There could be only three and it was a difficult decision but this year we are nominating:

The Incredible Teeth of Bobby McGraw by John Haggerty
https://www.pankmagazine.com/?p=1207

The Ugliest Drowned Man in the World Washes Ashore Lake Michigan by Janet Freeman
https://www.pankmagazine.com/?p=1209

What We Were by BJ Hollars and Brendan Todt
>https://www.pankmagazine.com/?p=492

Y’all are awesome.   Tthere are many reasons why but today you are awesome because in our fundraising drive for Haiti, you raised $775. We are genuinely overwhelmed by your generosity and as a Haitian I am grateful to all of you for the ways you have supported PANK and this initiative and to my partner in crime, Matt, for coming up with this excellent idea. We are making a contribution to Medecins Sans Frontieres for $400 and a contribution to the Red Cross for $375 because we’re not good at math and dividing $775 in half felt complicated.

Even though we’re now pocketing subscription money for ourselves, don’t hesitate to keep on buying PANK goodness. Your support makes us possible. You may also notice, when you enter the PANK store, we’re now charging for shipping. It cannot be avoided. We could tell you a horrifying story about 250 orders and a $7 price point but we’ll leave the rest to your imagination and end this brief missive with one more THANK YOU!

If a Valentine is an expression of love, we feel there’s no higher demonstration of our affection for our readers than sharing the work that excites us and haunts us and never strays far from our hearts. In the February issue, you will find writing from CL Bledsoe, Eric Burke, Alan Stewart Carl, Joseph Celizic, Katharine Coles, Ori Fienberg, Elisa Gabbert and Kathleen Rooney, Emilie Lindemann, Kimberly Lojewski (and this is her first publication), Corey Mesler, Christopher Ryan, Erik Smetana, Amber Sparks, Charles Dodd White and Maya Jewell Zeller. May these words never stray far from your hearts.

We’re thrilled to announce our new Reviews Editor will be Kirsty Logan who joins us from across the Atlantic in Glasgow, Scotland. We’re particularly excited about bringing Kirsty on board because she’ll be focusing on both American and European writing.

Kirsty Logan is a writer, editor, teacher, waitress, and general layabout. She looks forward to adding ‘review editor’ to this list. She writes urban fantasy, retold fairytales, sci-fi erotica, mythical poetry, and a bunch of other stuff she doesn’t feel quite pretentious enough to label. You can easily find these things with the power of Google. Kirsty lives with her girlfriend in Scotland, in a tenement flat full of guitars, half-read books, and chandeliers. Kirsty would like you to note that her name is not Kristy or Kirsten. Visit her online at http://www.kirstylogan.com.

In addition to writing reviews, Kirsty will also be helping us feature more reviews on the PANK blog by working with freelance reviewers.

If you’d like to write a review for PANK, we’d love to have you. Please contact Kirsty directly at kirsty at pankmagazine dot com.

If you’d like to have your book or magazine reviewed, please send a request to awesome at pankmagazine dot com and we’ll go from there. Check back later today for Kirsty’s first interview, JA Tyler’s Inconceivable Wilson.

Publishing Genius Press, is pleased to announce its tenth book, THE BEST OF (WHAT’S LEFT OF) HEAVEN, by Irish/American poet, Mairead Byrne. The 200-page collection of poetry is scheduled for release on March 1.

Byrne’s poetry is characterized by her stylistic and emotional range. From a five-word poem to a lengthy, lyrical weather analysis to a few word-spattered pages, Byrne’s work is concerned with immediacy and temporality. Humor saturates the book, which British poet Luke Kennard calls “a beautiful, angry, generous collection.”

Byrne’s previous books include Talk Poetry (Miami University Press 2007), SOS Poetry (/ubu Editions 2007), Nelson and the Huruburu Bird (Wild Honey Press 2003), and six chapbooks. She emigrated from Ireland to the United States in 1994, and earned a Masters (1996) and PhD (2001) in English from Purdue University.   She lives in Providence, Rhode Island, where she teaches poetry and poetics at Rhode Island School of Design. Her poetry blog is at maireadbyrne.blogspot.com and more information on the book can be found at www.whatsleftofheaven.com.
“Often funny and sometimes sobering, Byrne’s work exposes the difficult-to-reconcile distractions, detritus, and rubble that surround us from all sides, but also culls glowing artifacts from such debris.”

-Juliet Cook

“A modest masterwork of colors & delights.”
-Jerome Rothenberg

We spent the latter half of the afternoon stuffing more than two hundred envelopes, applying stickers and otherwise conducting the business of editing with some awesome assistance by the Blue Ice staff. We stuffed our little hearts out or at least the undergrads stuffed their hearts out and we “coordinated” and applied mailing labels.

Here is Matt,   feeling exceptionally glamorous and editorial as he applies mailing labels:

I didn’t take a picture of myself, sorry. I was mostly just sitting around feeling pretty but that’s my awesome hat I bought off of Etsy nudged between those three stacks.

The moral of the story is this: if you don’t receive your order by next Wednesday, drop us a line and we’ll sort you out. If you haven’t ordered yet, do so now.

We are pleased as punch to announce that Erin Fitzgerald and Ravi Mangla were both finalists for the third Micro Award for their stories Waiting Room and Ethics, respectively. Congratulations also go to the winner, Michael Stewart. Check out the Micro Award website for the full list of finalists and winning stories.