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Welcome to our Spring 2021 issue and to the sixth year of Whale Road Review!

We’re in awe of the creative pieces in this issue. They seem to call and respond to each other, especially on the subjects of parents, lovers, and God. Issue 22 features poetry and short prose by Nadia Arioli, Heather Bourbeau, Caroliena Cabada, Kai Coggin, Barbara Crooker, Nicelle Davis, Sheila Dong, Auden Eagerton, Luciana Francis, Katie Karnehm-Esh, Sally Rosen Kindred, Anna Leahy, Courtney LeBlanc, Marjorie Maddox, Fatima Malik, Dayna Patterson, Michele Sharpe, Gail Thomas, Rodd Whelpley, Sunni Brown Wilkinson, Chila Woychik, Sarah Yang, and Wei Zheng.

In the pedagogy papers, Alison Lowenstein offers timely tips for running a virtual drop-in writing workshop, John Gerard Fagan uses letter writing to teach balance in creative nonfiction, and E. K. Taylor borrows the format of speed dating to focus and improve peer critique.

This issue’s reviews take us inside new poetry collections by Grace Carras, Jennifer L. Knox, and Frank Watson and into a new anthology from The Sheddies, a group of poets in Belfast, Maine. Thanks also to Cheryl Caesar, Nate Logan, Thomas R. Moore, and Jim O’Loughlin for their thoughtful work.

As a grand finale, this issue also features a fantastic interview with Caroline Earleywine, author of Lesbian Fashion Struggles, conducted by Risa Denenberg, co-founder Headmistress Press.

If you enjoy this issue and have the means, please tip the authors whose pages have a “Tip the Author” link under the bio. Thank you for reading! We hope you and yours are well and that better days are ahead.

Katie Manning
Editor-in-Chief

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Welcome to our Winter 2020 issue, which marks the 5-year anniversary of Whale Road Review! We’re so thrilled to celebrate this milestone with the writers in this issue and to look back at the incredible work we’ve published since 2015. What an honor it is to get to do this work.

“Isolation is a sea in which we swim,” Luci Shaw’s poem in this issue begins, and many of these pieces take us into solitary spaces—a childhood closet used for hiding, a phone booth used for calling the dead—or bring us into intimate experiences of past connections that are no longer possible. They allow us to return to Eden more than once and to travel to Alabama, Bethlehem, Otsuchi, Taichung, and Washington when many of us have been unable to travel for months. A few of these pieces also made me laugh out loud, and I needed that too.

Issue 21 features poetry and short prose by Michael Akuchie, Dan Albergotti, Grace Bauer, Caroline Collins, Morgan Eklund, Jennifer Givhan, Shemaiah Gonzalez, Stephanie L. Harper, Jordan Hill, Tiffany Hsieh, Laurie Klein, Alea Marie, Libby Maxey, Matthew Miller, Maria S. Picone, Sara Quinn Rivara, Luci Shaw, Cathy Ulrich, Elinor Ann Walker, William Woolfitt, and Meg Yardley.

The pedagogy papers in this issue focus on process and revision. Thanks to Wendy Call, Brent House, and Adrian Markle for sharing their expertise!

Thanks also to John Brantingham, Jennifer Saunders, Rebecca A. Spears, Allison Backous Troy, and Lindsey Weishar for their engaging reviews of new poetry collections by Matt Sedillo, Sonia Greenfield, William Woolfitt, Ann Conway, and Cameron Morse.

As a special feature, this issue also includes an interview with Siân Griffiths about her new short story collection. Eliza Souers, Eric Van Gorden, Hannah Hicks, and Kailee Isham sent such a fantastic interview that we’ve officially added interviews to our submission guidelines, and we’d love to see more of them in our inbox.

Speaking of submissions, we’re now open again for the month of December, and we look forward to reading more poetry and short prose for our upcoming Spring and Summer 2021 issues.

Thank you for reading! If you enjoy this issue and are able, please tip the authors whose pages have a “Tip the Author” link under the bio. Please take good care and stay well!

Katie Manning
Editor-in-Chief

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The writers in our Fall 2020 issue have captured so much of the grief and chaos of the present moment in deeply personal ways and with so much beauty. I feel stunned by and grateful for their work.

Issue 20 features new poetry and short prose by Paul David Adkins, Katherine Anderson Howell, Kerry Carnahan, Sarah Cavar, Ifoghale Eguwe, Nathaniel Lee Hansen, Jeremy T. Karn, Avery Kerr, Susan L. Leary, Danelle Lejeune, Sarah Lilius, Aaron Magloire, Devon Miller-Duggan, Cameron Morse, Simon Perchik, Kimberly Ramos, Liz Boltz Ranfeld, Susan Rich, Gretchen Rockwell, Grace Q. Song, Brooke Stanish, and Sunita Theiss.

The pedagogy papers in this issue include full lesson plans: Elizabeth Jorgensen offers a multi-day schedule for teaching students the Korean poetic form sijo, and E. K. Taylor provides an exercise for teaching style by having students remove eleven features of style.

Thanks to Julian Day, Kim Jacobs-Beck, Mary Anna Kruch, and Livia Meneghin for providing this issue’s reviews, which take us inside of recent poetry collections by Kiki Petrosino, Megan Mary Moore, Cheryl Caesar, and Khaled Mattawa.

We hope these pieces speak to you and linger with you through the season to come. Please take good care of yourselves and others. If you enjoy this issue and are able, please tip the authors whose pages have a “Tip the Author” link under the bio. Thanks for reading.

Katie Manning
Editor-in-Chief

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We chose the creative work for this Summer 2020 issue back in December and January. I loved these pieces then, but I need them even more now: “A friend’s trying to sneak past death,” Michael Lauchlan’s poem begins. Reading this issue again after the latest violence against Black people in the U.S. and after 2.5 months of sheltering in place feels like traveling through time and space with the ghost of summer past. Here are the good times and dark undercurrents, the brothers and flawed parents, the nursery rhymes and arcade games, the tanning beds and cancer cells, the pools and lakes and beaches, and so much more.

Issue 19 features new poetry and short prose by Jordi Alonso, gina marie bernard, Chloe N. Clark, Linda Dove, Samantha Duncan, Suzanne Edison, M. Brett Gaffney, Ben Groner III, Ken Hada, Karen Bjork Kubin, Michael Lauchlan, Elizabeth Joy Levinson, Christopher Linforth, D.S. Martin, Shawnte Orion, Lee Potts, Lex Runciman, Elizabeth C. Taylor, Kami Westhoff, and Paul Willis.

The pedagogy papers in this issue draw from the sacred and the secular: Jacob Stratman offers a poetry exercise based on a Catholic tradition, and Jason D. DeHart makes a case for using popular texts to energize students’ writing.

This issue’s reviews by Alex Carrigan, Robin Gow, and Evan Reibsome already persuaded me to buy new poetry books by Zefyr Lisowski and Robert Fillman, along with the newest anthology of women’s writing from Quail Bell Magazine.

We hope this issue provides you with some comfort and company in these overwhelming days. Please take good care of yourselves and others. If you enjoy this issue and are able, please tip the authors whose pages have a “Tip the Author” link under the bio. Thanks for reading.

Katie Manning
Editor-in-Chief

P.S. If you’re also a writer of poetry and short prose, please visit our guidelines and send us your work during our June reading period. We’ll consider pedagogy papers and reviews any time.

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Oh, readers. Our new Spring 2020 issue is breathtaking. We’re honored to get to share this gorgeous, haunting writing with you.

Issue 18 features new poetry and short prose by Michele Bombardier, Beth Boylan, Ronda Piszk Broatch, Jacob Butlett, Catharina Coenen, Jessica Covil, Meg Eden, Rebecca Edgren, Theresa Senato Edwards, Jeannine Hall Gailey, Robbie Gamble, Dave Harrity, Sonja Johanson, Suzanne Langlois, Cameron Morse, Twila Newey, Dayna Patterson, Bettina Tate Pedersen, Kyle Potvin, and Luci Shaw.

This issue’s pedagogy papers use rating systems in new contexts to enliven creative nonfiction and use a newly created form—the golden shovel—to introduce students to formal poetry. Thanks to Bethany Lee and Jeremy Michael Reed for sharing their work!

This issue also includes insightful reviews of recent poetry collections by Lauren K. Alleyne and Sarah Carey alongside a fascinating interview with Laura Kauffman. Thanks to Hope Fischbach, Alana Pearce, and Jody Collins for sharing their enthusiasm for these books and poets!

We hope this finds you well and able to steal some time to savor these pieces. Thanks for reading.

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Welcome to our Winter 2019 issue! We’ve got some wonderful writing that will bring you ziplines and landmines, mothers and lovers, glaciers and God. This issue will walk you into winter, through resolutions, and to the other side of February.

Issue 17 features new poetry and short prose by Susan Blackwell Ramsey, Allison Blevins, Marisa P. Clark, Joan Colby, Lynn Domina, Jennifer Fliss, Marissa Glover, Connie Jordan Green, Bára Hladík, Arminé Iknadossian, Abbie Kiefer, Laurie Kolp, Xiaoly Li, Mary Makofske, Susan O’Dell Underwood, John Sibley Williams, Hannah Silverstein, Billie R. Tadros, and Jenny Wong.

This issue’s pedagogy papers offer ideas for infusing fabulism into poetry prompts and for teaching creative writing beyond rubrics. We’re grateful to Catherine Moore and Robert Nisbet for their work.

Thanks also to Michele Bombardier, Wendy Taylor Carlisle, F.I. Goldhaber, and Catherine Kyle for taking us inside recent poetry collections by Heather Derr-Smith, Ann Fisher-Wirth, Shaindel Beers, and Alexis David in this issue’s reviews.

We hope our fourth anniversary issue will find you warm and well. Thanks for reading!

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We are thrilled to share our Fall 2019 issue! Some of these pieces confront current crises and expose skeletons (literally). Some glow with miracles and hope. One will wave to you from a carousel. All are stunning, worth reading and re-reading this autumn and beyond.

Issue 16 features new poetry and short prose by Katherine Anderson Howell, Mary Buchinger, Ben Groner III, Laura Reece Hogan, Marci Rae Johnson, Babo Kamel, Christen Noel Kauffman, Cathy Ann Kodra, A.D. Lauren-Abunassar, Michelle McMillan-Holifield, Amy Nemecek, Dayna Patterson, Simon Perchik, Cyndie Randall, Jen Rouse, Luci Shaw, Alina Stefanescu, Heidi Williamson, and Eleanor Wilner.

The pedagogy papers in this issue draw from visual art: Jason D. DeHart shares ideas for incorporating images at different levels of writing instruction, and Caitlin Horrocks uses the suggestive omissions from paintings to teach deliberate omission in writing.

Thanks also to Paul David Adkins, Jennifer Saunders, and Martha Silano for contributing fascinating reviews of new poetry collections by Karyna McGlynn, Michele Bombardier, and Amorak Huey.

We hope this issue finds you well. Happy reading!

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Our Summer 2019 issue is here! In the spirit of summer, these pieces want to dive into childhood, gaze at the night sky, and watch movie marathons with you. This issue aches with beauty.

Issue 15 features new poetry and short prose by Paul David Adkins, Christopher Todd Anderson, Jack B. Bedell, Ace Boggess, Aaron Brown, Barbara Crooker, Iris Jamahl Dunkle, Tresha Faye Haefner, Claire Keyes, Sally Rosen Kindred, Veronica Kornberg, Minadora Macheret, Jesse Miksic, Anne Myles, January Pearson, Jeremy Michael Reed, Jess Thayil, and Donna Vorreyer.

For teachers, Katie Darby Mullins shares a generative exercise from ‘90s rock, and Brett Jordan Schmoll brings history back to life with a multi-genre creative writing project.

The reviews in this issue are a special feature: all of the reviews focus on recent chapbooks of poetry and short prose, and all of the reviews were written by students at Lee University. You’ll want to take a few minutes to let Delight Ejiaka, Sarah Anne Gabriel, Shelby Marshall, Chloé Phelps, and Danielle Shumaker tell you about these exciting chapbooks by Yalie Kamara, Ryan Napier, Wendy Oleson, Nicole Rivas, and Rachel King so you can add them to your summer reading list.

This issue’s publication also signals that we’re open for creative submissions again, so if you write poetry or short prose, please see our guidelines and send some work our way.

Happy summer, dear readers!

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Our Spring 2019 issue has arrived! These pieces will bring you flowers, birds, sunshine, and art, but they will also take you to confront God and death. One poem will even take you to Hell. Hold on.

Issue 14 features new poetry and short prose by Kelli Russell Agodon, Thomas Allbaugh, E. Kristin Anderson, Angela Bilger, A.M. Brant, Chinua Ezenwa-Ohaeto, Amorak Huey, W. Todd Kaneko, Christine Tachick Kern, Marjorie Maddox, Ben McClendon, Cameron Morse, Charnell Peters, Angeline Schellenberg, Martha Silano, Jermaine Thompson, Paul Willis, Marne Wilson, and Anne Yale.

In the pedagogy section, Nancy Reddy offers a creative nonfiction exercise to draw out students’ quirky expertise, and Gary Charles Wilkens provides a worksheet for plotting short stories. In the reviews, Emily Baker, Michele Bombardier, Claire Keyes, and Charlotte Mandel take us inside new poetry books by Sally Rosen Kindred, Wyn Cooper, Lisa Bellamy, and Maryfrances Wagner.

We hope you love reading these incredible pieces, and we hope this issue finds you well.

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Our Winter 2018 issue is ready a day early, and it is too wonderful to wait until tomorrow, so we’re going to open this gift on December eve.

Issue 13 features new poetry and short prose by Catherine Arra, Julie Brooks Barbour, Brian Baumgart, Ruth Bavetta, Genevieve Kaplan, Jen Karetnick, Katie Karnehm-Esh, Laurie Klein, C. Kubasta, Kathleen Mitchell-Askar, Julie L. Moore, Cameron Morse, Martin Ott, Robert L. Penick, Luci Shaw, Jacob Stratman, Ojo Taiye, Milla van der Have, Sheila Wellehan, and Gary Charles Wilkens.

In the pedagogy section, Mike Moran and Donnie Welch share class exercises for creating action and writing dialogue. In the reviews, Anne Graue, Laurie Klein, Dayna Patterson, and Mary Peelen give us glimpses into new books by Sarah Nichols, Marjorie Maddox, Darren C. Demaree, and Geraldine Connolly.

As we set up this issue, we were especially moved by the tenderness of so many of the poems’ speakers. We hope that you’ll enjoy reading these pieces, and we hope that all of us will try, in the words of Brian Baumgart’s poem, “to find oxygen enough to say the love-yous / too many men bury in the deep dark.”

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