Launchapalooza to celebrate Toad Suck Review

CONWAY — To conclude the University of Central Arkansas’ annual ArkaText Literary Festival, the award-winning Toad Suck Review will hold its sixth Launchapalooza at 7 p.m. March 11 at the Lantern Theater, 1021 Van Ronkle St. in downtown Conway.

The Launchapalooza is free and open to the public but may include adult language.

“We are especially proud of the controversial Allen Ginsberg letter we published in the Ginsberg feature, and we are also very proud of the Frank Stanford feature, [given that he’s] a rocketing star in Arkansas poetics,” said Mark Spitzer, editor of the TSR and associate professor of writing at UCA. “Our Toad-staff interview with artist-in-residence Cristina Garcia is also a big deal. In fact, the whole issue is a very big deal.”

The Launchapalooza will include readings from Lea Graham, a poet, an author and an associate professor of English at Marist College in Poughkeepsie, N.Y.; J. Bradley Minnick, a radio show host and associate professor of English and director of English Education at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock; Joe Trimble, an Arkansas native and a visiting lecturer in UCA’s department of writing; Scott Lewis, a poet with an Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing from UCA; and Guy Choate, a published author with an MFA from the University of New Orleans.

“The Toad Suck Review, of course, is the cornerstone of our thriving new MFA program and is a highly active player in the arts culture of central Arkansas,” Spitzer said.

The publication won a prestigious award from Library Journal for being one of the 10 best new literary journals in the world in 2012.

Copies of the publication, along with contributor publications and other merchandise, will be available for purchase at the Launchapalooza.

For more information, visit toadsuckreview.org, or contact Spitzer at toadsuckreview@gmail.com or (501) 450-3339.