John Updike

Perigee's newest contributing editor, Thomas E. Kennedy, reflects on John Updike's philosophy, his generous nature, and the distant friendship they began to foster in 2000.

"I had met him once before, at a conference in the Netherlands, but doubted that he would remember me. I sidled up, cradling my glass of red wine close to my chest to avoid mishaps, in the hope of getting close enough to make my face visible to this great writer whose work had been a model of style for me since I was a teenager. As I penetrated the second tier of the ring of people around him, I became dazzled by the man's aura—his stature, his bearing, his powerful smile, his great mane of silver hair."

Read the entire essay by clicking here.
 

R.A. Rycraft: Our New Non-Fiction Editor

Dear Readers,

We hope you've had a chance to enjoy our 23rd issue, released earlier this month. You may have noticed that we've recently welcomed a new Non-Fiction Editor to our organization. R.A. Rycraft (who previously assisted us as Reader) joined our team on January 11th, 2009, and we are very pleased to have her on board.

R.A. Rycraft has published stories, essays, reviews, and poetry in a number of journals and anthologies, including Perigee, PIF Magazine, VerbSap, The MacGuffin, and Calyx. Winner of the Eric Hoffer Best New Writing Editor's Choice Award for 2008 as well as a 2006 Million Writers Award Notable Story, Rycraft is an Associate Professor of English at Mt. San Jacinto College in Menifee, California, and chair of the English Department. She earned her Bachelor's and Master's degrees in Literature and Writing Studies at California State University, San Marcos, and her Master of Fine Arts degree in Creative Writing at Pacific University in Forest Grove, Oregon.

We know her contributions as our new Non-Fiction Editor will help to propel us in new and interesting directions, and will ensure we continue to publish the kind of work our readers have come to expect and enjoy. Please join me in welcoming her by sending your most carefully crafted memoirs and essays our way.

Acquisition Announcement!

Anton Mueller of Bloomsbury USA is pleased to announce the acquisition of In the Company of Angels by Thomas E. Kennedy, one of four books comprising Kennedy's Copenhagen Quartet. Although Kennedy's novels are internationally acclaimed, his work has gone unnoticed by major US publishers until now. In the Company of Angels was a 2007 winner of the Eric Hoffer Award for books from independent publishers, the judges writing that "why this was not one of the most widely read novels of 2004 is a mystery…It should be picked up immediately."

The Copenhagen Quartet comprises four independent novels, set in different seasons in the Danish capital city. In the Company of Angels is set in summer, focusing on two damaged characters struggling to heal and regain normalcy: Bernardo Greene has survived torture at the hands of Pinochet's henchmen in Chile; Michela Ibsen has escaped a violently abusive husband. During Denmark's long summer nights, their relationship unfolds as a testament to the resilience and complexity of the human heart.

2008 Pulitzer Prize-winner Junot Diaz praises the novel highly: "Thomas E. Kennedy is an astonishment, and In the Company of Angels is as elegant as it is beautiful, as important as it profound. A marvel of a read." And Andre Dubus III, author of House of Sand and Fog, writes: "With generous and elegant prose, Kennedy takes us from the darkest, most violent regions of our collective behavior to our most exalted: our enduring hope for something higher, our need to forgive and be forgiven, our human hunger to love and be loved. [This is] a deeply stirring novel, suffused with intelligence, grace, and that rarest of qualities—written or otherwise—wisdom."

Bloomsbury is committed to bringing Kennedy's complete body of work—including novels, short stories, and essays—to a larger audience. In the Company of Angels will be published simultaneously by Bloomsbury USA and Bloomsbury UK in Winter 2010. A second novel from the Copenhagen Quartet will follow in Winter 2011.

Perigee's 23rd Issue is Now Available!

Perigee's 23rd issue went live last night, at 10:00 Central Time (US). There has been a flurry of activity since then and it's easy to see why. The new issue contains nine short stories by Pushcart winners and nominees, contest champions, and skilled wordsmiths. We're also presenting an interview with poet Jack Marshall, two book reviews, five memoirs, and six meticulously crafted and carefully chosen poems.

On top of all this, we are featuring the watercolors of Derek McCrea.

Of course, our 2009 Fiction Contest is now open as well, and you'll want to hurry to get your very best stories in early so our guest judge James Brown and the editors have plenty of time to mull your work over.

All of this and more is available in our 23rd issue. Six years in the making and it shows. Click here to visit our current issue, read, subscribe to our e-mail notification or our new RSS feed, and even submit work.

Perigee Proofs Now Available

All writers whose work is to appear in our upcoming, 23rd issue, should have received an e-mail with a link to their work online.

These proofs are sent out to make sure your work appears in the form you would like, and that we didn't make any HTML errors during the conversion and publishing process.

If your work is scheduled to appear and you haven't received an e-mail from submissions[at]perigee-art[dot]com, please feel free to contact us or leave a comment here. You may also want to check your junk e-mail folder, in case your server or e-mail program accidentally shuttled our e-mail there.

A Closer Look at our 23rd Issue Featured Artist

Perigee is pleased to feature the watercolors of Derek McCrea in our upcoming 23rd issue.

Derek is a US Army Infantry Combat Soldier with two tours in Iraq with the 3rd Infantry Division, and painting is his form of stress relief—allowing him to express emotions on paper.

Derek paints in a whimsical impressionistic style in plein air settings. He was born in Albany, Georgia in February of 1969, and currently resides with his wife, Sheila, of 20 years and their two sons. He first started painting with oils in the summer of 1984. From 1985 to 1986 he painted under the instruction of Jimmy Peterson, a well known artist from Georgia. In 1986 he won 1st place in the Georgia Arts Exhibition.

Derek joined the United States Army in 1987 and continued self study and painting on landscape subjects in France, Holland, Germany, Italy and Hungary—painting in the plein air style. He has completed over 20 commissions in the past year. His works were most recently placed in the Shoppes on Madison in historic Douglas GA, and at Artsy's on the River Street in historic Savannah Georgia.

Derek has donated several artworks to non-profit and charitable organizations in the past: February 2007 to Christian Mission Hospital for HIV children run by Joyce Meyer Ministries in India; silent auction for a baby with PWS syndrome October 25, 2008; and the Annual Benefit on October 17, 2008 with Rescue Ink out of NYC.

His website resides at www.derekmccrea.50megs.com and you can visit his blog at watercolorpaintingart.blogspot.com.

Issue 23 Contributors

Perigee is pleased to announce the work which will appear in our upcoming 23rd issue, due out January 15th. It's going to be another watershed issue for us, with an extra large fiction section (9 stories), a handful of meticulously chosen poems (6, from about 300), three reviews, an interview, and 5 memoirs which will haunt and inspire you.

Issue 23 also features the watercolor paintings of Derek McCrea, a US Army Infantry Combat Soldier with two tours in Iraq with the 3rd Infantry Division, who has been painting since the summer of 1984.

Our thanks to all who submitted work—that which we've chosen to publish and the many other notable submissions which didn't make the final cut. We hope you will keep gracing us with the kind of submissions which make Perigee's corner of the Internet a warm one.

Fiction:
"Pretty When She Was Young," by Camilla Collova
"Gingerbread," by Jeannie Galeazzi
"The Overlook," by Ethan Joella
"A Pretty Face," by Marisa Labozzetta
"Compulsion," by Brendan McEntee
"Ten Dollars for Live Ones," by Michael Onofrey
"The Sound One Hears," by Bruce Rutherford
"The Storekeeper," by Tom Sheehan
"Orion," by Dennis Vannatta

Poetry:
"Having No Children," by Ann Cefola
"At Rexall's," by John Dutterer
"Umbrella," by Paul Hostovsky
"Plate Sharing," by Ethan Joella
"Omission," by Tony Leuzzi
"Lookout on Perdition Ridge," by Ann Walters

Memoirs:
"Loneliness Goes for Distance," by Garry Cooper
"Letting Go," by Joel Harris
"The Last Punch," by Randy Kohl
"Book," by Richard Reiss
"Darkness and Insanity," by Andrea Rosenhaft

Interview:
"An Interview with Jack Marshall," by Sam Hamod

Reviews:
"Global Psychology, by Benjamin Katz," reviewed by Thomas E. Kennedy
"Katherine's Wish, by Linda Lappin," reviewed by R.A. Rycraft
"Speaking for Others: The Poetry of Sam Hamod," by Kristen Scott

Visual Art:
Featuring watercolors by Derek McCrea