CHA’s Best of the Net 2012 Nominations

We are happy to announce that the following pieces of work, selected from the July 2011, November 2011, March 2012 and June 2012 issues of Cha, have been nominated by us for inclusion in Best of the Net Anthology 2012 (published by Sundress). Congratulations to these writers and good luck!


|| Arthur Leung, “Earthen Houses” (issue #14, July 2011) || Read an analysis of the poem here ||


|| Robert Masterson, “To the State Electrical Worker” (issue #15, November 2011) || Read an analysis of the poem here ||


|| Julian Stannard, “Winston and Candy” (issue #17, June 2012) ||

|| Daryl Yam, “Change Your Heart; Look Around You” (issue #17, June 2012) || 




|| Michael Slaby, “The Beautiful Branca” (issue #14, July 2011) || 




|| Chris Galvin Nguyen, “The Flood Season” (issue #16, March 2012) || 


|| Helena Hu, “The Last Resident” (issue #17, June 2012) || 



|| John Givens, “Winter Seclusion” (issue #17, June 2012) || 
Iris A. Law’s “Circumnavigation” (issue #7) was selected for publication in Best of the Net 2009. Lillian Kwok’s “Departure” (issue #8) and Elizabeth Weinberg’s “The Earth That Stands Before Us” (issue #12) were selected as a Finalist in 2010 and 2011 respectively. 




Robert Masterson’s Garnish Trouble

Garnish Trouble (Finishing Line Press) by Robert Masterson is now available for preordering. More information can be found at their website http://www.finishinglinepress.com. You can also contact them:

Finishing Line Press
Post Office Box 1626
Georgetown, Kentucky 40324
859.514.9866

Reading Garish Trouble is like filling your mouth at midnight with grain alcohol and then blowing it out over a lit matchstick, the dark world before your eyes going bright in a ball of flame. These are stories of dread and devastation, of cruelty and suffering, but they explode into scalding beauty, one after another, their agonies transformed by the artfulness of their narration. -Seth Michelson (writer, teacher)  Los Angeles, California

ان لم يمتلك الادب اديبا لا يسطتيع ان يكتب بشكل جيد بعد مطالعة كتاب -روبرت ماسترسون-اعتقد انه كاتب مندمج كليا مع الادب لدرجة اصبح هو والادب واحدا -Aline Khano, Beirut, Lebanon

The imagination of R. Masterson dwells in that twilit zone of cold war material culture and spiritual confusion that erupts beneath the American psyche. The poisoning of innocence is here described with wry humor and persistent insight; here is Whitman and Tarkovsky playing nine-pins with Barbie and G.I. Joe; here is the reader searching everywhere for the exit, while not really wishing to find it, wondering, if indeed there is one. – M. Djinn Moor Moore, Ann Arbor, Michigan 

Twice nominated for the Pushcart Prize,
Robert Masterson is an award-winning writer, editor, teacher, and the author of Garnish Trouble (forthcoming in July from Finishing Line Press), Artificial Rats and Electric Cats (Camber Press, 2008) numerous publications and on numerous websites throughout the world. Masterson’s teaching has taken him to the People’s Republic of China and penal institutions. He received the 1987 Creative Writing Fellowship from the University of New Mexico and the first Ted Berrigan Scholarship from the Naropa Institute in Boulder, Colorado, in 1993. An English professor at the City University of New York’s Borough of Manhattan Community College campus, Masterson holds both a BA and an MA (with distinction) in English Literature from the University of New Mexico, Albuquerque; an MFA from Naropa University’s Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics; and a weird little academic certificate from Shaanxi Normal Univeristy in the People’s Republic of China.

Robert Masterson’s poetry was published in Issue #15 of Cha.

Cha contributors win Best Short Writing in the World 2011

Congratulations to Robert Masterson. His poignant poem “The Distance Between These Things” wins Fleeting Magazine’s Best Short Writing in the World 2011. Robert will receive a year’s subscription to Stack, a personalised monthly selection of the best independent magazines from the UK, Europe and America.

Marc Vincenz wins third place with his social critique poem “While Facing the Urinal” and he will receive three months’ subscription to Stack.

Vineet Kaul and Alistair Noon were finalists.

Fleeting publishes short fiction and poetry that is daring, erudite, amusing and infectious. They are accepting open submissions now.

  • Robert Masterson’s poetry will be featured in the fourth anniversary issue of Cha, due out in November 2011.
  • Marc Vincenz’s poetry was published in Issue 10 of Cha.
  • Vineet Kaul’s poetry was published in Issue #13 of Cha.
  • Alistair Noon’s poetry and creative non-fiction were published in issue #2 of Cha. His poem “The Expat Partner: An Email” is discussed here.