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Delving into the latest issue of Hippocampus Magazine, I was reminded of You’ve Got Mail  and the moment Meg Ryan’s character is told “I remember when your mother gave me Anne of Green Gables. ‘Read it with a box of Kleenex,’ she told me.” So, readers, let me pass on the same warning before checking out the September 2015 issue of Hippocampus: grab some tissues, or at the very least, be prepared to have a lump in your throat for longer than comfortable. Continue reading “Hippocampus – September 2015”

Blue Collar Review: Journal of Progressive Working Class Literature is a small, targeted magazine filled with voices insisting on being heard. The editorial introduction to this issue states, “Poems in this collection speak of both the pride and the misery of work. They flesh out the real insecurity and resentment of underpaid and tenuous jobs and the seeming hopelessness of unemployment.” Continue reading “Blue Collar Review – Spring 2015”

The American Poetry Review features poetry, of course, and literary essays that are didactic, exhaustive studies on poets and poems, exploring all possible avenues of meaning from every possible angle. And that’s a good thing. Continue reading “The American Poetry Review – Sept 2009”

The Missing Slate, based in Islamabad, Pakistan, is an ambitious gathering of ideas from around the world in the form of poetry, essays, and stories, accented with dazzling artwork. This is the first print anthology from the previously online-only forum. Continue reading “The Missing Slate – 2015”

Beautifully produced, Indiana Review has fiction, poetry, nonfiction, and in this issue, something called “Special Folio: Graphic Memoir.” With seven contributors, the Special Folio has the look of a comic book. Bianca Stone has two watercolors that resemble greeting cards. Continue reading “Indiana Review – Summer 2015”

The theme of this issue of the University of Missouri’s The Missouri Review is “Defy.” Long-time editor Speer Morgan contributes a five-page introduction, which has this sentence: “The best new voices often defy the accepted in the quest for new themes, subjects and possibilities of form.” He then cites Beethoven, Picasso and Jane Austen, all contemporary cultural staples. Likewise, The Missouri Review is mainstream and established. The writers and artists celebrated in this issue—David Mitchell, Michael West and Jacob Riis—are equally so. Continue reading “The Missouri Review – Summer 2015”

In addition to offering readers a hefty volume of contemporary poetry from accomplished writers, the Spring 2015 issue of the Birmingham Poetry Review also includes an interview with featured poet Allison Joseph, a couple of useful poetry-focused essays, and a lengthy review section. Continue reading “Birmingham Poetry Review – Spring 2015”

Jumping into Stoneboat, this issue is kicked off by CL Bledsoe’s poem, “The Squeaky Wheel Has Been Anesthetized.” At the end of the poem the speaker says, “[ . . . ] upsetting. I know we’re all dying at our own pace, / just trying to find a comfortable place to lie down.” The ending of the poem links back to the title’s anesthetization, as well as showcases the poem’s buried rhymes, while working as a good opener for this issue. Continue reading “Stoneboat – 2015”

West Branch is back with another issue and deserves the attention generally reserved for a select few. Editor G.C. Waldrep and his staff consistently serve up some great writing, and their latest installment is no different. Continue reading “West Branch – Spring/Summer 2015”

Ploughshares has returned with their much anticipated annual fiction issue, which features work from the likes of Lydia Davis and Daniel Pena, as well as some new writers coming into their own. In the introduction, Guest Editor Lauren Groff says she is “hungry for voices that speak to me with real emotion; because real emotion is always new.” One can see that influence in the latest installment, which includes a wide-range of narratives where the characters are dealing with unexpected and sometimes strange incidents that showcase little slices of humanity. Continue reading “Ploughshares – Summer 2015”

Time Magazine once labeled The Southern Review as “superior to any other journal in the English language.” The latest edition published on the campus of the Louisiana State University lives up to the high standards that their readers love and have come to expect since the magazine’s inception in 1935. You will not regret reading this cover to cover. Continue reading “The Southern Review – Summer 2015”

The year was 1964 and Leonid Brezhnev had just taken control of the Soviet Union. Nikita Khrushchev had recently been expelled as First Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union as well as Chairman of the Council of Ministers, thoroughly ending another era of autocracy in Soviet Russia and ushering in a collective leadership. Leonid Brezhnev and Alexei Kosygin took the stage to powerhouse Russian politics, and henceforth brought about the Era of Stagnation in the USSR, creating hardship and creative inspiration for citizens of the massive state. Continue reading “Chtenia – Summer 2015”

Brick is a biannual magazine based in Toronto, Canada, with many of the contributors living in Toronto or elsewhere in Canada. Undeniably, then, Brick has a Canadian slant. Continue reading “Brick – Summer 2015”

The Chattahoochee Review is published quarterly in paperback by Georgia Perimeter College, located in Decatur, near Atlanta. According to their website, “our roots are in the South,” but the review publishes work from all over the world, in all genres. Continue reading “The Chattahoochee Review – Spring 2015”

6X6 #32 begins with Lyn Hejinian’s “Illogically; Grievous,” a lengthy prose poem that ventures to ask “Where rest the increments of a human being’s life that’s not now soot in a circle?” It’s an apt place to begin the Summer 2015 issue, which reminds readers that we are small. Our lives are short. Our memories are mortal. And while the editors likely didn’t set out with the purpose of making readers feel inconsequential, there is a common (and often comforting) vein of self-awareness running through the issue. Continue reading “6×6 – Summer 2015”

In 2005, Ecotone was created at UNC-Wilmington with the vision of “reimagining place.” Now in its nineteenth edition, the magazine has successfully navigated the literary landscape for a decade and continues to build on that original motive. In honor of the journal’s tenth anniversary, the Editorial team wanted to further explore its obsession with the “literal interpretations of place and explorations of the transition zones that defines us,” and investigate this in their art. The result of this lasting curiosity is a special issue that celebrates this natural human experience, and brings readers closer to the words on the page. Continue reading “Ecotone – Spring 2015”

Despite a couple brief hiatuses throughout its long history to stabilize the journal’s financial situation, The Kenyon Review remains a staple in the literary world and consistently publishes first-rate material. Many prominent writers have been featured over the years, from Flannery O’Connor to Robert Lowell. In this issue, there is fiction from Laura van den Berg, poems from Natalie Eilbert, and an essay by Floyd Collins, among others. The pieces go in many directions, but they tend to share the theme of the characters discovering more about themselves and the surrounding world. Continue reading “The Kenyon Review – July/August 2015”

How do you define chaos? Perhaps as a series of simultaneously occurring events tossing ripples into reality’s pond? Trying to love someone who wants to change every aspect of your existence? Finding purpose in a traveling circus, performing death-defying stunts? Continue reading “Hayden’s Ferry Review – Spring/Summer 2015”

On the outside, Carve appears to be another waiting room read. Typically, literary reviews are thick and novel-esque. Not Carve. It’s thin (only 50 pages) and non-threatening. Cutesy, but attention-grabbing, vector art garnishes its glossy cover, embodying the literal definition of “magazine.” A rarity in form, I grabbed Carve before any other magazine in the pile. Continue reading “Carve Magazine – Spring 2015”

There are voices that are almost always overshadowed despite that their histories are embedded in our nation’s roots. Centered on the glossy cover of Valley Voices is Margaret Bowland’s painting of a young, black girl—her brown skin thinly painted white. Her attire consists of a white dress, blood spattered against a garden of white roses and cotton blooms. Ahead of her, beyond the splashes of red, a turquoise blue land, perhaps a more promising place. With her face turned almost completely towards me, and hopeful, she leads me there into that place to listen to the voices that I so rarely get to hear. Continue reading “Valley Voices – Spring 2015”

This issue of Arcadia starts off with the fiction piece “All the Women, Disappear” by Jonathan Durbin. In this short piece, the narrator describes his or her past relationships with different women. Without bogging down the reader with a multitude of details, the narrator creates vivid images of each character using each woman’s particular quirks, from Molly who “called the office so much my assistant rated her anxiety by the tone of her voice,” to Morgan who “read the front section of New York Times every day, cover to cover, while her parents were splitting up.” The ambiguity of the narrator also adds depth as the reader is unsure of the narrator’s gender, learning less about the main character of the story, than the past girlfriends. Continue reading “Arcadia – Spring 2015”

This issue of Gulf Coast opens with the 2014 winner of the Gulf Coast Prize in Translation. The winning translation is a series of poems by Marcelo Morales, translated from Spanish to English by Kristin Dykstra. The first poem “36” explores the ways in which “presence” is felt within us: “[ . . . ] a river of the unemployed. The way in which terror functions, the constant stippling of fear within you.” Continue reading “Gulf Coast – Summer/Fall 2015”

The Spring/Summer issue of EVENT is a particularly exciting read because it is the “Notes on Writing” issue. Not only does the journal provide a spectrum of poetry, fiction, nonfiction, and reviews, but it also provides reflective commentary on the creative writing process that is valuable for all but the most experienced writers. Continue reading “Event – Spring/Summer 2015”

I’m not sure what I was expecting when I began reading Chagrin River Review. Perhaps the multicolored cover featuring a light dangling above a spray-painted wall convinced me I was getting into something a little brighter than what I found in this issue’s fiction. While not the sunniest magazine I could’ve chosen, I was left feeling anything but disappointed. Continue reading “Chagrin River Review – Spring 2015”

If you are looking for consistency in content, do not look to The Gold Man. This is clearly a group of editors who have not settled into deciding that “this one” is only what their journal will publish when it comes to genre style. And readers looking for a variety of what’s new in contemporary writing—all in one neat package—should appreciate that. Continue reading “The Gold Man Review – 2015”

Doesn’t everybody just love a winner? Especially when it comes to reading the winning entries of a writing contest published in a journal’s newest issue. Chariton Review’s Spring 2015 issue starts off with the winner and finalists of their short fiction prize, judged by Christine Sneed. And, let’s be honest: the reason we love these as readers (and maybe writers ourselves) is because we want to see if we agree with the judge! Continue reading “Chariton Review – Spring 2015”