The New York Moon, an Internet-based publication, is a collection of experimental, reflective, and imaginative projects that unfold in any medium. The just-released April 2008 issue focuses on translation.

Translation is usually considered a practical activity. Someone who speaks one language needs to understand something in another language. But in our polyglot world and city, it can also be a challenge, a game — the intersection of a dozen cultures. In this edition of the Moon, our correspondents approached the theme from widely different vantages, but each showed that there is a hidden movement to “translation.” After all, the Latin word, translatus, means “carried over.”

Submissions are now being accepted for TransLit Volume 8, a special themed issue titled “Poetry and Short Stories of the Americas” that will be published in spring 2009 by the Literary Translation Collective of the Association of Translators and Interpreters of Alberta (ATIA) in cooperation with the Literary Translators’ Association of Canada (LTAC).

Interested translators may submit a short (<2500 words) translation to or from one of the four main languages of the Americas (English, French, Spanish, or Portuguese) or any indigenous language along with the original text. The original or translation must be in English or French. The submission should include brief biographies of the translator and the author, permission to publish from the author and publisher, and bibliographical data for the original.

Send submissions by July 1, 2008 to:

Editors, TransLit Volume 8
School of Translation and Interpretation
University of Ottawa
Arts Building, 4th Floor
Ottawa, Ontario
CANADA K1N 6N5

Contact editors Marc Charron or Luise von Flotow for more information.

Ingrid Lansford has been busy, and here’s what she’s been up to, in her own words:

Three of my short story translations just came out, all in the spring 2008 issue of the journal Metamorphoses. This is almost weird, but for two years the editor ran special issues, so my contributions stacked up:

• “Down to the Lake with Flemming and his Pump Gun” from Jeg er stadig bange for Caspar Michael Petersen by Jan Sonnergaard (Gyldendal 2003)
• “Sidi el Barduk and Zuleima” from Kærlighedshistorier Fra Mange Lande (1867) by Meir Aron Goldschmidt
• “Pulling up Fishtraps” from Das Los unserer Stadt (Olten,1959) by Wolfdietrich Schnurre

In January I received a grant of $824 from the Danish government agency Kunststyrelsen for translating five short stories into English.

In other literary translation news, Michele McKay Aynesworth has edited the latest edition of Beacons, a publication of the Literary Division of the American Translators Association. Liliana Valenzuela and Tony Beckwith were also involved in this production: they collaborated on the translation into Spanish of some short fiction from the book Unlucky Lucky Days by Daniel Grandbois.