The Spring/Summer 2022 issue of Concho Review Review features fiction by Marco Etheridge, David Harris, Paul Juhasz, Judy Stanigar, Gemini Wahhaj; poetry by Jonathan Bracker, Matthew Brennan, Nick Conrad, William Virgil Davis, Holly Day, David Denny, Lynn Domina, George Drew, Shawna Ervin, William Heath, Ann Howells, Ken Meisel, Gary Mesick, Elizabeth Rees, John Rutherford, Claire Scott, Matthew J. Spireng, Chuck Taylor, Larry D. Thomas, Barbara Tyler, Matthew Ulland, David Vancil, Maryfrances Wagner, Harold Whit Williams, Neal Zirn; and nonfiction by Janice Airhart, Michael Howarth, Kay Long, Gabriel Carlos Lopez. Cover photograph: UntamedPhotography by Tim L. Vasquez.
The Fall/Winter 2022 issue of Concho River Review (36.2) opens with an Editor’s Note letting readers know they have online access to the full proceedings of the 25th Angelo State University Writers Conference in Honor of Elmer Kelton through the Angelo State University digital archives. This includes a transcript of the interview with Naomi Shihab Nye, the featured writer. Also in this issue is a tribute by Drew Geyer to writer and “Master Craftsman” Clay Reynolds, who passed away April 2022; he was a constant supporter and regular contributor to the publication since its first issue in 1987. Contributors to this issue are David Denny, Marlene Olin, David Pratt, Clay Reynolds, Jim Sanderson, C. D. Albin, Jeffrey Alfier, Tobi Alfier, Roy Bentley, Jonathan Bracker, Matthew Brennan, Camille Carter, Robert Cooperman, Johanna DeMay, Paul Dickey, E. P. Fisher, Stephen Gibson, Garret Keizer, Gunilla T. Kester, Gordon Kippola, Ulf Kirchdorfer, Nicholas Kriefall, Richard Krohn, Russell Rowland, Michael Salcman, John Schneider, George Searles, Matthew J. Spireng, Eric Fisher Stone, Elizabeth Sylvia, David Vancil, Ken Wheatcroft-Pardue, Francine Witte, Gladys Haunton, Melissa Musick, D. E. Steward, and Christopher Thornton.
This issue features fiction by Jim Barnes, James Robert Campbell, Jonathan Lindberg, Elizabeth Cummins Muñoz, and Clay Reynolds; nonfiction by Robert Kostuck, Shelley Pernot, and Christopher Thornton; and more. Read more at the Concho River Review website.
In the Fall/Winter 2020 issue of Concho River Review, two ekphrastic poems can be found one after the other. First is “Abraham Preparing to Sacrifice His Son” by David Denny about Marc Chagall’s “Abraham Preparing to Sacrifice his Son, According to God’s Command,” and the second is “Telephone in a Dish with Three Grilled Sardines at the end of September” by Paul Dickey about Salvador Dali’s painting which the poem is titled after.
Denny’s poem describes Chagall’s piece and then slides the focus out of frame, to those not pictured. The speaker states, “[ . . . ] while the men / play out their little dramas of heaven and earth, / it’s those left out of the official portrait that make / the real sacrifices.” Denny then paints a picture of Sarah, Abraham’s wife, imaging the heartbreaking grief one would feel seeing her husband “tie her beloved boy to the saddle, / tuck his best knife into his belt.” I enjoyed this focus on the emotion the portrait fails to include.
Dickey’s poem questions the meaning of Dali’s painting again and again, walking us through the detail as his attention slips from one to the next. While Denny focuses on what’s not in the portrait, Dickey becomes focused on discovering what is presented to us and what it means.
These two poems work as great companion pieces for one another, well-placed within the pages of this issue.
In this issue: fiction by Tom Murphy, Doug Ramspeck, Terry Sanville, and Ken Wheatcroft-Pardue, and nonfiction by Paul Juhasz, Jeffrey Lockwood, John Robinson, Rachel Schiel, and Steve Wing. Read more at the Concho River Review website.
There’s a fine selection of short fiction in the Spring/Summer 2020 issue of Concho River Review. Among them is the five-page “Tacos Callejeros” by Kenneth Hinegardner.
In this story, Steven observes a mother and her two children at a restaurant. The children misbehave as he eats and watches their behavior, and he ends up taking a liking to their mother, Melanie. Between these observations are passages about watching a dog fight on a past trip to Tijuana. As we read, it becomes clear Steven is not a caring and concerned individual, but is closer to a dog, its teeth around another dog’s throat.
Hinegardner writes with a slow build to the end, writing with precision and subtlety. The final character in this story, Ruben, acts the reader’s place, recognizing this part of Steven that is slowly revealed across the pages in this chilling, short piece.
This issue is dedicated to Dr. Terry Dalrymple, the founding editor of CRR. It includes fiction by Peter Barlow, Michael Fitzgerald, and others; nonfiction by Michael Cohen, Lucie Barron Eggleston, and more; and poetry by Barbara Astor, Roy Bentley, Jonathan Bracker, Matthew Brennan, Holly Day, Alexis Ivy, Ken Meisel, Alita Pirkopf, Maureen Sherbondy, Travis Stephens, Marc Swan, Loretta Diane Walker, Francine Witte, and more. Read more at the Concho River Review website.
Concho River Review is a traditional literary magazine, offering the old-fashioned pleasures of text and comprehensibility under the motto “Literature from Texas and beyond.” Published twice a year in paperback by Angelo State University, and part of the Texas Tech University System, the contents are mostly from Texas, with little from beyond. They are neatly arranged in sections for fiction, nonfiction, poetry, and book reviews, with roughly equal amounts of each, with no graphics or artwork.
