For release: April 2, 2012
For press information, contact Gabrielle Maxey, 901/678-2843

The Pinch, the award-winning literary journal of the University of Memphis MFA program in creative writing, will celebrate the release of its spring 2012 issue with a reception on Friday, April 6, from 7 to 10 p.m. at Askew Nixon Ferguson Architects, 1500 Union Ave. There will be live music by Brad Pounders and readings by Pinch contributors Steve Adams, Stu Dearnley, and Darren Jackson. The event is free and open to the public.

Adams has been published in Glimmer Train, The Missouri Review, Chicago Review, Willow Springs, and elsewhere. He has won Glimmer Train’s Short Story Award for New Writers, been nominated for a Pushcart Prize, and anthologized. His plays have been produced in New York City.

 Dearnley is a first-year MFA student at the University of Arkansas. He recently left corporate America to chase his dream of being a starving artist.

Jackson is the editor of Grist: The Journal for Writers. A doctoral candidate at the University of Tennessee, he has participated in Virginia Center for the Creative Arts residences in France and Virginia and the Prague Summer Program. His poems and translations have appeared in Smartish Pace, Iron Horse, Cimarron Review, and other journals.

Founded in 1980, The Pinch is dedicated to producing high-quality art on every page. The graduate student editors are passionate about finding and publishing great works of poetry, fiction, creative nonfiction and visual art. Work from the journal has received numerous honors, including inclusion in Best American Essays and the Pushcart Anthology. The distinctive covers, designed by Gary Golightly, assistant professor of graphic design at the U of M, have received Awards of Excellence from the University and College Designers Association.

For more information on this event or on submissions, subscriptions and purchases, visit www.thepinchjournal.com