About
Fall 2018 Edition
The Fall 2018 Edition of Menacing Hedge has arrived! This issue includes fiction by Veronica Abrams, JW Burns, Kelly Fordon, Philip Ivory, David Jans, Jessica Lao, and Claire Younger Martin. Featured poets include Flower Conroy, Andrey Gritsman, Kyra Kaisla, Suzanne Langlois, Aurora Linnea, Karen Neuburg, Dayna Patterson, Elizabeth Vignali, Emma Cairns Watson, and Sheila Wellehan. This issue also includes Paul Park's short story in response to artist Laura Christensen's "Asparagus," and also a review by Eileen Murphy of "Cutting Eyes from Ghosts" by Ariana D. Den Bleyker. Many of our contributors chose to record their pieces, so make sure to give those readings a listen. Finally last, but never least, do not fail to check out Scary Bush for our contributors’ early, often hilarious, writing and art efforts.
Menacing Hedge
Menacing Hedge is a quarterly journal of poetry, fiction and artwork, which is committed to fostering access to emerging and experimental poetry and prose. Ongoing publication is scheduled for the first weeks of July, October, January, and April. Menacing Hedge will carefully archive all its editions to ensure that an author's/artist's work will remain on the web for many, many years to come. Regrettably, Menacing Hedge cannot pay its contributors at this time.
Menacing Hedge accepts only original unpublished literary work; however, it will consider literary work on a case-by-case basis if it has appeared only in print but never on the web. In the case of art and photography, it is acceptable if the piece has appeared on the artist's website or elsewhere.
Upon acceptance of a literary piece, Menacing Hedge obtains first publishing rights and then all rights revert to the author. Menacing Hedge requests that if a published piece is later published elsewhere, that Menacing Hedge will be credited with first publication. Also, Menacing Hedge reserves the right to publish the piece in print.
Scary Bush
If we decide to accept your work, we will also invite you to submit one of your most cringeworthy efforts from the misty past to Menacing Hedge's evil twin, Scary Bush. Please see the Scary Bush page for examples.
Editors
Kelly Boyker: Poetry Editor
Kelly Boyker is a founding editor of Menacing Hedge. She is most interested in visceral persona poetry with a dark underside. Her work has appeared in numerous publications and she has contributed to a number of anthologies. She is the author of Zoonosis (Hyacinth Girl Press 2014). When she is not editing MH, she enjoys gaming with other poets and their spouses.
Amanda Gowin: Fiction Editor
I like Anais Nin and Mary Gaitskill. Henry Miller, Poe, Kipling, Melville, Atwood, Marquez, Wallace, Caitlin Kiernan and Karen Russell. I'm the realist to to Craig's magician, though he's the Salinger to my Vonnegut. Send me Siamese twins, chimera cats, poison rings. I don't need supernatural, but I want magic all the same. I will read carefully with full understanding that you've handed me a piece of yourself to examine and evaluate, and I take that seriously. My story-handling gloves are soft and forgiving.
Amanda Gowin lives in the foothills of Appalachia with her husband and son. Her fiction has been published in magazines and anthologies ranging from Warmed and Bound (Velvet Press) and Burnt Tongues (Medallion Press) to NAILED magazine. She co-edited the Cipher Sisters anthology, and her first collection, Radium Girls is currently available.
Kiara McMorris: Poetry Editor
Kiara hails from the Emerald City and spends much of her time working out, eating, and being an overall badass. She is typically unimpressed with most, but is a non stop talking machine once she starts to discuss her passions like travel and social justice. She has been writing poetry off and on since childhood and does not shy away from abstract thought. You can find her drinking a beer at a dive bar or doing weird burlesque things on stage.
Gio Guillemette: Technical Director
Technology and reading have always been magical to me, so it is an honor to put our editors' vision to the (virtual) page. My aim is to make the site feel as much like a simple piece of paper as I can. No distractions, just you and the writing. I hope you enjoy the result.
Award Nominations
2021 Best of the Net Nominations
- Riham Adly, Josephine (fiction)
- Valentina Cano, First Day (fiction)
- Chad Frame, Tattered Handkerchief (poetry)
- Frank Gallimore, A Flood (poetry)
- Clarice Hare, Mare with Clipped Wings (poetry)
- Veronica Kornberg, Coming Off the Ventilator (poetry)
- Michelle Reale, Pelage (poetry)
- Milla van der Have, Self-portrait as severed heart (poetry)
2020 Best of the Net Nominations
- Ayesha Asad, Sweet, Sweet Culture (poetry) — WINNER
- Shome Dasgupta, The Rabbit's Entrance (poetry)
- Dante Di Stefano, Binge Watching (poetry)
- Katherine Gleason, Prince Among Beasts (fiction)
- Karen Gonzalez-Videla, What I Think When I Hear the Word Love (poetry)
- Veronica Mattaboni, Quaintrelle (poetry)
- Dan Shapiro, Officer Big Mac (poetry)
- Rick White, Lily (fiction)
2019 Best of the Net Nominations
- Stacey Balkun, A Short Narrative of an Extraordinary Delivery of Rabbits (poetry)
- Annie Blake, The Moon and the Sun Are Intemperate and Inferno (flash fiction)
- Tamsin Blaxter, autogynephile (poetry) — FINALIST
- Forrest Brazeal, Death's Head in B Dorm (fiction)
- Marlin Figgins, Letters to Dark Boy: On the Remnants of Pride (poetry)
- Imran Khan, Carousels (poetry)
- Awuor Onguru, Missionaries (poetry)
- Emma Cairns Watson, the man's last moments by the mermaid (poetry)
2019 Pushcart Nominations
- Amee Nassrene Broumand, The Night Cloth (poetry)
- Kyra Kaisla, What I Know Already (poetry)
- Suzanne Langlois, Voice Box (poetry)
- Kay Billie Oakes, Untitled (poetry)
- Erica Olsen, Girlmine (fiction)
- Annie Vitalsey, Junie (fiction)
2018 Best of the Net Nominations
- Melissa Goode, An Egg in its Cup (fiction)
- Jay Halsey, Predator and Prey (fiction)
- Carlo Matos, Among the Rigors VI (poetry)
- Alyssa Mazzoli, He'll Eat, He'll Eat, He'll Eat (poetry)
- Jessica Morey-Collins, Salt Already, She Melts in the Rain (poetry)
- Louisa Muniz, Last Time a I Buried My Body in Silence (poetry)
- Olatunde Osinaike, Patent (poetry)
- Shenandoah Sowash, Love Poem for a Brooklyn Boy, 1959 (poetry)
2018 Pushcart Prize Nominations
- Rebecca Connors, All that You Can’t Have (poetry)
- Katelyn Delvaux, Blue Damson Plums (poetry)
- Becca Borawski Jenkins, The Magnesium Flame (fiction)
- Melissa Atkinson Mercer, Monster Psalm #16 (poetry)
- Tom Mock, Moon Song (fiction)
- Kim Suttell, Mythology (poetry)
2017 Best of the Net Nominations
- Joy Baglio, How to Survive on Land (fiction)
- Melissa Atkinson Mercer, Monster Psalm #11 (poetry)
- Catherine Moore, Auning Woman (poetry)
- Amy Pence, Your Inglorious Topcoat, Your Haberdashery (poetry)
- Sarah Read, In Tongues (fiction)
- Daniel M. Shapiro, The Orange Menace on Vacation (poetry)
- Jen Stein, Miss Maude Serves a Sainted Meatloaf (poetry)
- Camille-Yvette Welsch, The Four Ugliest Children Go To Cirque du Soleil (poetry)
2017 Pushcart Prize Nominations
- Marley Simmons Abril, Good Neighbors (fiction)
- Flower Conroy, Snail Mourning (poetry)
- Melissa Eleftherion, Mary (fiction)
- Catherine Moore, Auning Woman (poetry)
- Leah Tieger, Prufrock’s Roses (poetry)
- Camille-Yvette Welsch, The Four Ugliest Children Go to Cirque du Soleil (poetry)
2016 Best of the Net Nominations
- Vincent Louis Carella, 600 Seconds (fiction)
- Fox Frasier-Foley, Erzsébet Báthory Learns Her Aristocratic Family's Concepts of Justice… (poetry)
- Ruth Foley, Homecoming (poetry)
- Jennifer Givhan, Resfeber (Re-Membering Trauma) (poetry)
- Suzanne Langlois, Leda Speaks to the Steubenville Rape Victim (poetry)
- Maria Pinto, A Girl and Her Lacuna (fiction)
- Daniel Shapiro, Out With a Lion's Roar (poetry)
- Artress Bethany White, Sunday Swine (poetry)
2015 Best of the Net Nominations
- Flower Conroy, Shipwreck City, U.S.A. (poetry)
- Christopher D. DiCicco, Her Heart a Thundering Steed (fiction)
- Kevin Dublin, I. While Serving the Party, 1953 (poetry)
- Jennifer Givhan, Blood is Blood is (poetry)
- Suzanne Grazyna, Unforgiven (poetry)
- Eleanor Levine, The Jew Who Became a Nun (fiction)
- Caitlin Thomson, Alternative Parenting (poetry)
- Letitia Trent, The Empress (poetry)
- Melissa Wiley, Is This Your Cat? (creative nonfiction)
2015 Pushcart Prize Nominations
- Ree Davis, A Terrible Energy (fiction)
- Darren C. Demaree, We Are Arrows (poetry)
- Jennifer Givhan, Blood is blood is (poetry)
- Kristine Ong Muslim, Hunter (poetry)
- Marcus Pactor, The Blattarian Model (fiction)
- Gayle Towell, Endless Ice (fiction)
2014 Best of the Net Nominations
- Juliet Cook, Evacuation (creative nonfiction)
- Ree Davis, A Terrible Energy (fiction)
- Shannon Hardwick, Francine Creates Her Story As If Asked to Author Her Own Birth (poetry)
- Todd Kaneko, Judy Grable Makes a Living (poetry)
- Kristin LaTour, She Stops to Sew (poetry)
- William Lemon, Ember Against Gravity (fiction)
- Kristine Ong Muslim, Hunter (poetry)
- Nicole Olweean, Our Spectrum On Which Beauty Mingles With Savagery (poetry)
- Seann F. Weir, Two Children Grow Fur in the Woods (poetry)
2014 Pushcart Prize Nominations
- Nicola Belte, Smoke Surfaces in Slumber (fiction)
- Charlene Logan Burnett, The Fisherman and The Cloak (fiction)
- Shannon Hardwick Green, Dust Storm (poetry)
- Peter Tieryas Liu, Rodenticide (fiction)
- Ingrid Steblea, The Cheshire Cat Speaks to Alice (poetry)
- Donna Vorreyer, after the stillbirth, the pioneer wife dresses a rabbit (poetry)
2013 Best of the Net Nominations
- Sarah Beddow, The Pig of the Secret (poetry)
- Shannon Hozinec, The Axe-Eaters (poetry) — FINALIST
- Stephen Graham Jones, Easy Money (fiction) — FINALIST
- Adam Marek, Tara's Scarecrow (fiction)
- Ingrid Steblea, The Honey Eater (poetry)
- Jessica Tyner, Speleology (poetry)
- Donna Vorreyer, after the stillbirth, the pioneer wife dresses a rabbit (poetry)
- Russ Woods, Flies (poetry)
2013 Pushcart Prize Nominations
- C. L. Bledsoe, Onions (fiction)
- Scott Butterfield, Adult Superstore (fiction)
- Mary Stone Dockery, Winter myths (poetry)
- Zac B. Hancock, More Human than a Human (fiction)
- Shannon Hozinec, The Axe-Eaters (poetry)
- Tracie Morell, The Venerable Prostitute Saint of Egypt (poetry)
2012 Best of the Net Nominations
- Taylor Altman, The Dragon King (poetry)
- Amanda Gowin, Trotlines (fiction)
- Amorak Huey, Going Home for the Holidays with Little Red Riding Hood (poetry)
- Anne Kilfoyle, Finnegan Repeating (fiction)
- Dana Guthrie Martin, then (poetry)
- Nils Michals, Chantepleure (poetry)
- Tracie Morell, The Venerable Prostitute Saint of Egypt (poetry)
- Ray Succre, Leaving the Wake with Ana Kata (poetry)
2012 Pushcart Prize Nominations
- Taylor Altman, The Dragon King (poetry)
- Margaret Bashaar, These are the small moments when you know you love (poetry)
- Stephanie Dickinson, From an Interview with Jean Seberg (prose poetry)
- Lauren India Henley, No. 16 The Massacre in Humboldt Bay (poetry)
- Ken Poyner, The Corruption of the Orikind Penning (fiction)
- Craig Wallwork, Human Tenderloin (fiction)
2011 Pushcart Prize Nominations
- Craig Wallwork, Human Tenderloin (fiction)
- Stephanie Dickinson, From an Interview with Jean Seberg (fiction)
- Lauren India Henley, The Massacre in Humboldt Bay (poetry)
- Ken Poyner, The Corruption of the Orikind Penning (fiction)
- Margaret Bashaar, These are the small moments when you know love (poetry)
- Taylor Altman, The Dragon King (poetry)