3.9.2024

A Free Workshop! Putting the Poem in Prose Poem

by Barbara Westwood Diehl


Join BR editors Barbara Westwood Diehl and Paige Passantino for a free prose poem workshop via Zoom on Sunday, April 7, 2024 at 2:00 p.m. Eastern time. We'll take a look at sample prose poems, examine how they shuffle elements of prose and poetry, and provide timed exercises for you to write your own. Plus some time for chat and Q&A.

To register, send your email address to editor@baltimorereview.org, and we'll send you the Zoom link before the session.

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2.28.2024

Behind the Scenes Part 2

by Jodie Abruscato


This is our second installment of Behind the Scenes, in which The Baltimore Review readers share how the review process works, what they’re looking for in a submission, and how reading for a literary journal affects their lives. They provided a fascinating behind-the-scenes look at The Baltimore Review.   


Marcie Roman


What genres do you review? 

Fiction and creative nonfiction 

Some reviewers have jobs related to literature, and others do not. What is your profession, and how does it affect—or not affect—your life as a writer and reader for a literary journal? 

My background is in film and theater production. Early on, I worked in the Art and Locations Departments, so I feel especially drawn to stories that have a vivid sense of place and specificity. In my own work, I'll often imagine aspects of the world that won't appear on the page, but I think (hope!) they create opportunities for the characters to reveal their true natures. I've also worked in script development, so I'm always hoping to read (and aim to write) tight dialogue. I find it helps to "rehearse" scenes by reading them aloud to see how they flow.

 
What are you looking for when reading submissions? 

In addition to the above, I love the musicality of language and the feeling of being carried into a piece by the rhythm and detail. I also enjoy being surprised.  Not because of a plot twist, but rather the kind of surprise that comes when you sense the writer made a discovery or deep insight through the writing. I'm also looking for a strong craft/authorial voice and a sense of urgency that gives the writing a pulse. As if this story had to be told.  And I want to leave the piece feeling as if the character and I went on an emotional journey together.


Is there anything you’d like The Baltimore Review readers and/or submitters to know about the review process?

The stories that often get elevated are the ones that have had several rounds of revisions before entering the queue. If a submission includes newer writing, setting it aside to give it a few more days to "marinate" can often reveal subtle weaknesses (and typos!) that might otherwise be missed when we've been looking at something too long. Like the Baltimore Review readers, I get excited by the work we receive, and it's such a thrill to discover a new voice. 

 

Barbara Westwood Diehl, founding and managing editor
 

What genres do you review? 

I read submissions in all the genres we publish and make final decisions about the work to be included in each issue. That said, I very much depend on the reviewing skills of the 20-25 readers we have at any one time to work through the thousands of submissions we receive during each submission period (February 1 – May 31 and August 1 – November 30). Most of us have strong opinions, and we spend considerable time reviewing in Submittable and discussing work in Zoom meetings. It’s a never-ending learning process. Highly recommended for writers, by the way—volunteering for journals and seeing the other side of Submittable. 


Some reviewers have jobs related to literature, and others do not. What is your profession, and how does it affect—or not affect—your life as a writer and reader for a literary journal?

I’ve been happily retired from administrative jobs for several years now. I have no idea how I managed the BR during all the years I had full-time employment—along with writing short stories and poems—but somehow, I made it work. Here’s a theory: I believe that if we have a passion for our work, we prioritize that work and make it happen. Some of my poems and stories began their lives as words scribbled on sticky notes while cooking or vacuuming, and I confess to reading submissions during quiet times in the office. (Sorry, former employers. It’s way too late to fire me—and I did catch some higher-ups playing Solitaire.)

On a more serious note, managing a literary journal does require some business know-how. There’s the creative side; there is also the budgeting/fundraising/time management/nonprofit organization reporting/social media/participation on panels/working with staff members/other administrative-duties-as-required side. Working in various administrative jobs over the years no doubt helped me with that latter side. 

I’ll give credit to all the wonderful faculty members at Towson University (my undergraduate degree) and Johns Hopkins University (my master’s degree) for the creative side—helping me become a better creative writer as well as a more astute reader. 

 
What are you looking for when reading submissions?

Oh, it would be so easy to get started on what I’m not looking for—but I won’t. And what might be a negative for me might not be a big deal for another editor. And I’ve been voted down on some submissions. (Then I blame it on reading fatigue and slink away from my computer in shame.)

Nuts and bolts stuff: I want to see that the submission guidelines have been followed. They’re not lengthy or complicated. Cover notes are not a big deal. Writers should demonstrate professionalism. “Thank you for considering my work.” A brief bio like those accompanying the work on our site. That’s it. Easy. I want to see that the writer has a firm command of the language: spelling, grammar, punctuation, word choice, attention to sentence structure, to sound and rhythm—an ear for the music in language. Vowels and consonants that make me hear music in my head. Clarity. A style that allows me to be immersed in the work without sensing the pulleys and levers and stagehands stumbling over props behind the curtain. A concise and precise use of language. Elegance. I want to sense, immediately, that I’m in good hands.

Content: I want to be surprised. Most of us read widely. We read a lot. Like other BR editors, I want to hear distinct voices. I want nuance and fresh insights. I want to learn. I want to see some new and startling facet of humanity. I want to have a sense of completeness and satisfaction—not that the work has been tied up with a bow, but that the work couldn’t have ended any other way. And maybe that it has a life beyond the page. There are characters that are still very much alive to me; I wonder what they’re up to. I want language and ideas that pop. Like a painting you can recall in more detail than a family member’s face. If a story has magical elements, I want to not stop believing for a minute, and I want to be able to defend its right to be called literary fiction. I want to sense confidence and authority in a writer’s work. And maybe be a little jealous.

I want to feel that a work’s form fits its content. That it had to be a 4,000-word story or flash fiction or micro or prose poem or lineated poem. That the stanza and line breaks and white spaces had to be precisely where they are. The architecture fits the furnishings that fit the inhabitants of that particular literary house. 

So—high marks for both craft and content. And, fingers crossed, consensus among the readers.
 

Is there anything you’d like The Baltimore Review readers and/or submitters to know about the review process?

All the work we publish comes in through Submittable. The work is what counts—not the cover note. Many of us don’t even look at the cover note before reading the work (and never with contest submissions). Every submission is read by at least one reader. We have worked hard to develop criteria for assessing submissions, and we do talk to each other about what we find amazing and what we find concerning. We are writers ourselves, and we try hard to treat writers as we want to be treated. I firmly believe that we should consider ourselves a literary community, not Team Editors and Team Writers. I believe most of us love reading and writing and have good intentions. When we decline work, we try to do so with respect, and writers who receive decline responses (we all do!) shouldn’t let that stop them from scouting out the perfect publications for their work. Sometimes it can be a gentle nudge to revise a bit more. When we accept work, we maintain communication with the writers so they know exactly what we need, the issue in which their work will appear, what and when they’ll be paid, and when the issue is launched so they can share it on social media. All those things we want ourselves as writers.   

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2.23.2024

Behind the Scenes Part 1

by Jodie Abruscato


I asked three of The Baltimore Review readers to share how the review process works, what they’re looking for in a submission, and how reading for a literary journal affects their lives. They provided a fascinating behind-the-scenes look at The Baltimore Review.   

 

Julia Tagliere


What genres do you review? 

Fiction, creative nonfiction, and for contests, some poetry


Some reviewers have jobs related to literature, and others do not. What is your profession, and how does it affect—or not affect—your life as a writer and reader for a literary journal?

I'm a former high school Spanish and French teacher, which gave me not only a very solid grammar background (something not drilled as intensively nowadays as it used to be), but also built up a skill set that comes in very handy for reading for a lit mag: being able to read through stacks of submissions quickly and efficiently, kind of like grading papers. Having been out of the classroom for 20+ years now, however, I've been fortunate to be able to devote most of my time to reading, writing, editing, and studying. The more widely I've read, the better a reader I think I've become, which in turn has made me a better writer as well. I think being on the other side of Submittable is very helpful in my own writing because it keeps me humble, patient, and grateful as I submit my own work. Folks who work for lit mags do so for the love of it, and a great many of them are writers, also, which helps me remember that even if I don't thumbs-up a submission, that piece is someone else's pride and joy. It takes a lot of courage and faith and hope to hit send on a submission, and being on the receiving end of those is a great way to keep the process in perspective and make me a thoughtful, careful reader. 


What are you looking for when reading submissions?

When I last answered that question, I only noted things that turned me off, which is simpler to convey, but here goes:

1. Polish that piece. Don't send it without reading it out loud (helps you catch a lot of things before it's too late) and doing one final spelling/grammar check. Will we DQ you for a typo? No. Could it be the tiny little detail that makes the difference between two content-brilliant pieces? Yes.

2. A smooth read, by which I mean there's nothing that jerks me out of your narrative. Show your piece to at least one other reader and see if anything makes their attention stumble. Try to keep me in the narrative as much as possible. 

3. A great opening line or paragraph. Hook me right from the start with something that makes me want to keep reading, something that makes me keep asking what happens next.

4. Remember that there are no new stories under the sun (my shorthand for this I owe to Rocket from the Guardians of the Galaxy moviei.e., "Everyone's got dead people." Virtually any reader who sees your piece has had some of the exact same experiences you're writing about: death, love, marriage, bullying, the pandemic, a childhood trauma. That's not to dismiss others' desire to write about them, your story is your story, but for it to rise to the level of literary fiction, you need to find some way to elevate a life event to help me see it in a completely different way. Play with the language, find unexpected angles or voices or structures that turn the whole thing on its head and make me say, "Wow, I never thought of it like that before."

5. Make me FEEL. Explore tactility; how does something feel or sound or taste or smell? But avoid cliches like the plague (see what I did there?); try to find some wholly fresh and inventive way of getting me into your world. One of my favorite examples of this is from Ocean Vuong's On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous: "Then, your chin turning into a peach pit, you lower your face into your hands." It would have been so easy to just write, "Your chin wrinkled up," but with this peach pit analogy, I can see his mother's chin crumpling up as she begins to cry, I can feel it under my finger tip, and it's a lightning bolt of comprehension.

6. Lastly? READ. Read, read, read, read, read. Get to know the genre in which you're writing. If it's flash, read flash. If it's poetry, read poetry. Study those pieces, dissect them, highlight the daylights out of them to figure out what makes them tick. Trust me, it WILL make you a better writer. Read outside your comfort zone as much as possible. The goal is to grow, and if you haven't read widely, it shows in your work.  


Is there anything you’d like The Baltimore Review readers and/or submitters to know about the review process?

Over the years I've been reading for BR, I've had the opportunity to work with some exceptionally talented editors and writers. Every one of them understands the sacredness of this work; we are thoughtful in our discussions, mindful of how precious your submission is to you, and downright giddy when we find pieces that make us laugh or cry or mourn or fear in ways that we might never have expected. There's just nothing like reading something that makes you stop for a moment and savor. We all have our preferences and our own quirky, little idiosyncrasies about things writers do that drive us crazy, but we all recognize that writing is highly subjective, as is reading, and what one of us finds lovely, another editor may find too purple, and that's where the level of respect and professionalism of the BR team really shines. It's a pleasure to work with them, and Barbara Diehl, our founding and managing editor, does a marvelous job keeping us all moving forward as a team. It's an honor to be part of it. 

 

Adina Edelman


What genres do you review? 

Fiction and poetry


Some reviewers have jobs related to literature, and others do not. What is your profession, and how does it affect—or not affect—your life as a writer and reader for a literary journal?

I work as a book editor for authors of memoir and fiction (edelmanedits.com). I originally interned with The Baltimore Review to gain editorial experience, and I stayed on as a volunteer editor. I love the discussions that go on behind the scenes—what we like about a piece, whether it might prove insensitive, or if it was missing a crucial story element. Editing can be a lonely task, and joining with other people in the field and seeing their viewpoint is so refreshing. I definitely take those different viewpoints into my own work, letting them broaden my editorial eye. And, as I gain experience as a book editor, I bring what I learn into reading for the BR. I'm able to more easily pinpoint what's not working, why something is working, or what can be done to improve a submission. It's fun stuff.


What are you looking for when reading submissions?

One big thing is voice, and this is something that reading for The Baltimore Review has given me a strong appreciation for. Many writers are still finding their voice, and their writing may come across as flat and uninteresting. It's hard to nail voice. But when you read a story rich with it, it's like an espresso shot in a drink. Everything lights up, and it can easily carry you through an 18-page story. It's just dazzling.

Another thing I look for, and this is particular to poetry, is fresh perspective. Turning something mundane into something new. Making the ordinary extraordinary. And not doing it in a dramatic way but actually making it real. There's nothing new under the sun, but you can use certain language to turn those sun rays into something you've never seen before.


Is there anything you’d like The Baltimore Review readers and/or submitters to know about the review process?

I think it's important for readers to know that it's not just one person looking at their work and then done. It's a team. And for those submissions that get close, there's a lot of discussion. Writing—and reading—is so subjective, and we understand that. Know that rejection does not always mean the story doesn't have merit. It might have needed a couple more revisions, or perhaps it wasn't right for The Baltimore Review.

Coming from the other end, I do want to encourage all writers to please take time away from their work and then edit again before submitting. It's inevitable that a piece will have typos or grammar errors but show us that you care. Show us that you put in effort to make this work clean and presentable. It matters.


Elizabeth Knapp


What genres do you review? 

Poetry

 
Some reviewers have jobs related to literature, and others do not. What is your profession, and how does it affect—or not affect—your life as a writer and reader for a literary journal?

I'm a college English professor, so I live and breathe literature. It's often difficult for me to get into a groove with my own writing during the academic year, so summer is usually my most productive season. I read poetry submissions all year round, but as with my own writing, I have more time in the summer to devote to editorial work. 

 
What are you looking for when reading submissions?

I want a poem to “take the top of my head off,” to quote Emily Dickinson. If a poem does that on the first reading, I know it's a keeper. 

 

Is there anything you’d like The Baltimore Review readers and/or submitters to know about the review process?

I recommend that submitters keep their cover letters brief and professional.

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2.17.2024

A Chat With Nine 2024 Debut Novelists—and Hear Them Read!

by Christa Davis


What if I told you that as a writer, rejection is part of the territory, part of the learning landscape? Yes, you will only be rejected if you submit your work, but you’ll learn a lot in the process, and you’ll only get published if you submit it.

In our last blog post, Lynn Stansbury shared her experience so far with the Poets & Writers’ 2023 “Get the Word Out cohort. The program introduces debut authors to the nitty-gritty of being published: publicity and marketing. Today we will introduce you to Lynn’s fellow writers in the program. Spoiler alert: most of these talented, award-winning authors were rejected many times before their work was accepted.

DON’T MISS this Friday’s Poets & Writers “Get the Word Out Fiction Reading” on February 23, 2024, at 7:00 PM ET. 


 

Kathya Alexander - Keep A’ Livin’

Kathya Alexander, author of Keep A’Livin’, “didn’t get published for years.” Her debut novel-in-verse is a captivating story about a young girl’s life during the Civil Rights Movement in the 1960s. She says Keep A’Livin’ “shows activism as more than just a few famous protest speeches, the costs to those who dedicate themselves to activist work, and the passion that drives us ever forward to a better, more just future.” 

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Kathya's advice to emerging writers: “Accept rejection as part of the process. And even though it’s hard, don’t take it personal. Just keep doing it over and over and over, and one day somebody will want exactly what you have to offer.”

Kathya Alexander’s plays, storytelling, and life as a teaching artist explore the beauty and complexity of contemporary African American life, the rich infusion of Black culture into American life, and what it means to be Black in America. Keep A’Livin’ is available for pre-order from Auntie Lute Press.


 


Christina Cooke - Broughtupsy

Christina Cooke’s debut novel Broughtupsy follows twenty-year-old Akú who, after years of rejection and separation, returns home to Jamaica and finds hope of reconciliation of who she is to her very conservative family and home culture, with the help of a brash young woman from the streets of Kingston.

Christina says rejections do not define your ability as a writer. “Sometimes it’s simply, ‘no, your piece isn’t a good fit for this issue even though it’s so lovely . . .’ Over time, you’ll develop the stamina and tenacity to see yourself through.” 

Born in Jamaica, now a Canadian citizen, Christina lives and writes in New York City. Visit her at christinajcooke.com. Broughtupsy is available now from Catapult.

 

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Alisa Alering - Smothermoss

Alisa Alering’s first fiction submission never published. “Nor was the next or the next or the next. I had no idea what I was doing.” 

The road to publishing took many years for Alisa, but their debut novel, Smothermoss, “explores themes that emerge from an Appalachian childhood, caught up in the interplay between human and other sensibilities in the forest. Everyone has their own opinion.”  

Alisa’s advice to emerging writers: “Listen. Not just to teachers and successful writers but to your inner voice. Stay curious.” 

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Award-winning writer, editor, writing coach, and former librarian, Alisa Alering writes fiction for adults and children and non-fiction that explores science, technology and the future. They live in Southern Arizona. Smothermoss is available for pre-order at Tin House.



 

 

Lena Valencia - Mystery Lights

“You need to submit work to get published. But the majority of your focus is better spent on what you do have control over: Your writing.” 

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Lena Valencia’s wisdom draws from her writing—her submissions, rejections and lessons learned. “Publication is wonderful for a writing career, but I believe that a focus on craft, reading, and community will help any writer build a truly sustainable writing life.” 

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Mystery Lights, Lena’s debut fiction collection, grapples with terrors familiar and fantastic. From the all-too-real horror of a sexual predator on a college campus to a lost sister transformed by cave-dwelling creatures, these stories floodlight women and girls caught at the crossroads of mundane daily life and existential dread. 


Lena Valencia lives in Brooklyn, NY. She is the managing editor and director of educational programming at One Story and the co-host of the reading series Ditmas Lit. Mystery Lights is available for pre-order from Tin House.



 

Parul Kapur: Inside the Mirror

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Set in 1950s Bombay (Mumbai), Parul Kapur’s debut novel, Inside the Mirror, explores female creativity and identity-making at time and in a society that denies women the freedom to shape their own lives, even as that society struggles to assemble the shards of its own identity after two brutal centuries of European colonialism.

Inside the Mirror a novel by Parul Kapur

Parul’s first fiction submission: “was accepted right off the bat by Wascana Review, leading me to the dangerous belief that publication would come easily . . . I learned soon enough this was a lucky break and I . . . had much to learn about my craft.” 

For new writers, Parul says, “Write only about the things you care most deeply about and are most intrigued by.”


Parul Kapur was born in Assam, India, grew up in Connecticut, and holds an MFA from Columbia. Behind the Mirror is available from the University of Nebraska Press.


 

Jessie Ren Marshall: Women! In! Peril!

Jessie Ren Marshall’s debut story collection, Women! In! Peril!, follows a diverse cast of women—parents and children, queer girlfriends and straight divorcées, bad teachers and horny students, robots and sex workers—who are on the precipice of change and must decide whether to embrace that change or run for cover.

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Full of wry humor, sharp social commentary, and an irrepressible sense of hope, Women! In! Peril! is a ferociously feminist reflection on love and the possibility of human growth.

Jessie says the best part about publication is “contact with people who also care about literature . . . it’s such a joy to find like-minded authors, editors, and readers.” She believes that literary magazines are a tremendous benefit for the community.  “Not only do lit mags support early career writers, they provide training for undergraduate and graduate students, help to make their institutions a center for the arts, and create a legacy of achievement and community.” 


 

Jessie Ren Marshall lives and writes off the grid on the Island of Hawai’i. Women! In! Peril! can be  pre-ordered from Bloomsbury.



 

 

 

 

Marissa Higgins: A Good Happy Girl

Debutiful’s Adam Vitcavage calls A Good Happy Girl “one of the sexiest, most sensual, and sapphic books in recent memory . . . Come for the tantalizing text but stay for the subtle, soft humane moments in between.”

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Award-winning author Marissa Higgins’s debut novel, A Good Happy Girl, considers worlds without men. And women who will do what they can to get what they want. In her exploration of twisted desires, queer domesticity, and the effects of incarceration on the family, Marissa Higgins offers empathy to characters who often don’t receive it. With unsettling results.


Marissa Higgins lives in Washington, DC. A Good Happy Girl can be pre-ordered at Catapult.



 

Esinam Bediako: Blood on the Brain

“Do your research before submitting your work. Find lit mags you enjoy, publications where you think your writing fits, and submit there. And also, don’t give up . . . your piece will find a home in time.”

Esinam Bediako is a Ghanaian American writer from Detroit. She holds degrees in English/comparative lit, and teaching, and an MFA. She has taught high school English, edited textbooks, served as a secondary school administrator, and, during one nerve-wracking summer, worked as a pharmacy technician. 

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Esi’s award-winning debut novel, Blood on the Brain, tells the story of a Ghanaian American grad student struggling to confront the challenges in her life. She deals with her problems the best way she knows how—by rushing headlong into new ones—until the pain of all her unresolved trauma finally catches up to her.

Esi lives in Claremont, California with her husband and their two sons, who create stories, videos, and other artwork with enviable speed and imagination. Her essay/poetry chapbook Self-Talk is due out this year from Porkbelly Press. Blood on the Brain can be pre-ordered from Amazon.



 

Bruna Dantas Lobato: Blue Light Hours

Bruna Dantas Lobato is a fiction writer and translator. Her translation of Stênio Gardel’s The Words that Remain won the 2023 National Book Award for Translated Literature

In her debut novel, Blue Light Hours, forthcoming in October 2024, Dantas Lobato limns a tender portrait of a mother and a daughter coming of age together four thousand miles apart. In America, a young Brazilian woman starts a new life in a small Vermont liberal arts college. At home a continent away, her lonely mother worries. In nightly video calls, in the Skype-blue light of their computers, they try to tell each other the news, when what’s new is beyond words.

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Bruna says, “I’ve been lucky to meet wonderful writers, editors, and readers through the magazines I’ve worked with—including my agent, who found me on the pages of A Public Space.” Her advice to emerging writers: “Stick to it, push yourself to ask the hard questions, revise. Then submit to your favorite journals.”  


Bruna was born and raised in Natal, Brazil, and lives in St. Louis, Missouri, in the US, with her partner and pet bunny. For information about Blue Light Hours, due out from Grove Atlantic in October 2024, visit Bruna’s website HERE.


 

 

 

NOW, join the brilliant authors from the Poets & Writers’ 2023 “Get the Word Out" cohort as they perform a live virtual reading to celebrate their achievements.  Head over to Poets & Writers to RSVP to the 2024 Get the Word Out Fiction Reading on February 23, 2024, at 7:00 PM ET.   

 


 

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1.20.2024

Winter 2024 Issue Launched January 19, 2024

by Barbara Westwood Diehl


Welcome to our winter 2024 issue!


Congratulations to our winter contest winners:

Sasha Wade – Prose Poem

Eileen Frankel Tomarchio – Flash Fiction

Elizabeth J. Wenger – Flash Creative Nonfiction

And special thanks to our final judge, Marion Winik.
 

We hope that you enjoy these short works as well as poems by Christopher Blackman, Jessica Hammack, Terrance Owens, and Hayden Saunier; fiction by Mike Cooper, Elizabeth DeKok, Derek Dirckx, Kirsten Imani Kasai, Sophie Klahr, and Franz Jørgen Neumann; and creative nonfiction by Derek Maiolo and Bob Ostertag.
 

Our Submittable doors open again for poems, short stories, and creative nonfiction on February 1. Summer contest categories open on March 1.

We are now reading for our spring 2024 issue.

Thank you for reading and supporting the work of writers!

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1.16.2024

An Interview With Baltimore Review Editor Lynn Stansbury

by Christa Davis


I sat down with Baltimore Review’s own Lynn Stansbury, who was among the ten debut novelists in this year’s Poets & Writers’ 2023 “Get the Word Out” cohort. The program introduces fiction authors to the nitty-gritty of being published: publicity and marketing.   

Lynn’s forthcoming book, Not All Dead Together, depicts a lifetime of Guatemalan history, a meditation on family, heroism, and unlikely friendships in the midst of hostile surroundings. 

In this three-part blog series, writers of all levels will learn about the Poets & Writers’ 2023 “Get the Word Out” program. Through Lynn’s candid lens, she offers her own unique perspective about the program, how it works, and why publicity is essential to book publishing. 

Not All Dead Together is scheduled for release by Chin Music Press in Fall 2024. 

 

Where are you in your writing journey? Does it matter?

What matters is knowing where we want to go with our writing. A lot of us hope to publish our work, and whether you’re a new writer or an experienced novelist, it’s never too early or too late to learn about the publishing world. 

 

Without revealing too much, what would you say your upcoming book is about?

About taking responsibility. About building family across what are conventionally viewed as unbridgeable gaps of time, culture, history, and experience. Told across the sixty post-World War II years that have seen the US overthrow of Guatemala’s legitimately elected reformist president (reminds you of what?), then the Guatemalan Thirty Years War and the second Mayan genocide, Not All Dead Together chronicles a friendship that grows between two young women and their families, one Guatemalan, one gringa, a bond that survives and matures through thirty years of genocidal civil war and fifteen more of kleptocratic narco-terrorism. 

 

Tell us about any influences or inspirations you had when writing your book.

The way I craft stories—how they start, grow, and birth themselves in my head—are fairly consistent in both my long and short form fiction writing: a scene, a landscape, something happening in that landscape.

But this particular book, more than any of my other novels, grew from a conviction that in my Peace Corps years in Guatemala, I had been privileged to witness genuine heroism, again and again, among some amazing people. A story that kept growing over the years that followed. And that I needed to find a way to tell that story in a way that would honor them but not further endanger them. 

 

What drew you to P&W, and how did you hear about their program?

P&W has posted and curated some of the most useful websites for searching for literary agents, for possible contests, and appropriate journals for short story submissions.

 That said, notice of the “Get the Word Out” fellowship turned up in my gmail account at just the right moment and I jumped on it! 

 

Describe your reaction to the news that you were selected for the 2023 fiction cohort.

Mind you, the contract offer on Not All Dead Together had blown me out of the water. So “gobsmacked,” yes, but, being now among the “select” of being a “real” author, I guess I also thought, well, anything’s possible.

 

Describe the program so far. Are you optimistic about the process and how it aligns with your expectations?

May-Zhee Lim, a top publicist with Penguin Riverside, leads each session. The sessions take alternating forms. 

The core program is a series of “workshops” in which May-Zhee leads a discussion—usually framed around but not limited to questions she posts about where we are and how we are thinking about and dealing with our publicity and marketing issues. Through this process, May-Zhee has done a wonderful job of building us into a mutually supportive working group. 

The workshops then alternate with seminars featuring a guest presenter. We have had three so far: Nora Alice Demick, a marketing specialist with Penguin Riverside, Hernan Diaz, Pulitzer Prize winning novelist, and Spencer Ruchti, author events manager for Thirds Space Books, the largest independent bookseller in Seattle. The fourth presenter, January 17, will be Miwa Messer, the host of the Barnes & Noble “Poured Over” book review podcast series. The information that we’re getting certainly meets my expectations; the access to the top tiers of the current publishing scene has been awe-inspiring. 

 

Are there any misconceptions about publishing that aspiring writers should know about?

I was surprised by the array of tasks and odd bits of expertise that the writer (like the patient and their family in health care) thought were going to be handled by the professional team but which in fact one must do or at least coordinate oneself. For many of us, the writerly headspace is a solo voyage across a wide and lonely sea. Whereas the experience of actually being published—especially by smaller indie presses, particularly those that will still look at un-agented work—is like herding cats. 

 

Finish this sentence: The future of fiction writing is _______.

As rich and full of possibility as ever. Not least because we humans keep having to discover and relearn the same stuff over and over again. And storytelling is so often how we do that.

 

 

Lynn Stansbury is a fiction editor for Baltimore Review and lives in the Seattle, Washington area with her husband. Not All Dead Together, her fifth novel but her first to make it beyond iUniverse, is due in October 2024 by Chin Music Press. 

 

 

 


Christa Davis is a graduate student of Professional Writing at Towson University, a Marine Corps veteran, and reads fiction and CNF submissions for Baltimore Review. She enjoys time with family, genealogy, history, and writing nonfiction. 

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1.15.2024

Elizabeth J. Wenger

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1.15.2024

Sasha Wade

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1.15.2024

Eileen Frankel Tomarchio

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1.15.2024

Hayden Saunier

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1.15.2024

Terrance Owens

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1.15.2024

Bob Ostertag

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1.15.2024

Franz Jørgen Neumann

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1.15.2024

Derek Maiolo

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Sophie Klahr

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1.15.2024

Kirsten Imani Kasai

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1.15.2024

Jessica Hammack

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1.15.2024

Derek Dirckx

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1.15.2024

Elizabeth DeKok

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Mike Cooper

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1.15.2024

Christopher Blackman

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12.13.2023

Baltimore Review 2023 Prize Nominations

by Barbara Westwood Diehl

Baltimore Review 2023 Nominations:

 

The Best Short Stories of the Year: The O. Henry Prize Winners
July 1, 2022 – July 1, 2023

“You Wish This Were a Novel,” Matt Barrett

“Pictures of a Woman You Never Knew,” Abigail Oswald

“The Stirling Stone,” Frank Reilly

“The Scrape,” Kirk Vanderbeek


Best of the Net
Work published between July 1, 2022 and June 30, 2023

“Mezuzahs,” Jared Beloff

“Moose Prayer,” Kael Knight

“Envy,” Lance Larsen

“Alone at Passing Period,” Karis Lee

“Pictures of a Woman You Never Knew,” Abigail Oswald

“Erosion and the Laetoli Footprints,” Susan Blackwell Ramsey

“Bad Apple,” Lucy Zhang

“What I Remember,” Alison Zheng

“White Rabbit,” Huina Zheng

“There are so many levels called darkness,” Jane Zwart
 

Best Small Fictions
Work under 1,000 words published in 2023

“Daps for the Dead,” Sacha Bissonnette

“Sidewalks,” Robin Littell

“Seventeen,” Joshua Jones Lofflin

“Scorpion Season,” Cressida Blake Roe

“Ars Poetica,” Kelly Weber
 

Pushcart Prize 
Work published in 2023
 

“They Look Like Me,” Kayo Chang Black 

“The Home Front, 1992,” Sheila Black 

“Oxygen,” Brendan Constantine 

“Thiohnaka (Home),” Jim Genia 

“Laugh Machine,” Katherine Tunning 

“There are so many levels called darkness,” Jane Zwart 

 

Copies of our annual print compilation are sent to the Best American series editors each year. 

We also send copies of work published online after our print compilation is published.

And sometimes, nominations and even awards come as a pleasant surprise. We include a list of awards here.

Wishing all the best for the wonderful writers published in the past year’s issues!

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11.8.2023

Fall 2023 Issue - Includes a “Featured Maryland Writers” Section

by Barbara Westwood Diehl

Welcome to our fall 2023 issue, which went live on November 6!

We decided to include a special section in this issue for writers who are Maryland residents. Yes, we publish the work of writers from all over the U.S. and beyond, but we have a special place in our hearts for the locals. We are so pleased to share the work of these Maryland writers: Ned Balbo, Tara A. Elliott, Matt Hohner, Joshua Jones Lofflin, Marie Pavlicek-Wehrli, and Jane Satterfield. 

We hope that you also enjoy the poems and short stories from Sascha Bissonnette, Sheila Black, Sara Burge, Brian Czyzyk, Renee Emerson, Jane McKinley, Areej Quraishi, Katherine Tunning, and Zachariah Claypole White. A good number of this issue’s contributors included comments and audio files with their work. A wonderful bonus.

Our Submittable doors are open through November 30 for poems, short stories, and creative nonfiction. We are also reading contest submissions: prose poems, flash fiction, and flash creative nonfiction. See each category’s submission guidelines if you would like your own work considered for our winter issue. 

We nominated many of our contributors for awards this year: Best of the Net, the various “Best American” anthologies, and more. Pushcart nominations will go in the mail soon. We will announce all award nominees on our blog in December. See our “Awards” page for a list of BR contributors' honors.  

Thank you for reading and supporting the work of writers!

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11.2.2023

Zachariah Claypole White

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11.2.2023

Katherine Tunning

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11.2.2023

Jane Satterfield

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11.2.2023

Areej Quraishi

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11.2.2023

Marie Pavlicek-Wehrli

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11.2.2023

Jane McKinley

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11.2.2023

Joshua Jones Lofflin

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Matt Hohner

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11.2.2023

Renee Emerson

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11.2.2023

Tara A. Elliott

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11.1.2023

Brian Czyzyk

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11.1.2023

Sara Burge

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11.1.2023

Sheila Black

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11.1.2023

Sacha Bissonnette

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11.1.2023

Ned Balbo

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8.12.2023

Maryland Writers Feature Planned for Fall 2023 Issue

by Barbara Westwood Diehl

Attention local writers: 

We are planning a special Maryland Writers section for our fall 2023 issue. 

So Submittable categories are open for poetry, fiction, and creative nonfiction categories for writers from anywhere—plus a special category for writers who are Maryland residents. 

So if you're currently a Maryland resident, consider submitting poems, short fiction, and creative nonfiction for this special fall 2023 section.

Three poems. Or prose that is 5,000 words or less (including flash length—we love flash).

Deadline to be included in this special section: October 7, 2023

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8.12.2023

Two Free Generative Writing Sessions

by Barbara Westwood Diehl

Need to set aside an hour of writing time for yourself? Need someone to give you prompts and set the timer? Here are a couple of free generative writing sessions from Baltimore Review. If you want to receive the Zoom link the morning of each session, email editor@baltimorereview.org

 

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7.28.2023

Our Summer 2023 Issue is Live

by Barbara Westwood Diehl

Welcome to our summer 2023 issue!



Congratulations to our summer contest winners:

Jarrett Moseley – Prose Poem

Robin Littell – Flash Fiction

Rochelle L. Johnson – Flash Creative Nonfiction

And special thanks to our final judge, Kelly Weber.
 

We hope that you enjoy these short works as well as poems by Brendan Constantine, Sara Elkamel, Michael J. Grabell, Bronte Heron, Virginia Kane, and Charlie Peck; fiction by Roxanne Lynn Doty, Jim Genia, Robert Osborne, Remy Reed Pincumbe, and Tom Roth; and creative nonfiction by Kayo Chang Black and Mimi Veshi.

We open our Submittable doors again for poems, short stories, and creative nonfiction on August 1. And we’ll announce our winter contest soon after. 

Also, we’re pulling our annual print compilation together, and that will be sent to contributors and available for purchase before the end of summer. The book will include the work in the summer and fall 2022 and winter and spring 2023 issues. 


Thank you for reading and supporting the work of writers!

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7.24.2023

Mimi Veshi

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7.24.2023

Tom Roth

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7.24.2023

Remy Reed Pincumbe

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7.24.2023

Charlie Peck

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7.24.2023

Robert Osborne

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7.24.2023

Jarrett Moseley

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7.24.2023

Robin Littell

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7.24.2023

Virginia Kane

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7.24.2023

Rochelle L. Johnson

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7.24.2023

Bronte Heron

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7.24.2023

Michael J. Grabell

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7.24.2023

Sara Elkamel

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7.24.2023

Jim Genia

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7.24.2023

Roxanne Lynn Doty

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7.24.2023

Brendan Constantine

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7.24.2023

Kayo Chang Black

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6.30.2023

Interview with Jane Satterfield

by Elizabeth Knapp

 

The Badass Brontës by Jane Satterfield (Diode Editions, 2023)

Book Description:

The Badass Brontës by Jane Satterfield

In blazing poems of biography and reinvention, Jane Satterfield’s The Badass Brontës explores the lives and afterlives of sisters Emily, Charlotte, and Anne, “hellbent/at books & candle-lit” and the inspiration for readers and writers as far-ranging as Kate Bush and Sylvia Plath. A Yorkshire cleric’s daughters forced to break into publishing by masquerading as men, here they burn brightly as themselves in poems that range from life narratives and lyric elegies to witty inquiries into the sisters’ status as popular culture avatars. Here you’ll find a poem in the form of an Internet quiz that reveals which Brontë you most resemble, a look at the tattoos a modern-day Emily might have worn, the title poem in which the sisters stride forward as action heroes, and a poem on Harriet Beecher Stowe’s real-life attempt to summon Charlotte’s ghost in a séance.

Elsewhere, Satterfield’s vision looks to the crises of our own age. In a sequence about desire and women’s choices, Emily is reimagined as an apprentice hedge witch encountering the medicinals of “Eve’s herbs,” a pupil tutored in the secrets that they harbor; meanwhile, Charlotte faces the primal trauma that robbed the sisters of their mother when she confronts the reality of her own fatal pregnancy. Here are treasures galore: from poems that reflect Emily’s status as a proto-environmentalist whose rescued hawk Nero is a source of joy and grief, to further channelings of the Brontë sisters’ sensitivity to fragile landscapes and the more-than-human world. For longtime Brontë fans and newcomers alike, The Badass Brontës is a poetic tour-de-force that remixes and reinvents the lives, afterlives, and creative achievements of three extraordinary women whose influence continues to be felt.

 

What was the inspiration/motivation for writing a collection of poems about the Brontë sisters? Were there any earlier poetry collections that served as models for the book?  

On one hand, the book’s an expression of Brontë fandom that goes back as far as the day I saw the memorial to Charlotte, Emily, and Anne in Westminster Abbey’s Poets’ Corner during the summer I spent in England with my mother’s father (a retired steelworker charged with entertaining a seven-year-old child), so definitely stanning. But I also wanted to investigate the way they remain figures of fascination for readers world-wide—isn’t there something magical in the concept of three ferociously creative sisters who initially collaborate on fantastical tales, refuse to jettison their imaginative lives, and then grow into artists with distinct but complementary visions, posing as men to publish the gothic inflected, spellbinding novels we remember them by.       

But the sisters really came alive for me during a year when I was living in the UK. Walking moorland trails gave me a feel for the landscapes they immortalized in print. Also, I visited the Brontë Parsonage Museum in Haworth, Yorkshire.i Once I saw the rooms where the sisters lived and wrote—the kitchen where Emily jotted down poems while baking bread—I knew I’d write a Brontë book with the ever-elusive Emily as the star. More recently, other factors—including environmental catastrophe and the threat to personal autonomy—spurred me on.            

As for models, several books offered important lessons in biography and reinvention. Lucie Brock-Broido’s The Master Letters, Natasha Tretheway’s Belloq’s Ophelia, Nicole Cooley’s The Afflicted Girls, Tyehimba Jess’ leadbelly, and Shara McCallum’s No Ruined Stone are beautifully researched and seamlessly voiced collections. Carol Ann Duffy’s The World’s Wife, Jo Shapcott’s dramatic monologues that reanimate the world of Robert and Elizabeth Browning, A.E. Stallings’ recreations of Greek mythological figures, and Simon Armitage’s dramatic monologues (particularly those about Branwell Brontë) were helpful guides as I wrestled with the challenge of crafting idiomatic speech to bring the sisters into a contemporary context. And I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention the Davids—St. John and Yezzi—monologists of differing visions who write syntactically rich and dizzyingly vivid narratives that cut to the white-hot core of their characters’ psychic dramas.

 

The poems so effectively balance biographical and imaginary details about the Brontës. How conscious of that balance were you when you were writing the poems? What strategies did you use to maintain that balance as you were working on the book? 

Thanks so much! Since I also write creative nonfiction, I think a lot about fidelity to facts. Beside the site visit, I did archival research at the New York Public Library to get a close-up view of Emily’s poems and other artifacts; I devoured a ton of Brontë-related scholarship. I love the idea of literary detective work.   

But I didn’t want to simply recreate a static timeline of well-documented biographical events—I thought of the book as a dialogue with Brontë biographical material and texts. Taking this approach made it easier to conjure the sisters as dynamic characters whose experiences and ideas connect to the present day. The growing threat to women’s reproductive autonomy led me to imagine a three-part prose poem about how these issues might have played out in the Brontë’s time. The first section imagines Tabby, the family’s servant, teaching Emily about medicinal herbs (something generations of women have done), but there's no record of anything like this actually taking place. Charlotte did really die of severe morning sickness and so, in this case, I drew on letters—her own and one penned by a confidante that suggests medical action should have been taken to save Charlotte’s life. Anne was a year and a half old when her mother died tragically; it’s uncertain whether of uterine cancer or, possibly, a lingering post-partum infection. I couldn’t have made the imaginative leaps without a working knowledge of the family’s biographies and a sense of their cultural context—all the details necessary for world-building.

I think facts help adaptations feel grounded, ring true. When I envisioned the sisters as spellcasters rewilding the landscape, I needed to be conscious of the larger than human world—the moorland geographical features, the flora and fauna. In other poems, I paid attention to the nuances of the sisters’ voices as I encountered them through their novels and poems, as well as the traces of personal writing they left behind—the letters and diary entries that provide a window into their domestic routines and daily life. Looking at digital images of the sisters’ samplers or drawings of their pet menagerie also offered glimpses into their personalities—but from that point, you’re just going on intuition. Of course, the personae we adopt are always extensions of ourselves—sometimes less, sometimes more.


The poems also consider the Brontë sisters within the context of contemporary society and culture, and as such, they become relatable characters, as in “Emily, Inked.” How do you see them as being literary figures ahead of their time? 

I’m so glad you mentioned “Emily, Inked.” Emily was a skilled visual artist—the watercolor of her rescued merlin, Nero, is delicately colored and vividly renders shades of plumage. Many of her poetry manuscripts are edged with doodles or quirky marginalia. And much of the poetry she wrote from late adolescence through adulthood brings to life the imagine world of Gondal that she and Anne created in childhood. So this was a fun poem to write, the kind of poem that leaps off a “What if?” And interestingly, Frances O’Connor’s recent film starring Sex  Education’s Emma Mackey brings to life an Emily who sports a tattoo that reads “Freedom in Thought.”    

The sisters also speak to a familiar paradox: seemingly reserved within the roles in which they were cast, resisting the gendered restrictions of their time, yet wildly outspoken in their creative work. They wrote about ambition, grief, domestic abuse; they understood how economic systems disempower workers, and how the law is used to create inequality. It’s easy to imagine the Brontës as isolated geniuses, but they were deeply immersed in the issues of their day. In fact, their home was perched at the top of a village humming with factories that polluted nearby streams, so they were living at the literal forefront of the Industrial Revolution, documenting a changing world. And their writing reflects an abiding concern for the nonhuman world—all of which makes them freshly relevant for our time.  


Another striking aspect of The Badass Brontës is its wide-ranging use of poetic forms, such as the villanelle, sestina, epistle, prose, persona, and ekphrastic poem. Do you find that certain forms lend themselves to certain subjects (or vice versa)? 

Yes, I totally agree! By its nature, a project book needs variety, so that became an incentive to experiment. The villanelle’s rhyming structure and repeating refrains seemed a perfect form to capture flash mob recreations of Kate Bush’s video performance of “Wuthering Heights.” An added plus: poems with set stanza patterns can be time-savers—you have a template to follow that guides you—often in unexpected ways—to shape a poem’s content and music. Same with poetic genres—they provide a way of framing your field of vision, of managing a poem’s scope. This was the case with Conrad Atkinson’s striking drawing “Emily Brontë’s Shopping Trolley”: it gave me springboard to imagining an Emily who indulges in a bit of free-wheeling, post-quarantine shopping—something I might not have thought of otherwise.


How did you go about structuring the book? What techniques did you use to determine the poems’ placement and organization?

It seemed essential that the book’s dramatic arc begin and end with Emily’s voice. Though the arc isn’t strictly chronological, poems about the sisters’ early life do appear early on to give a sense of their sibling relationships; they also reveal core traits of the socially engaged writers they’d become. Beyond that, I shuffled poems in an associative arc to flesh out the project’s main threads: the biographically driven monologues, the reinventions and environmental strand, and poems that explore the sisters’ afterlives in popular culture. 

And the hat tip here goes to my partner, Ned Balbo—who, unlike me—writes primarily (though not exclusively) in form and meter, composes and records songs, and has a refined ear for the sonic features that make or break a poem. His work is rich in its historical and topical range; it’s underscored, too, by concern for the environment. He’s also written formidable and empathetic narrative sequences about the complexities of his life as an adoptee, exploring the varied (and often colliding) perspectives of family members. We talked a lot about sequencing, about which poem subjects best advance the book’s narrative, and where particular poems became overloaded with factual detail. I’m beyond fortunate to have a generous reader who gives such good advice.


What drew you to the book’s cover image, and why did you select it? And what was it like working with Diode Editions, the press that published the book? 

Thanks for giving me the chance to talk about so many aspects of The Badass Brontës. The cover image, “Sinking In,” is by Kelly Louise Judd (a Missouri-based artist and illustrator who goes by the name of Swanbones on Etsy). Her work feels neo-Victorian in its of use of color as well as its imagery—floral, botanical, filled with woodland creatures. I see it as flirtatious, grounded, and wild all at once—a perfect metaphor for Emily’s spirit. Diode is terrific to work with: they have a fantastic stable of aesthetically diverse writers deeply engaged with the issues of our time. Fun fact: Judd’s work also adorns the cover of my press mate Sally Rosen Kindred’s arresting book Where the Wolf. In a poetic landscape rich with work deeply deserving to make it to print, mine was a quirky project, for sure. I’m so grateful the book found a good home. 

___________________

iThe Brontë Parsonage Museum is a site of literary pilgrimage immortalized in Virginia Woolf’s first published essay, “Haworth, 1904” and in the handful of poems Sylvia Plath wrote in the wake of her 1956 visit with her new husband, Ted Hughes.

 

Elizabeth Knapp

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6.25.2023

Writing as a Long, Winding Conversation

by Paige Passantino

I recently had the privilege of attending my first writing residency and was lucky enough to enjoy the experience on the fantastic beaches of Sithonia, Greece. I was drawn to the residency not only for the stunning location but for its multi-genre element: the fellows included poets, journalists, playwrights, TV writers, fiction writers, and songwriters, all reading and workshopping each other’s pieces. The residency also boasted a long list of activities: a trip to the ruins of Olynthus, a boat trip through the Grecian islands, a tour of a vineyard, and more. 

At points, the experience felt like a reality TV show: a group of 10 strangers arrive at a massive home on the beach and spend a week living and writing together. The mixture of creative work and eclectic personalities meant there was never a dull moment. Conversations of our favorite films of the year, the books we loved (and didn’t love so much), shared anxieties, or thoughts on process were perpetually taking place. Hours went by in what felt like minutes as we sat around the dinner table, or by the shore, swapping stories. 

I came to the residency thinking I’d spend 14 days writing. I’m going to finish and perfect my chapbook! Start—and finish—new pieces! Write multiple essays! Organize the chaos that is my Google drive! Finish multiple books that I’ve wanted to read for ages! Update my CV! 

I did none of these things. The social aspect contributed to this, as did the Aegean Sea, calling my name again and again, demanding I spend hours floating on its salty stomach. And the conversations I was having with my fellows were too fascinating to walk away from—we all had so many questions for each other, and I had never been around so many people so furiously passionate about not just writing but storytelling. In undergrad writing workshops, you were bound to have a few folks thinking that poetry class was an easy A or students who were trying it out for the first time with not much excitement. Nothing wrong with that—but my fellows in Greece were career writers, people as compelled by language as I was. I would aim to write but accidentally spend an hour talking to a fellow, suddenly sharing some of my deepest feelings with someone who felt far from a stranger in a matter of days.

By the middle of my stay, regardless of the good time, I was starting to feel a little anxious. How had so much time been lost that I could have been writing? When would I get it all done? Was this all for nothing? Had I wasted this experience? It was my first residency—maybe I had done it all wrong? A residency in Greece feels like a once in a lifetime experience—but did I write enough?

Eventually, I sat down, carving out very intentional space to write. And what happened was a spurt of words, ideas, and language that took me by complete surprise. I was bursting with thoughts; they had been swirling around inside of me the whole time, consistently fed by the sights, the conversations, the laughter, and the bonding that had been taking place. I had been arriving at new perspectives all week and having mini-revelations about the content of my current projects, but I had ignored those feats in my anxious ruminations on not writing. I discovered this in that writing session as the words flowed so freely, so full of emotion. I felt more confident in my writing than ever, and ironically, not writing was the impetus for this creative explosion. 

The second week of the residency, culture critic from The New Yorker, Doreen St. Felix, joined us in a mentorship role (Ryan Calais Cameron had been with us the first week). As an introduction, we all shared pieces of our methods and discipline. “Not writing is writing,” Doreen shared, also expressing that she’s trying to live a life fuller than just sitting in front of a computer screen. I attended an online workshop with author Melissa Febos that same week, and she described a similar sentiment, explaining how at one point in her career she felt tied to the idea of writing every day, which is often drilled into us writers. She found she actually worked better when she didn’t impose that pressure on herself. 

This made me wonder how we define writing and if this definition can potentially undermine other ways in which we interact with language. In The Book of Delights, Ross Gay describes “the process of thinking that writing is” as a long run-on sentence that he attributes to “the really nice time my body was having making this lavender Le Pen make the loop-de-looping we call language. I mean writing . . . which comes from our bodies, which we actually think with.” Locating language in the body makes it more of a physical experience that extends beyond using a pen or a keyboard. And though I wasn’t using those tools during my time not-writing, I was utilizing style, voice, and syntax, and I was doing so verbally within conversation. It was still a complex form of engaging with language, discovering new ideas through the process of searching for and combining words and phrases. 

I left the residency with a new understanding of what it means for me to be a writer. It is so much more than piecing together words and phrases with the hope of forming that perfect sentence, obsessively editing line by line. It is about living as a writer, possessing a sense of curiosity toward not just your interior landscape but the world around you and the individuals you encounter. I am developing a greater understanding of the importance of community in this field, and the revelations that are sometimes only born in relationship to our fellows. Writing doesn’t have to be solitary or strict. It can look like not writing. And sometimes, it can look like that long, winding conversation that takes place with friends at the table as the sun sets. 

For information on the residency and to apply for the fall or summer sessions, you can go to rosemaryshouse.org

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6.7.2023

The Oak Outside My Window

by Torie Wells

Water droplets bounce off the outstretched arms of the decades old oak tree that grows outside my office window, where I write. Despite the cool rain that falls, I push open the paned glass in an attempt to bring the oak closer. The gentle wind makes her fragile new growth dance and sway, like dozens of earrings she’s pulled out of her jewelry box to brighten up her outfit for another spring.   

I look forward to this change in seasons too, feeling it as a creative reset. Much like a spring or fall cleaning of the ideas that have piled up in my mind and in my journal, this change is a prompt to organize those thoughts into sentences, into stories.  

I know some of this renewed focus, renewed reflection, hinges on my obsession with setting and sense of place. Seasons, nature, weather—they all influence our characters and their worlds, their stakes and their conflicts. So why wouldn’t they influence our own lives, our own creativity, too? But as I look at the changing oak tree, I think it may be more than that. More than the shift in time that offers movement to my life, as barren branches sprout young, green leaves that fade into bright, bold orange. It’s more, I think, than the inspiration nature’s art offers, made new with each season. More than her colorful leaves, her hills blanketed in snow, her hopeful growth that arrives overnight, her long, warm summer light that stretches into evening. 

When I’m done going through my journal, I turn to my computer and read about the seasonal change trees undergo. I think there’s an element of nature’s wisdom here that I’m latching onto. Like in autumn, when the most breathtaking parts of the oak tree die and fall away, yet the tree remains, even thrives. She sheds her leaves as she prepares for colder weather, shorter days, ice and snow. She lets go of the pieces that no longer serve a purpose and would just weigh her down, putting her limbs at risk of breaking. I also learn that a special layer of cells grows where the stem of the leaf connects to the tree, cutting one off from the other. A protective scar remains. 

That the tree has the wisdom to shake off what she no longer needs is instructive. That she allows those pieces to decompose at her base and feed her future is clever. That she has the grace to honor those pieces through vivid beauty feels like an act of gratitude. And it acts as an invitation to take stock of what in my writing no longer serves the whole and let it fall away. I realize I do this when I toss scraps of paper with ideas that no longer inspire me, or slash through prose that is superfluous.

But that work is for autumn, for another season. Right now, nature tells me that spring and then summer are generative. They are a time for creating the prose I may later sift through. The oak held onto her buds throughout the cold months, much like the ideas that have sat within the pages of my notebook or still turn over in my mind. The warmer days have encouraged the buds to open and prepare for a flood of new energy and growth throughout the summer. I feel that energy bubbling up within me too. I feel it in the rising birdsong I’ve yearned for all winter. In the evening sun I’ve waited patiently for through the cold, short days. And in the hopeful irises that slept under the snow and now pop up from their slumber within my garden. 

The oak tree’s spring invites me back outside to explore nature’s newest artwork—like those irises—to take longer walks among the trees, and to sit on a bench in the sun. I’ve learned that in stepping away from my computer and outside my door my writing will flourish. That when my window is open, so is my mind. And I know I’m not alone in these lessons. 

This is a season of creating. A season of searching for and leaning into inspiration. Outside the window where I write, the soft green leaves on the oak tree move in rhythm with the wind as she shows off her newest creations. Now it’s your turn, she says. I place my fingers on top of my keyboard, as my mind begins to dance. 

 


Torie Wells is a writer who recently completed her MA in nonfiction writing at Johns Hopkins University. She reads fiction and nonfiction submissions for The Baltimore Review.

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5.23.2023

Spring 2023

by Barbara Westwood Diehl

Spring News:

Our Spring 2023 issue went live on May 1 and was announced on various social media sites and through our mailing list and all sorts of places—and now (belatedly) here!

We hope that you enjoy the poems, short stories, and creative nonfiction by Jared Beloff, Allisa Cherry, Sarah Elkins, Adam Forrester, Kimberly Glanzman, Pete Mackey, Meg Robson Mahoney, Michael Minassian, Donna Obeid, Abigail Oswald, Emmy Ritchey, Cressida Blake Roe, Adrie Rose, Huina Zheng, and Jane Zwart.

One of my favorite things about online issues: Notes and audio! This “bonus content” deepens the writer-reader connection for me. I hope you feel the same way. A number of our contributors provided notes about their work and recordings for this issue. Look for those at the bottom of their pages. 

Our current submission period for contest and non-contest submissions ends May 31, and we’ll have a lot of reading to do over the summer. We’ll also be gathering work from the Summer and Fall 2022 and Winter and Spring 2023 issues together for the Baltimore Review 2023 print compilation, which will be available for purchase later in the summer.

Oh, and if you’re interested in an occasional (free) online generative writing workshop, send an email to editor@baltimorereview.org. We’ll let you know when that will happen. Always fun. You never know what that imagination of yours will come up with.

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4.27.2023

Sarah Elkins

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4.27.2023

Jane Zwart

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4.27.2023

Huina Zheng

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4.27.2023

Adrie Rose

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4.27.2023

Cressida Blake Roe

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4.27.2023

Emmy Ritchey

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4.27.2023

Abigail Oswald

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4.27.2023

Donna Obeid

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4.27.2023

Michael Minassian

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4.27.2023

Meg Robson Mahoney

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4.27.2023

Pete Mackey

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4.27.2023

Kimberly Glanzman

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4.27.2023

Adam Forrester

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4.27.2023

Allisa Cherry

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4.27.2023

Jared Beloff

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4.8.2023

Let’s Write Together - Two Free Generative Writing Sessions

by Barbara Westwood Diehl

Interested in an hour or so of responding to writing prompts? Need to generate some raw material to polish later? Want to write in the Zoom company of other writers? Just need some writer me-time? 

We've got two sessions scheduled, April 15 and April 18. Participate in one or both. 

How to get the Zoom link? Email editor@baltimorereview.org and ask us to send the Zoom links for the writing sessions. We'll send the links the day of each session. 

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4.3.2023

Current Reading Period Ends May 31

by Barbara Westwood Diehl

We hope that you enjoy reading our winter issue! And if you click on that issue drop-down, you'll see archived issues back to winter 2012. A lot of excellent work in those past issues. 

Our current reading period for contest and non-contest submissions ends May 31. As always, no fee for non-contest submissions (poetry, fiction, and creative nonfiction) and we pay $50 for the work we publish. But if you donate $5 when you submit, we'll send you a doc of 53 writing prompts to keep sparking your imagination. But again, absolutely no fee is required, and no special consideration is given to those who donate. 

There is a reasonable $8 fee for contest submissions, and we pay $400 for the winning work in each category (prose poem, flash fiction, flash creative nonfiction). We have increased prize amounts when we receive an exceptionally large number of contest entry fees. All contest entries are also considered for publication. 

We are now considering poems, short stories, and creative nonfiction for our spring issue, which we plan to publish before the end of April. After that—on to summer!

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1.25.2023

Winter 2023 Issue is Live

by Barbara Westwood Diehl

A wintry mix of rain and snow outside my window, and a wintry mix of poems and prose inside. Some slippery forms alongside the traditional. A mingling of moods. Welcome to our winter 2023 issue.


Congratulations to our winter contest winners:

Kelly Weber – Prose Poem

Katie M. Zeigler – Flash Fiction

Claire Walla – Flash Creative Nonfiction

And special thanks to our final judge, Destiny O. Birdsong.
 

We hope that you enjoy these short works as well as poems by Deborah Allbritain, Sara Eddy, Reuben Gelley Newman, Grace, Aiden Heung, Leah Mell, C. Mikal Oness, and Devin S. Turk; fiction by James Gyure, Kirk Vanderbeek, and Frank Reilly; and creative nonfiction by Charlene Logan.

This is a return trip for Sara Eddy and James Gyure. We’re happy to have them back. 

We open our Submittable doors for poems, short stories, and creative nonfiction on February 1. And we’ll announce our summer contest soon after. 


Thank you for reading and supporting the work of writers!


 

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1.19.2023

Frank Reilly

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1.19.2023

C. Mikal Oness

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1.19.2023

Leah Mell

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1.19.2023

Charlene Logan

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1.19.2023

Sara Eddy

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1.18.2023

Katie M. Zeigler

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1.18.2023

Kelly Weber

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1.18.2023

Claire Walla

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1.18.2023

Kirk Vanderbeek

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1.18.2023

Devin S. Turk

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1.18.2023

Reuben Gelley Newman

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1.18.2023

Aiden Heung

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1.18.2023

James Gyure

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1.18.2023

Grace

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1.18.2023

Deborah Allbritain

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1.2.2023

Contributor Awards - A New Website Page

by Barbara Westwood Diehl

Something we've been meaning to do for a long time: add a website page to keep track of contributor awards for work published in The Baltimore Review. 

Great to announce awards on social media and in our blog, but those tend to slip away over time. Now, we have them in one tidy place. Of course, if we missed any (quite possible, considering we've been around for 25 years or so), please let us know. 

Fingers crossed that this list will expand in 2023.

A Happy New Year to All!

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11.22.2022

Best Small Fictions Nominees

by Barbara Westwood Diehl

Wishing all the best to all the writers we have nominated for awards this year. Best of the Net, Pushcart, Best Microfiction, Best Small Fictions, PEN/Dau, and every opportunity we come across. We also send our print book to the "Best American" series editors. Fingers crossed.

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11.22.2022

Pushcart Nominees

by Barbara Westwood Diehl

Wishing all the best to all the writers we have nominated for awards this year. Best of the Net, Pushcart, Best Microfiction, Best Small Fictions, PEN/Dau, and every opportunity we come across. We also send our print book to the "Best American" series editors. Fingers crossed.

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11.20.2022

An Interview with Elizabeth Knapp

by Mark Bradley

Atlanta Review, a biannual poetry journal, has chosen its 2022 International Poetry Prize winner. The poem, “It’s Ok to Worry about the State of Britney Spears’ Mental Health,” was written by Baltimore Review poetry editor Elizabeth Knapp. We congratulate her on receiving this honor!

Elizabeth Knapp is an associate professor of English and Chair of the Department of English & Communications Arts at Hood College in Frederick, Maryland. In addition to this new achievement, she has won several poetry awards, including the 2010 De Novo Poetry Prize for The Spite House, her first poetry book, as well as the Jean Feldman Poetry Prize.

Her poem was selected by the competition judge Steven Reigns because of its “balance of global awareness, sincere concern, and artful imagery.”

 

What was your inspiration for the poem?

“I wrote this poem in the summer of 2021 when Britney Spears was in the news because of the struggle with her father over her conservatorship. It was a particularly hot week in the middle of July, and I remember also having read about dangerously high temps across the country and the globe. So in my mind, at that moment in time, Britney and the climate crisis were linked. What if Britney’s mental health became a sort of barometer for the mental health of humanity and, by extension, for the state of the planet?”

 

Who is the target audience for this poem? 

“Anyone who can read English is the target audience for this poem. It contains no obscenities, and it references a celebrity everyone is familiar with, so it requires no specialized or outside knowledge to understand it. I think (hope) the message is transparent and universal.” 

 

Why was this specific form selected for the poem?

“This poem is written in free verse, not a closed form such as a sonnet. The indented tercets are a stanza structure I’ve been playing with recently, because I like the way the lines move back and forth across the page. Many of my most recent poems use this stanza structure.”

 

What are some of your favorite subjects for your poems? 

“The perennial subjects of poetry: love, death, and poetry (in that order; or maybe poetry, love, and death; or maybe death, poetry, and love; I can’t decide). My most recent poems are more outward looking and address social issues like climate change, gun violence, and economic inequality.” 

 

What advice would you give to a poet looking to publish their poetry?

“Read the publications you want to submit to before you submit. Read poetry. Read contemporary poets. Buy their books. Find and join a community of poets, whether it be a small, informal group or an MFA class. Revise before you submit. Revise some more.” 

 

What are you working on now?

“I’m currently working on my third collection of poems, tentatively titled Blue Origin. The Britney poem is a good example of the subject matter of this book, which deals a lot with the climate crisis and other social issues. Scattered in between poems with more global themes are personal poems for my husband and children.”

 

Congratulations to Elizabeth Knapp on winning Atlanta Review’s 2022 International Poetry Prize!

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11.18.2022

Best Microfiction Nominations

by Barbara Westwood Diehl

All the best to our nominees and all the writers of this magical art form!

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11.11.2022

2022 Best American Essays Notables

by Barbara Westwood Diehl

Congratulations to these Baltimore Review contributors included on the 2022 Best American Essays Notables list:

Caroline Miller, for “Mosaic

Susan Messer, for “An Extended Definition of Unclassifiable Knowing

Well deserved!

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