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.
Gauraa Shekhar. Nicole Lynn Cohen. Nathan Alling Long. Meghan Sterling. Moshkur Ajikobi. Brianna Flavin. D.S. Maolalai. Melissa Darcey Hall. S.E. Reed. Mercury-Marvin Sunderland. Jessica Treadway.
ISSUE06
SUBNIVEAN
AWARDS
2022 WINNERS
POETRY
LAUREN
HOLGUIN
This is a lightning bolt cracklin’ through the streets, breaking in and breaking out of the cement & walls, voices & page-shimmies of the the people singin’ and rhymin’, doin’ and becoming One. There are ghosts and kids w/o names, rappers & X’s, unknowns & pains & suffering, melodies from the wounded, hearts spilling & voices ascending & Whitman everywhere saying everything & huggin’ everyone, high & low & there’s a map you can follow as it fades away, as your perception attempts to grasp a zillion realities. You feel the bodies because you hear the bodies because you will find meaning everywhere. Pennies and bullets is the name of the Boulevard, empty cop cars and dead animals—and, yet, there is joy sweating out of this journeying text and it’s multiple panels, voice-elevators and trauma & beauty menus. Enter this multi-neighborhood of multi-selves and texts, grab the atoms if you can touch them, find the Cha-Cha-Cha’s, find the lines smoothin’ everything you have been missing in America—it is here, in the hands of this most talented poet, of these shattering episodes, scenes, jams, riffs, bongós clappin’ fast as you walk by to the beat of “I’m the capital T in TEACH,”an explosive debut of a most kind, non-stop, knowing writer.
— U.S. Poet Laureate Juan Felipe Herrera, 2022 Subnivean Awards Final Judge, on Holguin's winning poems
FICTION
ZACH
SWISS
Elegantly readable, surprising and thought-provoking throughout—a bracing read for these lousy capitalist times.
— Daniel "Lemony Snicket" Handler, 2022 Subnivean Awards Final Judge, on Swiss's winning story
LISTEN
SUBNIVEAN
EPISODE 2: TURNING TABLES
Get ready to be read to like a baby at bedtime. Episode 2 features the work of Jesse Breite, Eleanor Johnson, Bryn Dodson and Brandon Amico. Special thanks to the editing and production team: Lydia Seki, Naomi Ellis, Miles Weber and Soma Mei Sheng Frazier.
WATCH
THE SUBNIVEAN
AWARDS
What do U.S. Poet Laureate Emeritus Juan Felipe Herrera and Daniel "Lemony Snicket" Handler have in common?
Subnivean. (And a love for ice cream.) Here they are discussing soft-serve and more—and announcing our 2022 Subnivean Awards winners in poetry in fiction, after a terrific reading by the finalists: Avtar Singh, Alicia Rebecca Myers, Zach Swiss, Artemisio Romero Y Carver, Melissa Brown, Moni Brar and Lauren Holguin.
"I don't wanna do that: I don't wanna memorize a poem in a field..."
— Daniel Handler
NEWS & EVENTS
ANNOUNCING A NEW COMPETITION
— Writers, get those keys a-clicking
AUTUMN 2022
This November, Subnivean will announce two phenomenal final judges for the 2022-23 Subnivean Awards competition (who will succeed U.S. Poet Laureate Emeritus Juan Felipe Herrera and Daniel "Lemony Snicket" Handler) and open the contest to entries from writers living and working around the globe.
We will also announce a special opportunity for high-school-aged writers living in our headquarters' six-county region: Oswego County, Onondaga County, Oneida County, Herkimer County, Madison County, Cayuga County and Cortland County.
Central New York high school students, get ready to show up and show out.
GET READ TO LIKE A
BABY AT BEDTIME
— An evening with Juan Felipe Herrera, Daniel Handler and the Subnivean Awards finalists
WEDNESDAY
April 13, 2022
U.S. Poet Laureate Juan Felipe Herrera and Daniel "Lemony Snicket" Handler have never met, despite their shared heavyweight writer status.
Want to be there when they do?
Subnivean invites you to join these legendary writers at a virtual event this spring. Their public conversation will be followed by a literary reading featuring the 2022 Subnivean Awards finalists: Avtar Singh, Alicia Rebecca Myers, Zach Swiss, Artemisio Romero Y Carver, Melissa Brown, Moni Brar and Lauren Holguin. Join us, and prepare to get read to like a baby at bedtime!
WHEN?
7pm ET / 4pm PT, April 13
HOW DO I GET IN ON THIS?
Stay tuned: link forthcoming...
COST OF ADMISSION?Whaaat? We wouldn't do you like that. $0.
SUBNIVEAN @ AWP
— Join us at the 2022 AWP Conference
Friday
March 25, 2022
With so many students eager to build thriving literary communities, and so many voices around the world clamoring to be heard, it is inevitable that undergraduate-staffed publications will be increasingly globalized. Subnivean is structured to function 100% remotely: for the majority of its existence, the publication was staffed by an online, asynchronous class of total strangers who would not have recognized one another in person, thriving and growing through a global pandemic that decimated many literary entities. How?
This publishing, editing and tech panel—comprised of intergenerational "lit' nerds" building global dialogue and community via a digital venue recently recognized as an extraordinary debut magazine by the CLMP— seeks to answer questions of reach, resources and representation.
WHEN?
12:10pm ET, Friday, March 25
WHERE?
120C, Pennsylvania Convention
Center, 100 Level
1101 Arch St
Philadelphia, PA 19107
THANKS TO OUR READERS FOR PUTTING US ON THE MAP
— News feature shines a bright spotlight
MONDAY
February 1, 2021
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 received submissions from writers working in the United States, United Kingdom, Ukraine, China, Singapore, Brazil, Myanmar, Belgium, Russia, Latvia, Tanzania, Turkey, Spain, Italy, Zimbabwe, Canada, Bolivia, Australia, Palestine, Japan, Bulgaria, Switzerland, Sweden, France, Austria, Portugal, Paraguay, Morocco, Norway, Germany, Nigeria, Poland, South Africa, Pakistan, New Zealand, India, Ireland, Bangladesh, Philippines, Kenya, Netherlands, Finland, Taiwan, Belarus, Romania, Algeria, South Korea, Mongolia, Malaysia, Costa Rica, Israel, the Dominican Republic and 49 U.S. states as well as Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands.
So, writers from North Dakota, let's do this: our Issue 7 reading period is now open.
Updated 09/13/22
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 ceremony, Subnivean 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.