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Subnivean never flees from chilling poems, penetrating stories, words that whip our perspectives around. Housed at the State University of New York at Oswego, where 4x more snow falls on our city than Manhattan, we’ve learned to persist. When winter comes, we reject migration. We use the cold itself as insulation.

Jervey Tervalon. AJ Donley. Leila Farjami. Michael Chang. Corinne Dekkers. R.A. Pavoldi. Deborah Schwartz. Imran Boe Khan. Robert Cunningham. Jane Donohue. Sanika Phawde. Gina Willner-Pardo. Michael Fontana. Brittany Ackerman. Enya Fang. Abhiram Kuchibhotla.

 

check out the latest issue

SUBNIVEAN AWARDS
2023-2024
FINAL JUDGES

POETRY

MAJOR
JACKSON

“. . . poetry, like all imaginative creations, divines the human enterprise. This is poetry's social value.”

 

Major Jackson, recipient the Academy of American Poets Fellowship for distinguished poetic achievement and winner of accolades including the Pushcart Prize and NEA awards

The international poetry competition is now open. Poets, join the party.

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FICTION

GISH
JEN

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"It's human to hear stories and to know how people live and to imagine how that is for them."

 

Gish Jen, Macarthur Foundation board member, recipient of the Lannan Literary Award for Fiction and a Guggenheim fellowship, and author of a New Yorker "best book" that Oprah Magazine called "a triumph of humor and sorrow" 

The international short story competition is now open. Fiction writers, show up and show out.

2023-24 NEW WRITERS AWARD

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BROOKLYN
SATERNOW

Last year, Brooklyn Saternow, from Oswego, NY, became the inaugural Subnivean new Writers Award winner, earning a scholarship, mentorship, a bookstore gift certificate and a blurb about her writing. You can read Brooklyn's poetry in Issue 8 of Subnivean. This year, Subnivean again invited talented new writers to participate in a special opportunity for high school students living in our New York headquarters’ seven-county region: Oswego County, Onondaga County, Oneida County, Herkimer County, Madison County, Cayuga County and Cortland County.

 

We are delighted to announce our five 2024 finalists:

  • Lucas Anzalone, from Oswego, NY

  • Paige Blair, from Cazenovia, NY

  • Makaylia Cuyler, from Oswego, NY

  • Gabriella Warner, from Oswego, NY

  • Millie Wu, from Skeneateles, NY

LISTEN

SUBNIVEAN
EPISODE 5: TEETH

Get ready to be read to like a baby at bedtime. In Episode 5, Subnivean presents stories and poems that have got teeth—the kind that get in deep, and lodge in the bone—by Jervey Tervalon, AJ Donley and Leila Farjami. Special thanks to voice actors Horane Daley, Kaya Wheatley and Chloë Hill, and to our editing and production team: Ryan Joyce, Tierell Chillious, Mathews Frank and Soma Mei Sheng Frazier.

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WATCH

LAST
by AMALIA RUSSELL

In Last, a short animation, a child has something to say to a stranger.

ABOUT THE CREATOR

Amalia Russell is an undergraduate studying game design at Champlain College.

"Matter exploding, stars being born, nothing becoming everything..."

— LAST

NEWS & EVENTS

SUBNIVEAN AWARDS 2023-24
— Now open

Beyond welcoming the longer daylight hours of spring in New York, Subnivean is delighted to invite writers near and far to enter the Subnivean Awards.

 

The deadline is February 21.

To read about the competition, swing by our Submissions page.

Or check out what we'e been up to on Instagram and Facebook, where our bookish team's attempting to be social now. (We're shy about peopleing!)

THE SUBNIVEAN
AWARDS

U.S. POET LAUREATE EMERITUS JUAN FELIPE HERRERA & DANIEL HANDLER: 
Literary Legends in Conversation

"...and if I went all out, I would probably have pistachio in there." 

 — Jf Herrera

What do U.S. Poet Laureate Emeritus Juan Felipe Herrera and Daniel "Lemony Snicket" Handler have in common? Hint: it's not fave ice cream flavors!

Subnivean. Catch these heavyweight authors in conversation, and get read to like a baby at bedtime by last year's Subnivean Awards finalists and winners: poets Artemisio Romero y Carver, Moni Brar, Alicia Rebecca Myers and Lauren Holguin; fiction writers Avtar Singh, Melissa Brown and Zach Swiss. 

NEW WRITERS AWARD 
— Five finalists named

SPRING 2024

Subnivean invited talented new writers to participate in a special opportunity for high school students living in our New York headquarters’ seven-county region: Oswego County, Onondaga County, Oneida County, Herkimer County, Madison County, Cayuga County and Cortland County. 

We are delighted to announce the five 2024 finalists:

  • Lucas Anzalone, from Oswego, NY

  • Paige Blair, from Cazenovia, NY

  • Makaylia Cuyler, from Oswego, NY

  • Gabriella Warner, from Oswego, NY

  • Millie Wu, from Skeneateles, NY

To read about last year's competition and winner, click here.

THANKS TO OUR READERS FOR PUTTING US ON THE MAP
— News feature shines a bright spotlight

WEDNESDAY
MAY 31, 2023

Thanks to all y'all, we've grown even since providing the numbers for this SUNY Oswego news feature

Beyond reaching thousands of readers around the globe in our first 4.5 months (on every continent but Antarctica: get with the program, penguins) we've now received submissions from writers working in Afghanistan, Algeria, Argentina, Armenia, Australia, Austria, Bangladesh, Belarus, Belgium, Bolivia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Brazil, Bulgaria, Canada, China, Costa Rica, Dominican Republic, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, India, Indonesia, Iraq, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Japan, Kenya, Latvia, Malaysia, Malta, Mexico, Mongolia, Morocco, Myanmar, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Nigeria, Norway, Pakistan, Palestine, Paraguay, Philippines, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Russia, Singapore, South Africa, South Korea, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Taiwan, Tanzania, Turkey, Ukraine, the United Kingdom, Zimbabwe and 49 U.S. states as well as Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands.

 

So, writers from North Dakota, our U.S. holdout, let's do this: our Issue 9 reading period is now open

2021 FIRECRACKER AWARDS 
— Subnivean announced as a finalist 

MONDAY
May 10, 2021

If you feel the ground shaking beneath you today, that's the result of much barefoot jumping up and down by Subnivean's international community.

 

Why barefoot? Because this nod from the Community of Literary Magazines and Presses (CLMP) rocks our socks off!

Regardless of which deserving publication earns the top

Magazine: Best Debut prize at the June 23, 7pm EST awards ceremonySubnivean is honored to be among the Firecracker Awards finalists. We urge you to join us at this free, virtual event and check out the other finalist publications, as well: more good reading for your commute, lunch break or bedtime...

SNICKET, WHITE & SINCLAIR: 
Literary Legends in Conversation

"I would recommend, like, a bottle of Jim Beam ... before Googling yourself." 

 

 — Daniel Handler

What do Lemony Snicket (AKA Daniel Handler), April Sinclair (whose book, Coffee Will Make You Black, will soon be a major motion picture) and luminary poet Arisa White have in common?

Subnivean. Catch these heavyweight authors in conversation, and then prepare to get read to like a baby at bedtime by the Subnivean Awards finalists: poets Chaun Ballard, Joan Kwon Glass, Canaan Morse and Emma Wynn; fiction writers Nicole Lynn Cohen, Jared Green, Angie Kang and Kyle Rea. 

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