CLRI June 2012

Contemporary Literary Review India June 2012
Editorial June 2012	Best Selling eWriters by Khurshid Alam I would first like to narrate a story here to make my point clear. >>> Read in Full
Poems	Three Poems by Changming Yuan The Call of a Crow Self-Rebuilding: A Bodhi Poem Epilogues: A Parallel Poem  >>> Read in Full
	The Image and the Form by Vinita Agrawal I switch off the Television as if laying Mara1 to rest  >>> Read in Full
	The Postman by Manohar Bhatia Neither Google nor Yahoo Has diminished or out-stepped  >>> Read in Full
	Two Poems by K Pankajam A Monument Weeds  >>> Read in Full
	Two Poems by Zachary Kluckman Forgiveness is a Small Boat The Sun is a Bug on the Windshield  >>> Read in Full
	Three Poems by Rinzu Rajan A Carnival of Cliff Hangers The Lost Sheep and the Shepherd Black Eye Theory  >>> Read in Full
	Three Poems by Denver Ejem Torres The River Fish in Mongolia Have Haloes Nomenclature Why Armstrong went to the Moon  >>> Read in Full
	Two Poems by Timothy Ogene Man in the Mirror Time Ticks  >>> Read in Full
Stories	Three Short Stories by Kyle Hemmings Manga Girls Need Love: Snitch & Forget You Are Manga Girls Need Love: He Drops Over with All his Baggage & Your Old Wounds Manga Girls Need Love: Rina, a Tall Buzz-fly Girl Who Never Goes Short in the City. >>> Read in Full
	Locked-in Syndrome by Dr. Rashid Askari When I came to my senses, I discovered myself as a mummified corpse in a supine posture.  >>> Read in Full
	A Karmayogi by S. Krishnamoorthy Aithal Alone in his study-cum-bedroom, Nitesh was calculating, as he waited to hear the news of the...  >>> Read in Full
Criticism	The Quest for Intimacy by Dr. Pratyush Vatsala Intimacy may be seen as eternal and universal search of Man for his existential roots. >>> Read in Full
Arts	Arts by Eleanor Leonne Bennett Three arts pieces by E L Bennett  >>> Read in Full
Book Review	Review on NATURE by Bernard M Jackson The respected Editor of that excellent Indian English International literary Journal,...  >>> Read in Full
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Featured Author
Lost in Seattle    by Bruce L Dodson                                 Buy Lost in Seattle from Amazon.com	Lost in Seattle - A novel that traces social turmoil that started with economic recession in America in  2008 and impacted the society for ever.

Our Literary Partners
	Wasafiri New Writing Prize 2012 Categories: Poetry, Fiction and Life Writing - 3000 words max or 5 poems max. Deadline - 5pm GMT on 27 July 2012. Prize - £300 per category and publication in Wasafiri. The Wasafiri New Writing Prize is open to anyone worldwide who has not published a complete book and we are looking for creative submissions in one of three categories: POETRY, FICTION and LIFE WRITING. The fee for entry varies depending on the number of categories you wish to enter and ranges from UK Sterling £6 to £15. The closing date is 5pm GMT on 27 July 2012. The winners will receive £300 each and their work will be published in Wasafiri.   Submission is through filling an entry form. Download the Entry Form from: www.wasafiri.org/wasafiri-new-writing-prize.asp. However you can send us an email for enquiries. Always address your email to wasafiri@open.ac.uk and keep writersdeskinfo@yahoo.co.in in loop. Visit: http://www.wasafiri.org/
JKC College is organizing 5th International Poetry Festival in collaboration with Contemporary Literary Review India The 5th International Poetry Festival invites writers and poets from all over the world. We aim to promote writers and their writings so we accept all forms, formats, and styles. However we give preference to innovative styles in poetry. For details, check at: Literary Partners.

Best Selling eWriters by Khurshid Alam

Best Selling eWriters by Khurshid Alam

I would first like to narrate a story here to make my point clear. I knew a man who was very educated, well informed, and used to write many things. Whenever he would meet people whom he found the appropriate ones he could share his literary zest talked about his plans. He used to say he wanted to get his manuscripts published. He contacted many publishers, and submitted to a dozens of them as well. But his manuscripts were never selected. A couple of years back when e-publishing came into existence I suggested him to opt for this. But he would always say so many things negative about it. Last year he died.

See his manuscripts were never selected by the traditional publishers and he never selected e-publishing as an option. His manuscripts will now belong to nowhere.

Was he right not to choose the option that he could? I think no! Because he could have published a good number of collections and if he believed his writings had power readers would have loved him to read, whatever formats his books were available in. This does not mean that I’m pursuing anyone to shun traditional publishing, my point is to adopt the current situations fast, and be the gainer than the loser.

Now we have a good number of writers who opted digital publishing and are selling huge. They are best sellers! Some even are offering their books at a very low cost yet are earning good money. Many have gained popularity and have broken the blockades of not getting recognized on time. Many traditional publishers are showing interest in publishing them.

Michael Prescott, Barbara Freethy, Darcie Chan, Kerry Wilkinson, Katie Stephens, John Locke and Amanda Hocking are some of the writers who gained popularity after getting e-published.

Michael Prescott (51) has had already got 20 books published to his credits, and received success as well before he took to self-publishing, yet his thriller Riptide got rejected by 25 traditional publishers. He opted self-publishing. His Riptide in digital format hit a success and entered the top 150 on USA TODAY's Best-Selling Books in 2009 and was declared as the New York Times bestselling author. In total his e-books have been sold over 8,000,000 copies.

Barbara Freethy has a more exciting story about her e-publishing journey. Of all her novels, 17 were out-of-print. She self-published her books including the OOP versions of her novels. Nine of all entered the top 150 USA TODAY's Best-Selling Books. She sold over 1.3 million copies of all her e-books.

Darcie Chan (37), a lawyer by profession, started writing a fiction The Mill River Recluse in 2002 and submitted to more than dozens of publishers and hundreds of literary agents. All rejected her stating the fiction lacked selling substances. Some years later, Darcie self-published the fiction and it started selling. Soon her fiction recorded huge sales and was subsequently listed in the New York Times, USA Today and the Wall Street Journal e-book best-seller lists. Till date she has sold over 5-million digital titles.

Kerry Wilkinson is a young sports journalist who started writing novels just a year back. Typically he sold a total of over 250,000 copies of all his three novels Locked In, Vigilante and Woman in Black in a short span of six months. He was listed in the Amazon best-sellers list in 2011. His success attracted the attention of traditional publishers and now he has entered into a contract with none other than Pan MacMillan for a six-book deal, three of his already published books in the digital format and three new books. Kerry mostly writes suspense thrillers which are famous as the Jessica Daniel series thrillers.

John Locke, a crime fiction writer, has a similar story to tell. Earlier in his career he published books predominantly in the electronic formats with Amazon (Kindle Direct Publishing). In a few years he became a reckoning self-published writer by becoming the first ever to have sold over 1 million copies of all his novels in the Amazon bestselling writers list. His success landed him offers from Simon & Schuster for print publishing.

After having written eight novels, Amanda Hocking started submitting her works to traditional publishers to only find rejections without a stop. Tired of her hard work and exhausted of rejections, she tried self-publishing with Amazon as an option. Soon her sales grew. She sold more than 225, 000 copies of all her nine novels by February 2011, of which Switched emerged as bestselling fiction with 60,000 copies sold. Hocking is one of the bestselling authors in digital publishing now.

Khurshid Alam,
Editor-in-Chief, CLRI, June 2012.

Forthcoming Topics
Pros & Cons of Digital Publishing
India’s Stand in Digital Publishing

Arts by Eleanor Leonne Bennett

Arts by Eleanor Leonne Bennett

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Title: Rekindle



Artist's Bio: Eleanor Leonne Bennett is a 15-year old photographer and artist who has won contests with National Geographic, The Woodland Trust, The World Photography Organisation, Winstons Wish, Papworth Trust, Mencap, Big Issue, Wrexham science, Fennel and Fern and Nature's Best Photography. She has had her photographs published in exhibitions and magazines across the world including the Guardian, RSPB Birds, RSPB Bird Life, Dot Dot Dash, Alabama Coast, Alabama Seaport and NG Kids Magazine.

Three Poems by Changming Yuan

Three Poems by Changming Yuan

The Call of a Crow

How often

Have I lain in thick darkness

Imagining a white crow

That I wish to see

Or rather to be

Not until the other morning

Did a wild bird cry

Its glaring yaws into my dream

Like a persistent knock at the door

Beyond my curtained glass door

Beyond my curtained dream

The crow hammered all its calls

Right into my soul

Resonating with my truer self

Self-Rebuilding: A Bodhi Poem

Let the seed of fire grow, rising

Above your inner horizon

Like the most glaring summer sun

Let the ball burn brilliantly

Burning out every cell within your body

And shooting its light through your skin

Then, let the light from heaven fall

Filling in each blank within your shape

Until all the light starts melting together

To stuff your entire selfhood.

Epilogues: A Parallel Poem

Just as both God and Devil are man’s incarnation, so are Heaven and Hell both man’s construction.

I

From the front yard of a melodious morning

From the busy road of a sweet Saturday

From the moist corner of a heavy march

From the back lane of pale winter

We have come, here and now, all gathering

In big crowds gathering in big crowds

Gathering in ever-bigger crowds gathering

For the boat to cross the wide wild waters

Before the fairy ferry is fated to fall

Under our feet too heavy with earthy mud

II

You may well hate Charon

But you cannot help feeling envious:

That business of carrying the diseased

Across the River Styx is ever so prosperous

The only monopoly in the entire universe

That has a market share

Larger than the market itself

Daydreaming, on this side

Of the river, how you might wish

To be an entrepreneur like him

A successful American dreamer

III

Flying between sea and sky

Between day and night

Amid heavenly or oceanic blue

I lost all my references

To any timed space

Or a localized time

Except the non-stop snorting

Of a stranger neighbor

Then, beyond the snorts rising here

And more looming there

I see tigers, lions, leopards

And other kinds of hunger-throated predators

Darting out of every passenger’s heart

Running amuck around us

As if released from a huge cage

As if in a dreamland.

Author's Bio: Changming Yuan, author of Chansons of a Chinaman and 3-time Pushcart nominee, grew up in rural China and published several monographs before moving to Canada. With a PhD in English, Yuan currently teaches in Vancouver and has had poetry appearing in Barrow Street, Best Canadian Poetry, BestNewPoemsOnline, Cha, London Magazine, Salzburg Review, Poetry Kanto, Taj Mahal Review and nearly 400 other literary journals/anthologies in 18 countries.