Year: 2017

Our Winter 2017 issue is here, and we are honored to celebrate two years of publication with this gorgeous writing. Many of these pieces draw from winter imagery (snow, trees, darkness) and winter symbolism (aging, death), but they will lead you to beauty and will not leave you cold.

Issue 9 features new poetry and short prose by M. J. Arlett, Maggie Blake Bailey, Tammy Bendetti, Angela Doll Carlson, Barbara Crooker, Darren C. Demaree, Patricia L. Hamilton, Seth Jani, Janna Knittel, Cameron Morse, Sergio A. Ortiz, Martin Ott, Alison Palmer, Luci Shaw, Anya Silver, Kaytie Rose Thomas, Sheila Wellehan, Kami Westhoff, Anne Harding Woodworth, and Chila Woychik.

In pedagogy papers, Sarah Joy Adams shares a useful tool for character development, and Kristen Sipper-Denlinger offers a model for bringing college and elementary students together over poetry.

New poetry collections by Diane Lockward, Nance Van Winckel, and Heidi Czerwiec are reviewed by Rachel Dacus, Tanner Lee, and Benjamin Stallings.

We are also excited to include our first interview: N. West Moss spoke with Jordi Alonso about The Lover’s Phrasebook, an illustrated poetry collection printed on detachable postcards.

We hope you will steal some time to read this issue. If you write, please see our submission guidelines and send us some of your work during our December reading period.

Warm wishes for your winter from all of us at Whale Road Review!

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Our Fall 2017 issue is here, and we find ourselves stunned by it. In the midst of natural and human-made disasters, we’re glad to share writing that immerses us in beauty and profound human connection. In the words of Joannie Stangeland’s poem from this issue, “We regret the dark and learn / again to live in the dark.”

Issue 8 features new poetry and short prose by Carol Berg, Sarah Bigham, Darren C. Demaree, Erika Dreifus, Howie Good, Avery M. Guess, Mary Harpin, Ariel Kaplowitz, Wilda Morris, Bettina Tate Pedersen, Jeremy Michael Reed, Sarah Dickenson Snyder, Joannie Stangeland, Annie Stenzel, Bonnie Rae Walker, Paul Willis, and Changming Yuan.

In pedagogy, John Gerard Fagan shares a genre fiction exercise that teaches students to collaborate and revise, and Marjorie Maddox and Gary R. Hafer offer a detailed exercise on place-based writing.

Sarah Ghoshal, Theric Jepson, Nate Logan, and Kathrine Yets review new poetry and fiction by N. West Moss, Sjohnna McCray, James Goldberg, Marisa Crawford, and Cristina Norcross.

We hope these pieces move you as they have moved us. Thanks for reading.

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Welcome to our Summer 2017 issue! We’ve got baseball and soccer, astronomy and mythology, ekphrasis and erasure, mothers, manatees, and more.

Issue 7 features haunting new poetry and short prose by Lana Bella, Rebecca Guess Cantor, Lori Cramer, Jen Davis, Marnie Bullock Dresser, Beatriz F. Fernandez, Travis Hancock, Marci Rae Johnson, Allen C. Jones, Jen Karetnick, Laurie Kolp, George Longenecker, Sandra Marchetti, Michelle McMillan-Holifield, Tania Pryputniewicz, Christina M. Rau, and Cliff Saunders.

For your teaching and writing, this issue’s pedagogy papers include a group renga project from Roy Beckemeyer and a storyboarding activity for revision from Barbara Krasner.

Finally, Mary M. Bryan reviews Andrew Seguin’s chapbook NN, Sonja Johanson reviews Lizi Gilad’s chapbook Hyperion: forest notes, and Ellen Sander reviews the album Skywriting with Glitter by Ellyn Maybe and Robbie Fitzsimmons.

We hope you’ll enjoy these short pieces beside the pool, on a plane, after putting kids to bed, or any other time you can steal a few moments to let writing move you.

We’re open for submissions of poetry and short prose for the month of June, and we’re always open for submissions of reviews and pedagogy papers. Please see our guidelines and send some work our way.

Happy summer!

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We’re excited to publish our Spring 2017 issue today! It’s a stormy issue. Spring isn’t just flowers and sunshine.

This issue has some incredible new poetry and short prose by Geoff Anderson, Caron Andregg, Glen Armstrong, Ace Boggess, Angela Doll Carlson, Judy Cooper, Jonathan Louis Duckworth, Jo Angela Edwins, Robert Ford, Amy Strauss Friedman, Connie Jordan Green, Sara Pirkle Hughes, Tina Mitchell, James Evans Remick II, Tammy Robacker, Jane Sasser, and Donna Vorreyer.

If you’re looking for teaching ideas (or prompts for your own writing), check out Ashby McGowan’s piece on writing and performing multi-voice poetry, Margaret Rozga’s prompt and behind-the-scenes look at revision, and Keri Withington’s clever use of dance videos to surprise students into writing.

Issue 6 also includes a review by Dane Hamann of the late Max Ritvo’s debut collection, Four Reincarnations, and a review by Jessie van Eerden of William Woolfitt’s second poetry collection, Charles of the Desert.

We hope this writing haunts you and helps you somehow. Thanks for reading!

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