We did it! We conquered the last slushpile of the year. We made our no-going-back decisions. We selected our Pushcart Prize contenders.
Our Fall/Winter issue is bursting at its virtual seams with amazing fiction, poetry, creative nonfiction, art, and author interviews.
So, go on. Treat yourself. Download.
The drama of our site’s downtime is coming to a close. We’re in the process of recovering files and slowly but surely bringing the site back to what it was before the migration mishap. *BIG WHEW*
We’ll be back to normal operations shortly.
Again, big props to APA owned and operated PeachyHost who helped minimize the trauma for us by helping us with everything.
Christine, the Fiction Editor, speaking here…
Some of you may have gone to Kartika Review’s main site and seen the notice, “Kartika Review is suspendedunavailable.” (And thank you to our dear attentive readers who brought this to our attention–thanks to your vigilance, we were able to start the ball rolling on a fix for the problem).
No, we haven’t been bad in school and sent home suspended.No, we haven’t taken ourselves off the market. We’re still available. We are, to put it frankly, in the middle of changing hosting services, and it is not going as smoothly as we’d hoped. We desperately need a webmaster/webdesign/webdeveloper, now more than ever. (Any volunteers?)
We are hoping the site will be back up in a few days (I hope I hope I hope)–but in the interim, we are STILL TAKING SUBMISSIONS. Please email all submissions directly to kartika DOT review AT gmail DOT com.
Unfortunately, because of the migration issue, our aliases (i.e., fiction AT kartikareview DOT com, poetry AT kartikareview DOT com, etc.) are NOT WORKING, and so we ask you to email any and all correspondence to kartika DOT review AT gmail DOT com. If you sent us a manuscript after September 15, please RESEND us your manuscript to the gmail DOT com address.
We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause. It is our wish to provide you great literature and art and to grow a community, not present you with technical issues!
And for the record–we’re going to have a FANTASTIC Fall 2009 issue. I can feel it in my bones and read it in the slushpile. We’ve got at least one Very Famous APA writer interview for the issue, someone we courted for a year until his schedule opened up for us. Verrry excited. So stay tuned. We’re not going anywhere.
p.s. We want to give a happy shout-out to our new hosting service, Peachy Host, an APA-owned and operated business that is helping us resolve this issue–oh, and I want to make it clear that our site downtime isn’t at all their fault, and that they’re going out of their way to help us out on this matter. 
Everyone, meet Jennifer…Jennifer, welcome to our slushpile.
We have a new Creative Non Fiction Editor, Jennifer (and if you haven’t noticed, we’ve re-titled Essays to Creative Non Fiction, with the intention of broadening the category). She’ll post here later but I wanted to mention the new CNF call for submissions specifying “work (memoir, reportage, letters, essay, etc.) that touches on themes including–but not limited to–identity, memory, family, culture, history, trauma, dislocation. Alternative formats and subject matter are nonetheless welcome.”
Jennifer and I (Fiction Editor Christine speaking here) met while pursuing our MFAs; very early on in our friendship, we discussed a pipedream of working on a litmag together (she is a sharp and encouraging editor, with a very good eye for talented work). That day has come.
Also–we’re open to submissions year-round. Every summer, the submission count dwindles (vacations? do we writers take vacations?)…but now that Labor Day’s around the bend, we’re looking to reading more of your work. Send them on in!
Issue 5, Kartika Review’s Spring/Summer 2009 Issue is live!
Happy reading!
In February, I posted about the potential of a 2008 Kartika Review Anthology; we were encouraged by your response, got our heads together and have now made it available to you for purchase.
Uncertain of how many copies would sell in its first run, and since we’re operating on a limited budget, we are making the anthology available to you at Lulu.com for $12.09. (cheaper than the initial $15 we thought we’d have to charge).
It’s a beautiful anthology! There’s nothing like seeing words in print, I think.
(Again, we feel badly about charging our dear published Kartika writers and interviewees, but even now, we’re running on virtually zero funds–good that we can keep costs so low in this economy but not so good for expansion possibilities. And rewarding our writers with free copies and paying for stories is TOP of our list for a day when we can get funding).
Please buy it. Please enjoy it. Please spread the word!
The sale of this anthology will dictate our future plans to offer more hard copy issues of Kartika, and perhaps induce us to have a direct relationship with a printer/press and offer hard copy subscriptions. It’s a start.
Thank you for your support.
We created a GoogleGroups for Kartika Review with the hope that the forum will enable APA writers to network with each other and open communication lines.
Visit our GoogleGroups page at http://groups.google.com/group/kartika-review.
Any member may start a new discussion, add pages, and upload files. Please join and help us get started. We’d love to see you take charge!
E-mail the group at kartika-review@googlegroups.com. Messages from new members will be moderated, however. If you have any questions, comments, or suggestions, but don’t want it to be made public on the GoogleGroups, e-mail the editors privately at editor@kartikareview.com.
We look forward to your participation.
It’s long been our goal at Kartika to find our way from an online format to book form. And so–we (well, not WE but more like Sunny, our beloved, intrepid founder and Editor) ventured to organize (format, compile, etc., etc.) and order a proof copy of a Kartika anthology of our first year’s published work.
And LOOK! It’s up there! (*hop hop*)
We’re not sure where to go from here. We certainly can’t, at this point in time, afford to give even our published writers and interviewees free copies of the magazine. We’d have to charge all of you (we feel badly about that, but even now, we’re running on virtually zero funds–good that we can keep costs so low in this economy but not so good for expansion possibilities. And rewarding our writers with free copies and paying for stories is TOP of our list for a day when we can get funding). Would you buy a copy? Would you subscribe? How many of you would subscribe? We’d like to sell the anthology for $15/copy.
It’s an amazing and beautiful anthology with nearly fifty writers highlighted in its pages.
If we can get this anthology off the ground, if you buy it…I think we can then take the next step of publishing regularly in book form.
What do you think? We need your support. The writers need your support. Our community needs your support. Would you please buy a copy?
(Please).
Until I became fiction editor at Kartika, I had no empathy for the editors who ruminated on the slushpile. I only thought, “Blah blah blah, yah it’s so BIG. Blah blah blah, it’s so HARD. Blah blah blah…just read my story, dammit! (And accept it for publication!)” Ha. You may be thinking the same thing.
(Oh but please! Read on! Juicy stuff ahead!)
It’s not real until you do it yourself: rummage through the slushpile of literary submissions, read every single story, until you find the gems, the ones that sparkle more than any other. Every story is hours if not weeks if not months if not years of hard work, of emotional investment, and there I am, rifling through your pages and your words looking for something that shines. (Am I starting to sound like a choosy kleptomaniac?). It’s exhausting thinking about the work the writers have put into the pieces and it’s exhausting doing the work. But in the end, even in some cases a few days before the issue’s deadline, a few stories always catch the light.
(Please! Read on! Juicy stuff ahead!)
As of November 28, I have sent responses to all fiction manuscripts submitted to date. If you haven’t received a response on the status of your FICTION manuscript, you may email me at fiction AT kartikareview DOT com. If you received a “no thank you” from us, I’m sorry for possibly putting a gray cloud on your Thanksgiving weekend…and if you received an acceptance, well, I am excited about seeing your story in our 1st Anniversary Fall/Winter double issue. (due sometime in December!)
(Juicy stuff imminent!)
Speaking of our first year anniversary–this means an entire year’s cycle of issues full of stories and poems and essays and interviews showcased in Kartika. In addition to choosing fiction pieces for Kartika’s issue (did I mention: our First Anniversary Fall/Winter Double Issue!)…we also went through our 2008 issues to come up with Pushcart Prize Nominations.
Reviewing the literary work published in Kartika was like looking at an ENTIRE slushpile of gems. Heaven. But in the end, we had to make our choices. Kartika Review’s Pushcart Prize nominees are (in no particular order)…
If you missed them the first time, you can read their work in our archives.
We hope you stick around with us for another good year.
And keep up the writing…and keep submitting your work out there!
Kartika Review experienced technical difficulties from September 9, 2008 to September 16, 2008. Everything kartikareview.com-related crashed, including our e-mail accounts. Thus, any submissions sent during this time period was never received by our editors.
If you submitted during this time period, please resend your manuscript. We apologize for the inconveniences caused by the system failure.
Thank you.
 | Jennifer on Issue 6 of Kartika Review is… |
 | upfromsumdirt on Issue 6 of Kartika Review is… |
 | student in need on we’re baaaack |
 | c(h)ristine on New Creative Non Fiction Edito… |
| c(h)ristine on New Creative Non Fiction Edito… |
