Find the latest news from literary and alternative magazines including new issues, editorial openings, and much more.
Here is the latest issue of Willow Springs. This issue features Roy Bentley, Michael Hettich, Andrea Jurjević, Michael McGriff, D. Nurkse who is interviewed this issue, Ira Sukrungruang, Jackson Burgess, Dante Di Stefano, Allison Hraban, Michael Hurley, Amy Seifried, Ojo Taiye, Fritz Ward, Ryan Cannon, William Walker, and more.
A new issue of True Story is out. “Not Your Ordinary Experience of Desire” by Susannah Borysthen-Tkacz and Justin Chen. In True Story #35, a poignant post-mortem of a four-year relationship, told in alternating voices, becomes a catalog of unmet needs and wants . . . and a path to a hopeful future.
The latest issue of THEMA explores the theme “Six Before Eighty.” Find stories, short-shorts, poems, and photographs by Matthew J. Spireng, J. J. Steinfeld, Cherie Bowers, H.B. Salzer, James “Jack” Penha, Margo Peterson, Alison Arntz, Lisa Timpf, Lynda Fox, Yuan Changming, Georgia A. Hubley, Annie Percik, Robert Wooten, Larry Lefkowitz, and Virginia Howard.
The Spring 2020 issue of Still Point Arts Quarterly celebrates “Grandparents and Other Wise Ancestors.” Featured artists include Karla Van Vliet, Julia Michie Bruckner, Paul Polydorou, and Sheri Vanermolen. Featured writers include Claire Ibarra, Angela Wright, Marianne Mersereau, Janet Sunderland, Gail Tyson, Ilene Dube, Wayne Lee, Douglas Cole, Marc Morgenstern, Denise Tolan, Kaia Gallagher, Anna Leigh Morrow, and Joe Cottonwood.
Runestone Journal proudly announces Volume 6, featuring: creative nonfiction from Hannah Baumgardt and True Dabill, fiction from Maryetta Henry, Gabraella Wescott, and Holley Ziemba; poetry from Lex Chilson, Marina Fec, arizona hurn, Maya Salemeh, Adam D. Weeks, and more; author interviews with Roy G. Guzmán and John Ostrander; and book reviews by the Student Editorial Board. Visit NewPages for more new issues.
Plume releases new poetry every month. In this month’s featured selection, find the second installment of the “5 under 35 Plus” feature with twelve poems by six exceptional poets: JK Anowe, Charlotte Covey, Benjamin Garcia, Sneha Subramanian Kanta, Lindsay Lusby, and Sarah Uheida. Alfred Corn provides five flash for the nonfiction section, and Chelsea Wagenaar reviews Paisley Rekdal’s Nightingale. Plus, more in this month’s regular poetry selections.
The Winter issue of Parhelion Literary Magazine invites readers to change up scenery and put on someone else’s shoes with fiction by Linda Boroff, Lyndsey Ellis, Sierra Lindsay, Mark Jacobs, and Garrett Zecker; flash by Julie Benish and Anthony Tao; nonfiction by Margaret Erhart; and poetry by David Dodd Lee, Sierra Lindsay, Richard Long, Adriana Medina, Jim Moore, and Austin Segrest. Also in this issue are three book reviews; five interviews; and more essay, stories, poetry, and photography in our “Features” section including work by Darren Morris, Leeta Harding, Charles Duffie, Rebecca Moon Ruark, Valley Haggard, Julie Whitehead, and more.
The Mar/Apr Kenyon Review features a special prose section, “The Unexpected,” guest-edited by Jaquira Díaz. Díaz selected work by Lars Horn, Gabriel Louis, Rebecca Nison, Joseph Earl Thomas, Laurie Thomas, and LaToya Watkins. In addition, the issue includes the winning essay and two runners-up from our 2019 Short Nonfiction Contest: “Hello, Fridge” by Anna Hartford, “Saving Luna” by KT Sparks, and “The Great Glass Closet” by Benjamin Garcia. The issue also includes poetry by Erin Belieu, Destiny O. Birdsong, Cortney Lamar Charleston, Heid E. Erdrich, Linda Gregerson, Ted Kooser, Sally Wen Mao, Michael McGriff, and Bruce Snider.
Love on the mind? Visit Ecotone‘s “The Love Issue.” Inside, Jennifer Tseng & Amanda Tseng envision their father, Sarah Seldomridge & Eduardo Espada draw the beginnings of a family, Silas House sings of a boy’s first love, and Jennifer Elise Foerster reads Jane Johnston Schoolcraft. Plus, sonnets, rondels prime, sonzals, and brefs double, from Chad Abushanab, Ashley M. Jones, Amit Majmudar, and A. E. Stallings.
The March 2020 issue of Diode Poetry Journal is with brand new poetry by TR Brady, Brandon Jordan Brown, Sarah A. Chavez, Brian Glaser, Sarah Gridley, Mandy Gutmann-Gonzalez, KA Hays, Kathleen Heil, Janiru Liyanage, Brett Elizabeth Jenkins, Luisa Caycedo-Kimura & Dean Rader, Virginia Konchan, Amit Majmudar, Christopher McCurry, Cindy Hunter Morgan, JoAnna Novak, Meghan Privitello, Iliana Rocha, Daniel Ruiz, Aaron Samuels, Nate Slawson, Kelly Grace Thomas, Svetlana Turetskaya, Jorrell Watkins, Rewa Zeinati, and Jane Zwart.
The Fall 2019 issue of Cimarron Review offers poetry by Jacqueline Winter Thomas, Shavahn Dorris-Jefferson, Luke Patterson, Ainsley Kelly, Anne Delana Reeves, Khaleel Gheba, Zach Mueller, Dayna Patterson, Laura Green, Adam Clay, Sophia Stid, Margaret Cipriano, G.C. Waldrep, and Athena Kildegaard; fiction by Robin Becker, Catherine Wong, JP Gritton, and Clancy McGlligan; and nonfiction by Danielle Thien. Our cover art is “Esotrope” by Monica McFawn.
AQR’s Winter & Spring 2020 edition features stories by Joy Lanzendorfer, Elise Juska, Matthew Lansburgh, and Patricia Page. Also featured are stories by Katya Apekina, Molly Gutman, Daniel Pearce, and Kirsten Madsen. The edition also includes three engaging personal essays, an exceptional collection of poems by twenty-four poets, and a special anthology “Carrying the Fire: Celebrating Indigenous Voices of Canada.” These voices include Mika Lafond, Billy-Ray Belcourt, Smokii Sumac, Tenille K. Campbell, Francine Merasty, J.D. Kurtness, Brandi Bird, and more.
The Winter 2020 issue of Qu Literary Magazine is out. Fiction by Renay Costa and Kevin M. Kearny; nonfiction by Jackie Kenny and Stephanie Dickinson; and poetry by Betty Rosen, nicole v basta, Sara Moore Wagner, Tom C. Hunley, Kelly Weber, and Elsa Ball. Patricia Powell provides “On Listening” in our “The Writing Life” section, and in stage/screen writing: Kate McMorran and Libby M. Gardner.
The latest issue of The 2River View features poems by Bruce Alford, Josette Akresh-Gonzales, Matthew Freeman, Abriana Jetté, Brady Thomas Kamphenkel, Tanner Lee, Tatiana Retivov, Samn Stockwell, Teresa Sutton, and John Whalen. Art from this issue is by Megan Duncanson.
The Georgia Review‘s Spring 2020 issue will focus on the 2020 U.S. Census. They currently have this special issue available for pre-order for $15.
Featured in this issue you will find work by Coleman Barks, Lauren Berlant and Kathleen Stewart, Lawrence-Minh Davis, W. Ralph Eubanks, LeAnne Howe, Gary Paul Nabhan, Jenni(f)fer Tamayo, Joshua Weiner, Karen Tei Yamashita, and many more.
And if you decided to go to AWP 2020 in San Antonio, they are there at Booth 862. Drop by, say hi, and pick up some swag.
Magazine Review by Katy Haas
In the past couple years, it has been difficult not to notice the hashtags #MeToo or #TimesUp filling up timelines across the internet. But while so heavily focused on what’s going on in the United States, and despite the connection of social media, many of us have been able to overlook what’s happening in other countries, including one bordering our own. Cristina Rivera Garza in “On Our Toes: Women against the Femicide Machine In Mexico” in the Winter 2020 issue of World Literature Today sheds light on #RopaSucia, which was used “to showcase incidences of misogyny in academic institutions and cultural circles”; #MiPrimerAcoso, stories of “my first harassment”; and #MeToo as tools used by feminists throughout Mexico as they fight to make changes for women in their country.
Magazine Review by Katy Haas
Carve Magazine never fails in bringing readers fresh fiction. In the Winter 2020 issue, Kate Arden McMullen opens her story “Tent People” with a paragraph introducing our narrator, Baby, and her family: Lily, Elis, and Daddy. As the scene unfolds, Baby’s mother is notably absent. The story wraps around this absence as Baby wanders around in her newly found womanhood (“I’m full-grown now Mama says since I got my first-ever period last month,” she notes). Continue reading ““Tent People” by Kate Arden McMullen”
Magazine Review by Katy Haas
There’s something simple and sweet in “One Narrow Street in Tokyo” by L. Davis, published in the Winter 2020 issue of The Main Street Rag, and it’s that simplicity that drew me into it. The language is sparse, and so is the poem itself, taking up just a tiny sliver of text on each side of the page.
Davis captures a small section of time in which life changes for a girl, a life so fleeting compared to that of the shrine she passes. A nearly mystical aura lingers around the fox that watches from its home in the shrine. Davis uses no punctuation used in this piece, sweeping readers up into the scene and to the end in one seamless motion. I read it over and over, letting it wash over me, my eye originally caught by the poem’s formatting. Short and sweet, it’s a good place to start with this issue of The Main Street Rag.
About the reviewer: Katy Haas is Assistant Editor at NewPages. Recent poetry can be found in Taco Bell Quarterly, petrichor, and other journals. She regularly blogs at: https://www.newpages.com/.
The theme for Nimrod‘s latest issue “Words at Play” sounds like a lot of fun. Learn more about it: featuring fiction by Gauraa Shekhar, Sean Bernard, Jackson Ingram, and Alison Ho; nonfiction by JJ Peña; and poetry by James Toupin, Joanna Gordon, Michelle Penn, Wendy Drexler, Holly Painter, Gabriel Spera, Amy Miller, Matthew J. Spireng, George Looney, Ellen Kombiyil, Margot Kahn, Myra Shapiro, Cindy Veach, Katy Day, Marjorie Maddox, Brooke Sahni, Ella Flores, Madeline Grigg, Jean-Mark Sens, Nicholas Yingling, and more.
The cover of Poetry‘s March 2020 issue is inviting. Learn what’s inside: a “Latinext” feature with work by Willie Perdomo, Féi Hernandez, Naomi Ayala, J. Estanislao Lopez, Stephanie Roberts, Roberto Carlos Garcia, Ashley August, Nicole Sealey, Noel Quiñones, Virgil Suárez, P.E. Garcia, Benjamín Naka-Hasebe Kingsley, Sergio Lima, Anthony Morales, Anaïs Deal-Márquez, Lupe Mendez, and Melinda Hernandez. Plus more poetry by John McAuliffe, Douglas Kearney, Robin Gow, Jennifer Chang, Suzi F. Garcia, Luther Hughes, Yusef Komunyakaa, John Kinsella & Thurston Moore, Caroline Bird, and more. Nonfiction by Matthew Bevis.
This issue of Raleigh Review features the winner of the flash fiction contest, Alexander Weinstein, and runners-up, Alexander Steele and Sarah Hardy. Plus new fiction from Michael Horton, Laura Marshall, Casey McConahay, Jeff McLaughlin, AJ Nolan, and Mark Wagenaar, and new poetry by Threa Almontaser, Kyce Bello, Despy Boutris, Lupita Eyde-Tucker, Charlotte Hughes, Kamal E. Kimball, Sandy Longhorn, Aimee Seu, Lena Khalaf Tuffaha, and more. This issue also features the art of Stacey Cushner, and an interview with Patricia Henley.
The Lake brings readers poetry every month. The March issue includes poems by Ben Banyard, Melanie Branton, Sandy Deutscher Green, William Ogden Haynes, D. R. James, Beth McDonough, Joe Hills, Kenneth Pobo, J. R. Solonche, Amy Soricelli, Gerald Wagoner, Sarah White. Reviews of Abby Frucht’s Maids and Marianne Boruch’s The Anti-Grief.
Cherry Tree‘s sixth issue features work by Diannely Antigua, Destiny O. Birdsong, Mirande Bissell, Jennifer Bullis, Lauren Camp, Hannah Cohen, Bailey Cohen-Vera, Raymond Deej, Dante Di Stefano, Jen Stewart Fueston, Jeannine Hall Gailey, David Groff, Christian Gullette, Steve Henn, Korey Hurni, Ashley M. Jones, Kasey Jueds, Toshiya Kamei, Genevieve Kaplan, Olivia Kingery, Mingpei Li, Alice Liang, Sarah Lyons-Lin, Angie Macri, Ann Stewart McBee, Afopefoluwa Ojo, JJ Peña, Robert L. Penick, Emilia Phillips, Caroline Plasket, Alec Prevett, Sara Ryan, F. Daniel Rzicznek, Martha Silano, DeAnna Stephens, Anne Dyer Stuart, Yerra Sugarman, Ojo Taiye, Adam Tavel, Yasumi Tsuhara, Elsa Valmidiano, Hannah VanderHart, April Wang, and Art Zilleruelo!
Allegro Poetry Magazine has recently moved to a biannual publication schedule. This issue’s contributors include Judith Russell, Michael G. Casey, John Grey, Leslie Tate, Ruth Taaffe, Dan Overgaard, Ken Cumberlidge, William Snyder, Beth McDonough, Holly Day, Goran Gatalica, Kate Noakes, Aaliyah Cassim, Awósùsì Olúwábùkúmí A, Phil Wood, Gordon Gibson, Sean Howard, Michael Burton, Julia White, Julie Mullen, and Michele Waering.
Magazine Review by Katy Haas
I’m ready for spring to hurry up and get here already, so I couldn’t help gravitating toward poems featuring plants in the Fall 2019 issue of The Hampden-Sydney Poetry Review.
Tara Bray focuses on plants in all three of her poems: “Inside the Sycamore,” “Milkweed: Doxology,” and “Lemon Verbena.” She writes with a hushed appreciation and admiration for each of these. There’s a familiarity and softness in her words. She calls the lemon verbena “sister,” she and her family fit themselves inside the sycamore, she feeds off the milkweed, a deep connection tying her to each plant.
This makes me appreciate Brian McDonald’s “Basil,” found on the following page, that much more. He heads in the completely opposite direction, beginning his poem with much less adoration: “Fuck. Another summer of trying to grow / these oily leaves I’ve always let fry / in the heat.” The basil plants lead McDonald to consider his shortcomings: other plants that have died in windowsills and his uncertainty about whether he’s treating his wife how she should be treated. He’s open and honest, deeply human, all with the help of these fragile basil plants.
It will still be cold here in Michigan for at least another month or two, so I definitely appreciate the writers that are able to deliver me from the chilliness and drop me in the middle of a sycamore or a warm backyard, a tray of basil plants in hand.
The Spring 2020 issue of Rattle features a special tribute section of poems written by students of Kim Addonizio’s poetry workshops (as well as one poem by Kim herself). In the open section, the poems themselves are as good as their titles: “The Cow I Didn’t Eat.” “Social Experiments in Which I Am the [Bear].” “Ode to the Mattress on the Side of the Interstate.” Diverse as always, the new issue features a poem written in “the imagined voice of Frida Kahlo” (Barbara Lydecker Crane), “Young Dyke” by Alison Hazle, a duo of triolets by Carolyne Wright, and much more.
Find out more about the new online version of New Orleans Review. Contributors: Danley Romero, Kaylie Saidin, Britton Hanson, Maria Kuznetsova, Apryl Lee, Diana Valenzuela, Anna Claire Hodge, Ryan Burgess, Rage Hezekiah, Julia Cohen and Lisa Nikolidakis. Cover by Ashley Longshore.
Fiction Southeast publishes work on a rolling basis. Contributors this year include work by Robin Littell, Ziaul Moid Khan, Jason Graff, Marianne Rogoff, Dakota Canon, Vandana Khanna, Andrea Jarrell, Jessica Love, Richard Sogliuzzo, Annie Mountcastle, Kay Sloan, Staci Mercado, and Mike Wilson.
This issue includes poetry by Sinead McClure, Mary Kathryn Jablonski, Timothy Gordan, Beth McDonough, Milton Ehrlich, Breda Joyce, Susie Gharib, Alun Robert, and more; fiction by Patrick Doherty, J. Scott Hardin, Chuck Teixeira, Max Dunbar, and Fiona Billie Lawlor; and a book review by Nicola Spendlove. [no website]
Magazine Review by Katy Haas
True crime seems to be all the rage lately, from books on famous cold cases to Netflix documentaries to hit podcasts. Blink-Ink tries its hand at covering this theme in Issue 38 wherein 16 writers use micro-fiction to explore true crime.
JR Walsh writes about a B&E at an ex’s house where the criminals’ “fingerprints never moved out.” Katie Yates writes of a husband who steals a puppy for his wife. In Craig Fishbane’s “Weapon of Choice,” one weapon is social media, the other is a gun. Leah Rogin-Roper provides four related pieces on a juvenile detention center. The stories in this issue cover a wide array of crimes in creative ways, and it’s fun to see a fictional take on truth.
Blink-Ink publishes stories that are 50 words or less. This makes for short, snappy stories that toss readers headfirst into the drama. In this issue, we never have to wait long to find out who did it in these whodunnits.
New this month on Terrain.org, find nonfiction by Sharon Dolin, Cara Stoddard, and Rachel Findlay; fiction by Michael McGuire and John Colman Wood; and poetry by Lex Runciman. Currently featured on the website: the winner of the Terrain.org 10th Annual Contest in Poetry are three poems by Stacey Balkun.
The newest issue of Mudfish features the winner of the 14th Mudfish Poetry Prize, judged by John Yau: Mark Wagenaar with “Fluencies.” Honorable mentions G. Hanlon and Stokes Howell are also included. Other contributors this issue: Dell Lemmon, Michael Lyle, Aillie McKeever, Beth Suter, Claire Scott, Vincent Bell, Marjorie Power, Angela Dribben, Yuyutsu Sharma, Holly Day, Jason Koo, James Trask, Jake Bauer, Francis Klein, Neal Zirn, Bob Coles, A. Kaiser, Kristin Entler, Tim Nolan, Kirk Wilson, Toni Hanner, and many more.
Inside our “Liberation” issue, First fiction from Thea Chacamaty and Bradley Babendir on Jewish comic novelists. Featuring Heather Christle, Samantha DeFlitch, Patricia Foster, Catherine Gammon, Terrance Manning Jr., Askold Melnyczuk, John R. Nelson, Anya Silver, and Paul Smith.
The “Atention!” issue of The Antioch Review includes Heinrich Böll’s “Cause of Death: Hooked Nose” (translated by Robert C. Conard) which captures Nobel laureate Boll’s vivid imagery about the corollary of unfettered hatred, unchallenged propaganda, and fearful inertia for countries, communities, and consciences. Rachel Rose’s “Buccal Swab” airs the concerns and realities families face when a member harmlessly hands over DNA to Ancestry.com or some other DNAanalyses company. Stuart Neville’s thriller “Coming in on Time” unfolds in the eyes of a child naïve to passions that stir so strongly and sting so seriously. Find a full list of contributors at The Antioch Review‘s website.
The single-author True Story has released a new issue. In “Plume: An Investigation” by Mary Heather Noble, a former environmental investigator applies her forensic skills to a family mystery. What happens to us when we are exposed to toxicity, both literally and figuratively? Can we change what we pass on to our kids? And at what cost?
Plume‘s February 2020 issue features selection is “Engraved Phrases on Open Seas: Poems and Notes on Translations of Khal Torabully” by Nancy Naomi Carlson. Charles Simic pens an “Essay on the Prose Poem,” and Mark Wagenaar reviews Mark Irwin’s Shimmer. Poets in this issue include Sawnie Morris, William Logan, Mary Jo Salter, Mark Irwin, Kim Addonizio, Andrea Cohen, Adam Scheffler, and more.
The Main Street Rag Winter 2020 issue includes featured interview “Living for the Day” with Laura Thurston by Richard Allen Taylor. Also in this issue, find fiction by Nancy Bourne, Michael Gaspeny, Nick Gardner, Don Stoll, Laurence Levey, and Michael Washburn; poetry by Joan Bauer, Ace Boggess, Les Brown, Brian Fanelli, Mary Alice Dixon, Sean Thomas Doherty, Vicki Mandel-King, Gerard Sarnat, Sibani Sen, Young Smith, and more; plus a selection of five book reviews.
This year’s issue of HSPR is a collection of small things–the way the small things, the things we could almost overlook, often drive art as much as larger considerations. Our 4×4 section this year continues the theme – Richard Kenney, Tobi Kassim, Jessica Fisher and Stephanie Burt all weigh in on the role of small things in both making poems and appreciating them. Contributors include Jena Le, Sandra Lim, KE Duffin, Mary Cisper, Anna Tomlinson, Adam Tavel, Jonathan Wike, Tobi Kassim, and more. A changed logo, different paper, and new fonts are also small physical changes readers can note in this issue.
The Winter 2020 issue of Carve Magazine features short stories by and interviews with Alissa Hattman, Emily Howorth, Sam Simas, and Kate Arden McMullen; poetry by Lucia Orellana Damacela, Jessica Hincapie, Cindy Juyoung Ok, and E. Kristin Anderson; and nonfiction by Brittany Coppla and Joel Clotharp. Additional features include Decline/Accept with “Fit” by Rayne Ayers-Debsksi, a “One to Watch” interview with Brandon Taylor by Anna Zumbahlen, and illustrations by Justin Burks.
The Poetry February 2020 issue features work by Zach Linge, Jesus Govea, and Dasiy Fried. More work by Terese Svoboda, Alison C. Rollins, Mia You, Caoilinn Hughes, Virginia Keane, Francine J. Harris, Angela Jackson, Rodney Jones, David Felix, Dujie That, Talin Tahajian, Partridge Boswell, Lani O’Hanlon, Beth Bachmann, John Lee Clark, Maggie Smith, James McCorkle, Zeina Hashem Beck, Jessica Greenbaum, Mei-Mei Berssenbrugge, Mary B. Moore, Gabrielle Bates, Nome Emeka Patrick, Jack Underwood, and Liz Berry. Plus, an essay by Jeffrey Yang.
The Winter 2019 issue of The Malahat Review features 2019 Constance Rooke Creative Nonfiction Prize winner Jeanette Lynes. Also included: Carolyn Nakagawa, Julia Brush, Angélique Lalonde, Franco Cortese, Kurt Marti, Patricia Young, Sherine Elbanhawy, Suphil Lee Park, Emeka Patrick Nome, Hasan Alizadeh, Conor Kerr, Joel Robert Ferguson, Melanie Boyd, Bernadette White, Dominique Béchard, Jon Gingerich, Tatiana Oroño, Robert Hilles, Kulbir Saran, Sarah Yi-Mei Tsiang, Dawn Lo, and Sehrish Ranjha. Cover art by Sandra de Groot.
The “Granary” issue of The Literary Review features poetry by Rosa Alcalá, Mario Ariza, Christian Barter, Samuel Cheney, James Ciano, Heather Derr-Smith, Dalton Day, Michael Farman, Stuart Friebert, Ute von Funcke, Elisa Gonzalez, Benjamin S. Grossberg, Jennifer Grotz, Maricela Guerrero, Hannah Jansen, and more; fiction by Jody Azzouni, James Braziel, Rosy Fitzgerald, Case Q. Kerns, Laura Shaine, Christine Sneed, Eva Taylor, and Jenny Wu; and prose by Kelly Luce, Karen Luper, Toni Maraini, and Josip Novakovich.
This week, we have The Lake‘s February issue, featuring Gaby Bedetti, David Butler, Brent Cantwell, Alexandra Corrin-Tachibana, Michael Dureck, Rebecca Gethin, David Krausman, Patrick Lodge, Bree A. Rolfe, Laura Stringfellow. Reviews of Jason Eng Hun Lee’s Beds in the East and Patrick Lodge’s Remarkable Occurrences.
The January 2020 issue features flash fiction by David Galef, Martha Keller, Ron Hartley, Luke Rolfes, Kenneth Hinegardner, Michael Clark, Meg Pokrass, Marie Anderson, Roberta Beary, Robert Pope, Warren L Jones III, and David C. Metz.
The Adroit Journal Issue 31 is here with new poetry by Victoria Chang, Michael Bazzett, Bruce Snider, Mark Halliday, Paul Guest, Lena Khalaf Tuffaha, Faylita Hicks, Caroline Crew, Paige Quiñones, Abby E. Murray, Natalie Eilbert, and more; prose by Kate Folk, Pete Segall, Alexander Weinstein, Alex Perez, Wendy Oleson, and John Elizabeth Stinzi; and art by Heather Betts, Jenny Shi, Anna Frankl, Niya Gao, You Young Kim, and Serge Gay Jr. Plus five new interviews with Victoria Chang, Danez Smith, Paige Lewis, Corrie Williamson, and Carmen Maria Machado.
Magazine Review by Makenzie Vance
In the Issue 8 of The Common, Sarah Smarsh describes how her grandfather’s home became a central gathering place for friends and family and then how it was lost after his death. She begins two generations before her own and skillfully condenses her three-generational story into a compelling length.
Smarsh recounts how her drifter grandmother met her grandfather and finally settled down after a life of wandering with her teenage child—Smarsh’s mother. Though the farmhouse served as a communal space for family and friends and a home for eccentric farm traditions like sledding in a canoe behind a truck, the farm fell apart when her grandfather died, leaving a hole in their lives.
Smarsh speaks to all when she illustrates the importance of a central gathering place for a community, and she reaffirms the importance of small farms and the lives lived upon them.
About the reviewer: Makenzie Vance is a creative writing student at Utah State University.
Literary magazine The Iowa Review hosts the Jeff Sharlet Memorial Award for Veterans. This writing contest is open to U.S. military veterans and active duty personnel. Writing can be in any genre and on any subject.
This year’s contest opens on May 1 and will be judged by Reginald McKnight, author of He Sleeps. The deadline to enter is May 31. First place receives $1,000 and publication in a forthcoming issue of Iowa Review. Second place receives $750 and three runners-up receive $500 each. Check out their site for full guidelines.
You can see the winners of the 2018 contest here: iowareview.org/blog/winners-fourth-veterans’-writing-contest. The 2018 winners were featured in the Spring 2019 issue.
This contest is made possible by a gift from the family of Jeff Sharlet (1942-69), a Vietnam veteran and antiwar writer and activist.
The Winter 2019 issue of Southern Humanities Review is out. In the issue: nonfiction by Lia Greenwell and Leslie Stainton; fiction by Erin Blue Burke, Dounia Choukri, Sayantani Dasgupta, and Alex Pickett; and poetry by J. Scott Brownlee, Sarah Edwards, Jared Harél, Kathryn Kirkpatrick, Matthew Landrum, Donna J. Gelagotis Lee, Rodney Terich Leonard, A.T. McWilliams, Michelle Peñaloza, and Supritha Rajan. Plus, cover art by Martha Park.
The latest issue of The Iowa Review is out. In this issue: toes, 362.28 in the card catalog, a portfolio of fantastical and surreal writing and artwork, a tenure review gone awry, and the winners of the 2019 Iowa Review Awards. Contributors include Julie Gray, Derby Maxwell, Elizabeth Dodd, Andes Hruby, and Laura Crossett in nonfiction; Joyelle McSweeney, Brian Sneeden, Philip Metres, Maggie Millner, and Stephanie Ellis Schlaifer in poetry; and Chloe Wilson, Sherry Kramer, Terrence Holt, Analia Villagra, and Bruce Holbert in fiction.
Issue 10 of Gris-Gris features fiction by Peter Grandbois, James Hartman, Marlene Olin, and Betty Martin; poetry by Stephanie Brooks, Jonathan Riccio, Sarah Sousa, Hannah Warren, Maria Zoccola, and Daphne Simeon; nonfiction by Robert Vivian; and artwork by Desire’ Johnson.
