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- Issue Number "Wow Us" Writing Contest
- Published Date September 2018
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Publication Cycle
Quarterly
- Review by Katy Haas
Brilliant Flash Fiction promises to be even more brilliant than usual as they present the winners and shortlist of the “Wow Us” Writing Contest. Out of the 350 writers that entered, Eileen Malone, Suzanne Freeman, and Laton Carter stand out as the three placing winners.
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- Issue Number Number 45
- Published Date Spring 2018
- Publication Cycle Annual
- Review by Anne Graue
The spring issue of Birmingham Poetry Review (BPR) is an assemblage of numerous pieces to inspire and stimulate. Form and function bestow imagery and metaphor in new and distinctive ways. The issue contains sixty-eight poems plus seven from featured poet, Gerald Stern, in addition to essays, reviews, and an interview, so there is much to savor and revisit at every reading.
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- Issue Number Issue 44 Number 2
- Published Date Spring/Summer 2018
- Publication Cycle Semiannual
- Review by Craig Ledoux
Lisa Krannichfeld’s “Undomesticated Interior No. 7” dominates the cover of the spring and summer issue of Black Warrior Review. Its subject, a young black woman wearing a flashy blue suit, mint green button down, and screaming red boots, sits defiantly at the edge of a chair, ready for movement. An image of a snarling wolf hangs on the wall just behind her. In her artist’s statement, Krannichfeld says: “Images are vehicles for the teaching of history and it is the historical imagery of the female gender I aim to counterbalance.” Looking over the eight other images Krannichfeld has contributed to the issue, all of women in ornamentally-patterned suits, sitting in wallpapered rooms with framed images of bared fangs surrounding them like a warning, an aura, it’s clear that these are not the “doll-like women,” the “decorations” of the past; instead, Krannichfeld’s subjects throw the male gaze back at their viewers, watching with confidence, hands running together as they contemplate their opponent’s next move. And that move had better be good.
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- Issue Number Issue 1
- Published Date Fall 2017
- Publication Cycle Annual
- Review by Mitchell Jarosz
First volume, first issue, what should one expect? A group of locals got together to celebrate their neighborhood, what should one expect? A group of writers put together their own journal so being published became easier, what to expect?
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- Published Date Winter 2017/18
- Publication Cycle Annual
- Review by Evgeniya Monico
Under the seemingly plain cover of the Winter 2017/18 issue of Barrow Street, featuring a black and white photograph of one of the New York streets, I have found complex colors of poetry seeping through the pages. Barrow Street publishes both “new and established poets writing in a wide variety of styles” offering something captivating for any picky reader.
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- Issue Number Number 11
- Published Date 2018
- Publication Cycle Biannual
- Review by Craig Ledoux
Booth 11, the Women Writers issue, began, arguably, with male tears. In his introductory letter, Editor Robert Stapleton details an email he received after the 2015 Booth Poetry Prize shortlist was announced, in which a particularly entitled male noted: “Eight of your ten finalists are women. Is this gender bias or chance?” Stapleton kept his cool, explained the process dispassionately, and used the experience for growth. Prior to that email, he notes, two-thirds of the editorial staff at Booth had been men. Since then, the numbers have balanced as more than half of the journal’s editorial positions have been filled by women. Stapleton realized there was more he could do. “American history is dominated by the patience of women,” he writes, “and the world of American publishing, a garden of so much culture and progressive thought, should have been leading this charge long ago.”
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- Issue Number Issue 100
- Published Date Winter 2018
- Publication Cycle Biannual
- Review by Cheryl Wollner
Brick’s 100th issue celebrates forty years of nonfiction. An international journal published out of Toronto, Brick “prizes the personal voice and celebrates life, art, and the written word.” In issue 100, the authors look out into the world, to literature, to poetry and to nature for inspiration, while grounding their insights in the personal. Brick is a love letter to our artistic influences.
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- Published Date 2017
- Publication Cycle Annual
- Review by Delaney Lemke
I barely knew how to start with the 2017 edition of The Baltimore Review. It is huge. There are 325 pages of poetry and prose, a culmination of four online issues from Summer 2016 to Spring 2017. A little history in the Editor’s Note gave me a better sense of what I was delving into. The Baltimore Review has been around since 1996 and became an independent nonprofit organization in 2004. Though based in the Baltimore area, the journal accepts work from anywhere, and publishes online to a vast audience. There is such a wide variety of voices in the fiction pieces. There are stories about ballet dancers, dogs, gardeners, a young girl in Hawaii caring for her grandfather, an imagining of the future of online avatar use. The journal also feels current. The cover is a gorgeous painting by Sughra Hussainy featuring a self-portrait obscured by the zipped lip emoji, a statement about how women are often told to remain silent, even now. The Baltimore Review is not a place for silence. It’s a raucous collection of talented voices, passionate about a wide range of topics. It’s 325 pages of fresh new work.
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- Issue Number Issue 30
- Published Date 2017
- Publication Cycle Quarterly
- Review by Katy Haas
I have a soft spot in my heart for diners. I’ve spent countless nights at 24-hour restaurants, sipping bad coffee and shoveling down greasy food. At diners, you can sit and write as you study the cast of characters around you, you can escape responsibilities for a while, you can blend in and cease to exist in your sticky booth. The writers in Issue 30 of the pocket-sized Blink-Ink explore the different aspects of diners, all in 50-words or less.
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- Published Date Fall 2017
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Publication Cycle
Quarterly
- Review by Katy Haas
The art in the latest issue of The Boiler features paintings by Gloria Ceren and photography by Klara Feenstra. Ceren’s work evokes feelings of chaos and smoldering heat with warm colors and layered textures. Feenstra’s photography gives the sense of looking in from the outside, the overlaid image appearing like a reflection on glass as if the photographer took photos from the other side of a window. The writing in this issue of The Boiler echoes this: although we’re taking in the poetry and prose in this issue from the outside, the colors and chaos draw us in to examine it closer.
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- Issue Number Issue 3
- Published Date Summer 2017
- Publication Cycle Biannual
- Review by Craig Ledoux
“Cultural Landscape,” the cover image by Jakub Geltner that kicks off Issue Three: Threat, is a special kind of eye-catcher. A slice of pizza hangs precariously over a table’s edge, its cheese replaced by grass, its toppings swapped for uprooted trees and tumbling cars caught up in some unfamiliar landslide, slipping toward an undefined kind of doom.
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- Issue Number Issue 56
- Published Date September 2017
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Publication Cycle
Biannual
- Review by Katy Haas
Celebrating their 20th anniversary, Brevity is a staple in both concise writing, and skillful nonfiction. An assignment in my first creative nonfiction class years ago was to browse the online journal’s website and pick out pieces we admired, and since then, Brevity is a magazine I revisit often, knowing I will never be disappointed by what I find there. As one might expect out of an anniversary issue, the September 2017 edition contains masterful nonfiction, exemplary of the quality work readers have come to expect.
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- Issue Number Volume 11 Number 1
- Published Date 2017
- Publication Cycle Annual
- Review by Katy Haas
“Dark-colored, fine-grained,” reads the subtitle to basalt, the Oregonian journal named after the volcanic rock with those same dark, fine properties. Basalt is formed from surface lava cooling, and the poetry and art within the 2017 issue mimics its namesake, rising up as a strong finished product built from an eruption of words.
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- Issue Number Number 140
- Published Date Summer 2017
- Publication Cycle Quarterly
- Review by Cheryl Wollner
BOMB puts artists in conversation with each other. In the Summer 2017 issue, art is broadly defined and equally celebrated: poets and directors and architects, all are welcome at the table to open up the discussion on art, its legacy, history, and future. Particularly through reviews and interviews, BOMB lays bare artists’ inspiration, where creators and their creations speak to each other across time.
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- Issue Number Volume 17 Number 1
- Published Date 2017
- Publication Cycle Biannual
- Review by Denise Hill
Published out of Southeast Missouri State University Press, Big Muddy showcases works and authors “related to the Mississippi River basin and its bordering ten-state area.” While that might at first seem limited, there is no sense of that limitation in reading this publication. On the contrary, the genre styles, subject matter, and author backgrounds are so broad, “big” is even an understatement. More like its river’s namesake, this Big Muddy meanders, rages, roils, and gently laps through the gamut of literary creative expression.
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- Issue Number Volume 29
- Published Date 2017
- Publication Cycle Annual
- Review by Anne Graue
The Briar Cliff Review, a publication of Briar Cliff University in Sioux City Iowa, has published its 29th issue, and for 29 years it has held to its mission “to discover and support new and mid-career writers and artists, to keep literature and art alive for future generations.” This it has done in a beautiful issue of art, fiction, nonfiction, and poetry that serves readers finely-crafted portions of each genre. The annual publication is worth the wait.
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- Issue Number Volume 9 Number 1
- Published Date May 2017
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Publication Cycle
Biannual
- Review by Katy Haas
Blood Orange Review has existed for eleven years and has continued to stick to their founding mission: “to create a home for the emerging and established writers.” The May 2017 issue gives a home to twelve writers and one interview with Rita Wong.
- Subtitle Maps & Legends
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- Issue Number Issue 2 Number 2
- Published Date Spring/Summer 2016
- Publication Cycle Biannual
- Review by Cheryl Wollner
Published out of Virginia Commonwealth University, Broad Street: A Magazine of True Stories, bridges personal and researched knowledge in creative nonfiction. The journal furthers what it means to tell true stories. This issue, themed Maps & Legends, goes where no map can lead to find truth: exploring what it means to be a foreigner.
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- Issue Number Volume 6 Issue 1
- Published Date Winter/Spring 2016
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Publication Cycle
Biannual
- Review by Katy Haas
It's overwhelming to think of the number of people we see daily and try to imagine their individual lives, their hidden stories. John Koenig calls the sudden realization of everyone having their own story "sonder,” and bioStories lends a hand in coping with sonder by giving readers nonfiction glimpses into the lives and stories of those around us. New work is added to the website weekly, with two PDF anthologies of this work released per year.
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- Issue Number Volume 42 Number 2
- Published Date Spring/Summer 2016
- Publication Cycle Biannual
- Review by Cheryl Wollner
The Black Warrior Review (BWR), published out of the University of Alabama Tuscaloosa, mixes the bizarre with the familiar in issue 42.2. Best summed up by Megan Milks in their chapbook “The Feels”— a legitimization of queer pairing in fanfiction communities—this issue expands “what is possible in both the actual world and the world of the text.”
- Subtitle Texas Poetry Review
- Issue Number Number 27
- Published Date Fall/Winter 2006
- Publication Cycle Biannual
- Review by Jennifer Gomoll Popolis
There's nothing particularly distinctive about Borderlands, but it does contain some fine poems, and there's nothing wrong with that. Many of the poets here take small moments for their subject matter, suggesting larger introspection, as in a poem by Eric James Cruz. Here, an early morning run in a beautiful, pastoral place puts the poet in a meditative state of mind: “It is good to come here, / this happens to be your life, / this cradle of dark things, / this place in need of naming.”
- Issue Number Volume 57 Number 3
- Published Date Spring 2007
- Publication Cycle Quarterly
- Review by Jennifer Gomoll Popolis
BPJ publishes some serious poetry, and by that I mean finely-tuned, well-crafted poems that may require two or three or twenty readings to reveal themselves to you. There's nothing “fun” or “hip” here, and I say this not as a value judgment on “fun” or “hip” or even “serious,” but so that readers new to this venerated journal know what to expect.
- Issue Number Volume 3 Number 1
- Published Date Spring 2007
- Publication Cycle Biannual
- Review by Jennifer Gomoll Popolis
A lot of litmags call themselves contemporary, but Backwards City Review is one of the few that truly feels like a product of the 21st century. It's not just the alt comics and offbeat fiction, but the awareness that literature and art can, indeed, be fun. Dorothy Gambrell's Cat and Girl comic, for instance, presents a waitress (girl) and an indecisive customer (cat) trying to decide on an order. (What's “the anthropomorphic platter?” “Beef tongue on a roll.”)
- Issue Number Issue 7
- Published Date Spring 2006
- Publication Cycle Biannual
- Review by Sheheryar B. Sheikh
Enclosing 76 pages of innovative wordplay by contributors, Bird Dog constitutes a thin journal. But the density of material it contains ranks Bird Dog’s seventh issue among my favorites, one of the reasons for which is the cover—an electric orange with many dogs howling at a birdlike black gnash. My first dive into the material brought to face a labyrinth of giddy texts, where sentences sprang in every direction with ease. Most works deserve praise for their innovation.
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- Issue Number Issue 9
- Published Date 2016
- Publication Cycle Biannual
- Review by Katy Haas
Booth never fails to present a beautiful product, and Issue 9 is no exception. In fact, it’s such a beautifully produced issue, I wrote notes about it in a separate journal, unable to bring myself to scribble in the margins and ruin a good thing. A green color scheme starts on the cover with art by Jillian Nickell—a house on a hill that’s actually a sleeping creature’s back—and carries through the entire issue. Even the inside cover flaps are donned with colorful art. Luckily, the editors put in just as much care in their writing selections, so readers guilty of judging books by covers will not be disappointed when they read the work this issue of Booth holds.
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- Issue Number Issue 15
- Published Date 2016
- Publication Cycle Quarterly
- Review by Katy Haas
The 15th issue of Bop Dead City was released last month with the theme “Dreams,” a dreamlike state carrying over to much of the work in this issue.
- Issue Number Volume 9 Number 2
- Published Date Summer 2003
- Review by Jeannine Hall Gailey
This issue of The Bitter Oleander is heavy on translations and features an interview with writer and editor Nicomedes Suárez-Araúz as well as a selection of his poetry, which, overall, provides an international flavor to the collection. The translations in this issue are accompanied by the pieces printed in their original languages, from German to Spanish to Swedish, which I think adds nuances to the reading that otherwise might not be caught.
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- Issue Number Number 23
- Published Date 2016
- Publication Cycle Quarterly
- Review by Katy Haas
- Issue Number Volume 2 Issue 1
- Published Date Midsummer 2005
- Publication Cycle Biannual
- Review by Anna Sidak
- Issue Number Volume 11 Number 1
- Published Date Spring 2005
- Review by Laura van den Berg
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- Issue Number Issue 8
- Published Date January 2016
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Publication Cycle
Quarterly
- Review by Katy Haas
- Issue Number Number 15
- Published Date 2003
- Review by John Palen
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- Issue Number Number 5
- Published Date 2015
- Publication Cycle Biannual
- Review by Dan Schell
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- Published Date Winter 2014/15
- Publication Cycle Annual
- Review by DM O'Connor
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- Issue Number Volume 21, Number 2
- Published Date Autumn 2015
- Publication Cycle Biannual
- Review by Valerie Wieland
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- Issue Number Volume 15 Number 2
- Published Date Fall 2015
- Publication Cycle Biannual
- Review by Shelby Heinrich
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- Issue Number Volume 6 Number 1
- Published Date Spring 2015
- Publication Cycle Biannual
- Review by Dana Johnson
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- Issue Number Number 42
- Published Date Spring 2015
- Publication Cycle Annual
- Review by Dana Johnson
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- Issue Number Volume 18 Issue 3
- Published Date Spring 2015
- Publication Cycle Quarterly
- Review by Valerie Wieland
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- Issue Number Number 95
- Published Date Summer 2015
- Publication Cycle Biannual
- Review by Robert Boucheron
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- Issue Number Volume 4
- Published Date Fall 2014
- Publication Cycle Annual
- Review by Jordan Serviss
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- Issue Number Volume 41 Number 2
- Published Date Spring/Summer 2015
- Publication Cycle Biannual
- Review by Melanie Tague
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- Issue Number Volume 40 Number 2
- Published Date March/April 2015
- Publication Cycle Bimonthly
- Review by Justin Klose
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- Issue Number Volume 26
- Published Date 2014
- Publication Cycle Annual
- Review by Anne Graue
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- Issue Number Volume 10 Number 1
- Published Date Winter 2014
- Publication Cycle 9-Month
- Review by Kirsten McIlvenna
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- Issue Number Number 6
- Published Date Summer/Fall 2014
- Publication Cycle Semi-Annual
- Review by Julie J. Nichols
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- Issue Number Volume 14 Issue 1
- Published Date Spring/Summer 2014
- Publication Cycle Biannual
- Review by Travis Laurence Naught
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- Issue Number Issue 10
- Published Date Spring 2014
- Publication Cycle Annual
- Review by Lydia Pyne
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- Issue Number Number 10
- Published Date Winter 2014
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Publication Cycle
Biannual
- Review by Kirsten McIlvenna
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- Issue Number Volume 1 Number 2
- Published Date Summer/Fall 2014
- Publication Cycle Biannual
- Review by Travis Laurence Naught
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- Issue Number Issue 13
- Published Date Fall 2014
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Publication Cycle
Quarterly
- Review by Kirsten McIlvenna
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- Issue Number Issue 6
- Published Date Short Fiction Issue 2014
- Publication Cycle Biannual
- Review by Kirsten McIlvenna
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- Issue Number Volume 3 Issue 1
- Published Date Winter 2014
- Publication Cycle Biannual
- Review by Melanie Tague
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- Issue Number Volume 20 Number 1
- Published Date Spring 2014
- Publication Cycle Biannual
- Review by Sherra Wong
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- Issue Number Volume 14 Number 1
- Published Date Spring 2014
- Publication Cycle Biannual
- Review by Marcene Gandolfo
- Issue Number Volume 3 Number 1
- Published Date 2006
- Publication Cycle Every 9 Months
- Review by T.K. Dalton
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- Issue Number Issue 7
- Published Date Spring 2014
- Publication Cycle Quarterly
- Review by Melanie Tague
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- Issue Number Volume 8 Number 1
- Published Date Spring 2014
- Publication Cycle Quarterly
- Review by Anne Graue
- Issue Number Issue 81
- Published Date Summer 2008
- Publication Cycle Biannual
- Review by Dan Moreau
- Issue Number Volume 1 Issue 2
- Published Date Winter 2008
- Publication Cycle Biannual
- Review by Micah Zevin
- Issue Number Volume 3
- Published Date 2008
- Publication Cycle Annual
- Review by Rachel S. King
- Published Date September 2012
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Publication Cycle
Monthly
- Review by Kirsten McIlvenna
- Issue Number Issue 5
- Published Date Fall 2012
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Publication Cycle
Quarterly
- Review by Kirsten McIlvenna
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- Issue Number Issue 45
- Published Date Winter 2014
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Publication Cycle
Quarterly
- Review by Kirsten McIlvenna
- Issue Number Volume 11 Number 2
- Published Date Fall 2011
- Publication Cycle Biannual
- Review by Julie J. Nichols
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- Issue Number Issue 7
- Published Date March 2013
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Publication Cycle
Triannual
- Review by Kirsten McIlvenna
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- Issue Number Issue 9
- Published Date January 2013
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Publication Cycle
Biannual
- Review by Kirsten McIlvenna
- Issue Number Issue 87
- Published Date Summer 2011
- Publication Cycle Biannual
- Review by Robyn Campbell
- Issue Number Volume 4
- Published Date 2003
- Review by Sima Rabinowitz
- Issue Number Volume 26 Number 2
- Published Date Summer/Fall 2003
- Review by Mark Cunningham
- Issue Number Number 20
- Published Date Spring/Summer 2003
- Review by JHG
- Issue Number Volume 30 Number 1
- Published Date Fall/Winter 2003
- Review by /faq/reviewer-bios
- Issue Number Volume 29 Number 2
- Published Date Fall 2006
- Publication Cycle Biannual
- Review by Anna Sidak
- Issue Number Volume 36 Number 1
- Published Date Fall/Winter 2009
- Publication Cycle Biannual
- Review by Kayla Anderson
- Issue Number Issue 69
- Published Date December 2009
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Publication Cycle
Bimonthly
- Review by Henry F. Tonn
- Issue Number Volume 7 Issue 2
- Published Date Winter 2003-04
- Review by Jennifer Gomoll
- Issue Number Volume 28 Number 1
- Published Date Spring 2005
- Review by Sima Rabinowitz
- Issue Number Volume 22
- Published Date Spring 2009
- Publication Cycle Annual
- Review by Rachel King
- Issue Number Issue 50
- Published Date 2008
- Publication Cycle Annual
- Review by Rachel King
- Issue Number Volume 1 Issue 1
- Published Date Winter 2012
- Publication Cycle Biannual
- Review by John Palen
- Issue Number Volume 8 Number 1
- Published Date Spring 2012
- Publication Cycle 9-month
- Review by Alexandra Hillen
- Subtitle {Men's Fiction}
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- Issue Number Number 1
- Published Date 2012
- Publication Cycle Biannual
- Review by Kenneth Nichols
- Issue Number Volume 1 Number 2
- Published Date Winter 2012
- Publication Cycle Quarterly
- Review by Shannon Smith
- Issue Number Volume 35 Number 2
- Published Date Spring/Summer 2009
- Publication Cycle Biannual
- Review by Tony Bonds
- Issue Number Issue 47
- Published Date 2007
- Publication Cycle Biannual
- Review by Camilla S. Medders
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- Issue Number Volume 12 Issue 2
- Published Date 2013
- Publication Cycle Biannual
- Review by David R. Matteri
- Issue Number Volume 16 Number 2
- Published Date Autumn 2010
- Publication Cycle Biannual
- Review by Sima Rabinowitz
- Issue Number Volume 54 Number 3
- Published Date Spring 2004
- Review by Jeannine Hall Gailey
- Published Date 2006
- Publication Cycle Biannual
- Review by Christopher Mote
- Issue Number Issue 4
- Published Date Fall/Winter 2005-06
- Publication Cycle Biannual
- Review by Matt Bell
- Issue Number Volume 6 Number 1
- Published Date Spring 2006
- Publication Cycle Biannual
- Review by Terri Denton
- Issue Number Volume 2
- Published Date 2009
- Publication Cycle Annual
- Review by Sima Rabinowitz
- Issue Number Volume 9 Number 2
- Published Date Fall 2009
- Publication Cycle Biannual
- Review by Sima Rabinowitz
- Published Date November 2009
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Publication Cycle
Monthly
- Review by Henry F. Tonn
- Issue Number Volume 7 Issue 1
- Published Date Autumn 2003
- Review by Denise Hill
- Issue Number Issue 6
- Published Date Winter 2009
- Review by Micah Zevin
- Issue Number Volume 2 Issue 2
- Published Date Autumn 2009
- Publication Cycle Quarterly
- Review by Henry F. Tonn
- Issue Number Volume 9 Number 2
- Published Date Summer 2005
- Publication Cycle Biannual
- Review by Donna Everhart
- Issue Number Volume 13 Issue 3
- Published Date Spring 2010
- Publication Cycle Quarterly
- Review by C.D. Thomas
- Issue Number Issue 2
- Published Date Spring 2012
- Publication Cycle Annual
- Review by Kenneth Nichols