Speaking Volumes: Discover emerging authors, artists at Manatee County Public Library's online journal

Speaking volumes

Debut and emerging authors and artists are extremely talented -- and extremely hard to find on bookshelves. Big publishing houses churn out books by established authors and that's great, but what about the fantastic writers who haven't been discovered yet?

Where can you read their works? The answer, dear reader, is literary journals. And you're in luck because the library founded 805 Lit + Art, an online literary and art journal to showcase emerging and debut artists and authors in our community and worldwide.

805 publishes a mixture of short stories, personal essays, poetry and art of different styles to appeal to a variety of readers. Half of our authors and artists are from Florida and the rest are from across the country and world (Scotland and Italy so far!). Local writers include Jennifer Ammon, Joshua Joel Mohr and Gordon Kuhn, and local artists include Jay Canterbury and Brandon Scott.

The first three issues of 805 are available online for free at www.805lit.org. Subscribe to get new free issues emailed to you each quarter.

Later this year we'll have a print anthology available (thanks, Friends of the Central Library!), and our next digital issue, due out in May, features teen authors and artists.

Submitting to 805 is also free, and we take submissions from adults year-round on our website. Many of our authors and artists have never been published before, and we're proud to present their works to the world and watch their creative careers take off. If you write or create art, please consider submitting it to us!

After you read 805, you can meet the editors that put it together and the artists and authors from our first three issues at the Central Library on Saturday, April 30, at noon. Hear authors and poets read their works and stroll through a pop-up art gallery upstairs.

Florida is home to over a dozen other wonderful literary journals, including many published by colleges. Saw Palm (www.sawpalm.org), published by the University of South Florida, features Florida-themed writing and art. Past issues are free to read online or you can subscribe to receive print issues for a two years for $16.

Panhandler Magazine (panhandlermagazine.com), by the University of West Florida, and Fiction Fix (fictionfix.net), by the University of North Florida, also offer free online issues chock-full of high-caliber writing.

The library offers monthly e-mail newsletters, called NextReads, with a selection of genres to choose from; each lists several books, new and classics. Sign up from the library website.

Stephanie Katz, is the technology trainer librarian for the Manatee County Public Library System and the editor-in-chief for 805 Lit + Art.

This story was originally published April 22, 2016 at 5:37 PM with the headline "Speaking Volumes: Discover emerging authors, artists at Manatee County Public Library's online journal ."