETERANS

Deadline: Currently closed
Frequency: Annual?
Accepts: poetry, non-fiction/essay, visual arts
Simultaneous submissions? Yes
Limited to military service members and veterans? Yes

Website: http://iowareview.uiowa.edu/veteranswritingcontest
Facebook page: http://www.facebook.com/iowareview

The Jeff Sharlet Memorial Award for Veterans contest is hosted by The Iowa Review and made possible by the family of Jeff Sharlet (1942–1969), a Vietnam veteran and anti-war writer and activist. The contest has been conducted in 2012 and 2013. The contest is open to any service member or veteran writing in any genre, about any subject matter. Entry fee is $15. Prize is $1,000 and publication in The Iowa Review. Entrants should submit a double-spaced manuscript in any genre (poetry, fiction, creative non-fiction) of up to 20 pages.

*****

LINE OF ADVANCE

Deadline: On-going
Frequency: Quarterly
Accepts: Fiction, non-fiction, essay, poetry, serials; some visual art and photography, other
Simultaneous submissions? Yes
Previously published materials? Yes
Limited to military service members, veterans, and/or families? Copy of DD-214 or military identification card may be required after acceptance.

Website: http://www.lineofadvance.org/Facebook page: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Line-of-Advance/105192563012452

First published in March 2013, the Line of Advance is a quarterly e-journal of writing by military veterans and service members. Future issues may be organized around themes. "We're looking for creative work that is authentic to the individual veteran's experience," co-editor Matt Marcus says. "We ask that people not write or express what they think other people want to read, but write what they want. Something amazing happens when creative writing really conveys personal narrative."

*****

O-DARK THIRTY (VETERANS WRITING PROJECT)

Deadline: On-going
Accepts: fiction, poetry, visual arts
Simultaneous submissions? Yes
Previously published materials? No
Limited to military service members, veterans, and/or families? Yes

Website: http://o-dark-thirty.org/ and http://veteranswriting.org/
Facebook page: http://www.facebook.com/VeteransWritingProject

The Veterans Writing Project is a Washington, D.C.-based non-profit that pursues a double mission: Provide writing-as-therapy resources to injured military veterans and the medical community, and, more generally, encourage and publish the literary work of military service members, veterans, and family members.

In Summer 2012, the organization announced a literary journal titled "O-Dark-Thirty." Works published by an online journal are considered for print publication in a quarterly review and/or annual anthology. Payment: Complimentary author's copy. Accepts fiction and non-fiction up to 5,000 words, and poetry up to 3 per submission. Acquires first North American and anthology rights; requests subsequent publication cite the journal as original.

*****

THE PASS IN REVIEW JOURNAL

Deadline: See submissions page for deadlines; four times annually
Frequency: ***Currently on hiatus***
Accepts: Fiction, poetry, visual arts, music
Simultaneous submissions? Yes
Previously published materials? No
Limited to military service members, veterans, and/or families? Yes

Website: http://www.thepassinreview.com/
Facebook page: http://www.facebook.com/thepassinreview

First published in February 2013, The Pass in Review is an on-line journal dedicated to presenting veterans' artistic work and perspective. "We believe that veterans from all conflicts, past and present, are misrepresented and are underrepresented in the artistic community. Our goal is to cast veterans in a new light by allowing the public to see their work and gain an understanding of the veteran's perspective." The Pass In Review retains exclusive publishing rights for six months after the first publication, and non-exclusive anthology rights after that. After six months has elapsed, the artist resumes full ownership of his/her work.

*****

PROUD TO BE: WRITING BY AMERICAN WARRIORS

Deadline: June 1, 2015
Frequency: Annual anthology
Accepts: Fiction, non-fiction essay, interview, poetry, photography
Simultaneous submissions? No
Previously published materials? No
Limited to military service members, veterans, and/or families? Yes

Website: http://www6.semo.edu/universitypress/Contests/PTB_Contest.htm
Facebook page: http://www.facebook.com/SEuniversitypress

Published by the Southeast Missouri State University Press since 2012, working in conjunction with the non-profit organizations Missouri Humanities Council and Warriors Arts Alliance, the "Proud to Be" anthology series comprises both a contest and a publication. Prize in each category is $250. "[T]his series of anthologies preserves and shares military service perspectives of our soldiers and veterans of all conflicts and of their families. It is not only an outlet for artistic expression but also a document of the unique aspects of wartime in our nation's history."

*****

REPEAL DAY: WHEN DADT BECAME HISTORY

Deadline: Oct. 1, 2015
Frequency: One-shot anthology
Accepts: Personal non-fiction narratives
Simultanious submissions? Yes.
Previously published materials? Yes
Limited to military service members, veterans, and/or families? No

Submissions page: https://vickihudsonwriting.submittable.com/submit/18532

From the call for submissions: "Seeking personal accounts of actions or experiences of serving LGBT military members and their families on 20 September 2011, effective date of the Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell (DADT) repeal and their experiences throughout the first year until the Anniversary date of 20 September 2012."

*****

SO IT GOES: THE LITERARY JOURNAL OF THE KURT VONNEGUT MEMORIAL LIBRARY

Deadline: Annual
Accepts: Fiction, non-fiction, poetry, and artwork
Simultaneous submissions: Yes
Previously published materials? Yes
Limited to military service members, veterans, and/or families? No

Website: http://www.vonnegutlibrary.org/
Facebook page: http://www.facebook.com/VonnegutLibrary

First published in November 2012 by the Kurt Vonnegut Memorial Library, Indianapolis, Ind., So It Goes accepts new and previously published fiction, non-fiction, poetry, and artwork. Submissions are limited to one work of prose (maximum 1,500 words) or up to five poems, photographs, and/or works of art. Past themes include "War and Peace" (2012); "Humor" (2013); "Creative Process" (2014). While not specifically linked to topics of war or remembrance, the journal's annual publication coincides with Kurt Vonnegut's Nov. 11 birthday, and is part of the library's "Veterans Reclaiming Armistice Day" activities. As a U.S. Army soldier during World War II, Vonnegut was taken as a prisoner-of-war, and witnessed the destruction of Dresden, Germany.

*****

STONE CANOE JOURNAL'S INSTITUTE FOR VETERANS AND MILITARY FAMILIES AWARD

Deadline: TBD; between April and August?
Frequency: Annual
Accepts: Drama, fiction, non-fiction, poetry, and artwork
Simultaneous submissions: Yes
Previously published materials? No
Limited to veterans? Yes

Website: http://www.stonecanoejournal.org/submit.html
Facebook page: http://www.facebook.com/StoneCanoeJournal

Starting with the 2013 issue of Stone Canoe, the Institute for Veterans and Military Families (I.V.M.F.) at Syracuse University presents an annual $500 prize for previously unpublished short story, essay, creative non-fiction (up to 10,000 words), or poem (or series of up to three) written by a U.S. military veteran. The subject matter of the submitted work may be about veteran or military family issues, but it is not a requirement. Also, unlike other Stone Canoe categories, there is no requirement that the writer or artist demonstrate a geographic tie to upper New York state.

*****

STORIES OF COMING HOME, THE PERSONAL AFTERMATH OF WAR (HUDSON WHITMAN/EXCELSIOR COLLEGE)

Deadline: May 1, 2015
Frequency: One-shot anthology
Accepts: Non-fiction
Simultaneous submissions? Unspecified
Previously published materials? Unspecified
Limited to military service members and veterans? No

Website: http://hudsonwhitman.com/about/submissions-policy/

Hudson Whitman/Excelsior College is looking for non-fiction stories from military service members, veterans, and family members and friends that capture the experience of coming home from war. Prize is $200 plus publication in anthology titled "Stories of Coming Home, the Personal Aftermath of War." Project manager Dario DiBattista is the non-fiction editor for O-Dark-Thirty, the literary journal for the Veterans Writing Project. Word count is between 1,500 and 6,000.

******

QUIET DESERT, LONELY WAR: SHORT STORIES OF THE CONFLICT IN AFGHANISTAN

Deadline: Until filled; publication in late 2015
Frequency: One-shot anthology
Accepts: literary and genre (science fiction, mystery, fantasy, etc.) short fiction between 1,000 and 6,000 words
Simultaneous submissions: Yes
Previously published materials? Yes
Limited to veterans? "Authors should have some relationship and connection to the war. Military veterans are especially encouraged to submit."

Website: http://muzzlelandpress.com/submissions-and-guidelines/
Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/muzzlelandpress

*****

WAR, LITERATURE & THE ARTS

Deadline: Rolling
Frequency: Annual
Accepts: Essays, criticism, fiction, interviews, memoir, non-fiction, poetry, and artwork
Simultaneous submissions: Yes
Previously published materials? No
Limited to military service members, veterans, and/or families? No

Website: http://wlajournal.com
Facebook page: http://www.facebook.com/pages/War-Literature-and-the-Arts-An-International-Journal-of-the-Humanities/345655239137