Baltimore Review at AWP - March 5-7, 2026

by Barbara Westwood Diehl

Attending AWP in Baltimore? Drop by our table and say hello! Our Bookfair location: T623. 

Matt Poindexter will sign copies of his poetry collection, Fatherland, published by Unicorn Press. March 6, 10:30-11:00 a.m. A poem by Matt Poindexter appeared in Baltimore Review's fall 2025 issue.

Veronica Kornberg will sign copies of her poetry collection, Strange Gift, published by Wandering Aengus Press. March 7, 10:30-11:00 a.m. A poem by Veronica Kornberg appeared in Baltimore Review's fall 2025 issue.

Among so, so many things to do: Participate in the scavenger hunt!

Off-site events:

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Free Valentine’s Day Generative Writing Session

by Barbara Westwood Diehl

We'd like to show a little Baltimore Review love by offering a free generative writing session on Valentine's Day. Noon, so it won't interfere with any evening plans. We promise it won't be cheesy. Interested? Email editor@baltimorereview.org to receive an invitation and Zoom link.

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Winter 2026 Issue Published January 20, 2026

by Barbara Westwood Diehl

We hope that you enjoy the poems, short stories, and creative nonfiction by the following writers in our winter 2026 issue, published on January 20, 2026.
 

Cole Alexander
Rebecca Bernard
Emma Bolden
Nadia Born
Grayson Burke
Jehanne Dubrow
Ashley Hutson
L. A. Johnson
Lexi Pelle
Akshay Pendyal
Bianca Alyssa Pérez
Hayden Saunier
Patrick Vala-Haynes
Mizuki Yamamoto
Ann Yuan

Congratulations to the contest winners! And special thanks to our final judge, Mandy Moe Pwint Tu.

Jehanne Dubrow, Prose Poem
Nadia Born, Flash Fiction
Rebecca Bernard, Flash Creative Nonfiction

A huge thanks to everyone who made this issue possible. 

And thank you for being a Baltimore Review reader!

Writers: Our next submission period is February 1 through May 31. No submission fee, ever, for non-contest submissions—but we’ll send you a big doc with 68 writing prompts and a bunch of tips if you donate $5. 

Our next contest will be announced soon.  

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Mizuki Yamamoto

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Patrick Vala-Haynes

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Hayden Saunier

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Akshay Pendyal

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Lexi Pelle

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L. A. Johnson

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Ashley Hutson

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Jehanne Dubrow

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Grayson Burke

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Nadia Born

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Emma Bolden

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Cole Alexander

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Baltimore Review 2025 Prize Nominations

by Barbara Westwood Diehl

Baltimore Review 2025 Nominations:

PEN/Robert J. Dau Short Story Prize for best debut fiction published in a literary magazine
“The Baby,” Claire Wyatt

Best of the Net
Work published between July 1, 2024 and June 30, 2025

“The Nugget,” Anne Rudig
“beta waves,” Marika Guthrie
“Passions,” Sarah Sugiyama Issever
“#JustTheTwoOfUs,” Sage Tyrtle
“Fishing Trip,” Kelly Terwilliger
“September,” Leanne Shirtliffe
“Premonition,” Lindsay M. D'Andrea
“A Story,” Caroline Barnes
“blueberries,” Fran Qi
“Wisconsin, Summer,” Hannah Keziah Agustin

Best Small Fictions
Work under 1,000 words published in 2025

“A Bird,” David Hansen
“Crux,” Kayla Rutledge Page
“Yo Mama,” L. Soviero
“Carefully Dreamed Shakshuka in Sachsenhausen,” Per Olvmyr
“Easy Bake,” Joanne Merriam

 
Pushcart Prize 
Work published in 2025
 
“Three Horses in a Field at Dusk,” 
“Apocalypso,” Ron MacLean 
“Root Lady,” Fay Sachpatzidis 
“Note from the (sic)Bed,” Veronica Kornberg 
“Snowfall,” Stefan Balan 
“Suspended Belief,” Megan Nichols 

 
Best Microfiction
Work under 400 words published in 2025

“In an uncannily incandescent time when night skies still twinkled,” Mikki Aronoff
“Dysgeusia,” Christopher Notarnicola
“Spite the Face,” Brett Biebel
“Bull,” Rebecca Klassen
“On The New Yankee Workshop, Norm Abrams Builds a Garden Swing on Which to While Away an Evening,” Abbie Kiefer

The Best Short Stories of the Year: The O’Henry Prize 
In April 2025, we sent the following the following nominations for the O’Henry Prize

“Conduit,” Andrea
“Three Horses in a Field at Dusk,” Erik Harper Klass
“Apocalypso,” Ron MacLean
“The Two Kinds of Stories We Told,” Elizabeth Rosen
“#JustTheTwoOfUs,” Sage Tyrtle

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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On the Poems in Causa Sui: An Interview with Dorian Elizabeth Knapp

by Jane Satterfield

You’ve published two previous collections, Requiem with an Amulet in Its Beak (WWPH, 2019; winner of the Jean Feldman Poetry Prize) and The Spite House (C&R Press, 2011, winner of the De Novo Poetry Prize), both of which explore connections between the private and the public, the personal and the historical. How was this collection different, in terms of subject matter or process?

As I was writing the poems in Causa Sui, I worried that they would be too much like the poems in Requiem, that I was actually just writing the same book all over again. I think part of that was related to our collective déjà-vu—feeling like we were back in 2016, now only worse. Poets are obsessive creatures—all artists are to some extent—so of course certain subjects will recur throughout a poet’s work. For me, those subjects are what I see reflected in American life. If this new book is different, it’s in the way it confronts those subjects even more directly. 

I noticed two forms you’re fond of: ars poetica and persona poems. Could you talk about why these seem especially compelling and how they open space for reinvention?

I think all poems are ars poeticas and persona poems, in the same way that all poems are elegies. Of course, some of my poems are explicitly in those modes, but I think my work as a whole is concerned with the idea of making—making poems, in particular—and with identity. Specifically, the poems in CausaSui are concerned with the idea of making art in a time of crisis. So the actors within that crisis emerge as the poems’ primary voices. For example, the speaker of the “‘We the People’: Found Poems from Project 2025” is the collective voice of the oppressor, although by the end, the speaker’s voice merges into the collective voice of the oppressed. 

Sequences are incredibly challenging, and one that anchors Causa Sui is “‘We the People’: Found Poem from Project 2025” which is doubly difficult since it’s comprised of found poems. I know some writers work strictly within the bounds of a chosen text, while others are more flexible, generative, associative, and willing to let the found language seed new words and phrases. Could you talk about the process of selection and arrangement that guided you as you worked with found material?

I started “‘We the People’: Found Poems from Project 2025” as an erasure using Project 2025 as the source text but quickly discovered erasing 900+ pages of text to be overwhelming, so I wrote the series as found poems instead. Sometimes I would pick up words and phrases from a single page of the text, and sometimes I would start with a single word or phrase from the text and then build the poem around it. Once I finished a poem, I would check to make sure the words I used were also included in the text. I had a few rules: each poem had to be exactly nine brief lines (three tercets) and could not use punctuation or repeat words (except for articles, prepositions, and variations of “America”). 

I really enjoyed “For My Student Who Claims That Where the Wild Things Are Is Not a Queer Text.” What advice do you have for students interested in exploring or teaching writing?

If you want to be a writer, read. Read everything you can get your hands on, especially in your genre, but also outside your genre. Then practice. Keep practicing. Keep reading. Keep writing. Think of it like athletic training or muscle memory. You strengthen that muscle memory every time you read and then practice your skills by writing. 

Your poem “Change Management” (a wry commentary on filling out an annual review) speaks to the corporatization of education and the arts, as do several poems that you describe as “written in the manner of ChatGPT.” These felt a bit Audenesque to me, ironic, but also filled with the warning notes of lament. I’m curious about your process in writing these poems and if you find them restorative in any way?

The ChatGPT poems are erasures, so they’re playing on the concept of generative AI in poetry. I wouldn’t say I found writing those poems “restorative,” but I did find it satisfying. While ChatGPT and other LLMs are becoming increasingly—and alarmingly—adept at imitating a human voice, they still can’t write a good poem. ChatGPT will always use rhyme and meter, unless prohibited to in the prompt, but its free verse is no better. Whether formal or free verse, AI-generated poetry is generally painfully overwrought and clichéd, or else totally bizarre—in a hallucinatory sort of way. This is why I tell students that their own poems will invariably be better than anything AI can produce. 

I know you’ve spent time abroad and that so many of your poems confront day-to-day political realities of contemporary life. Are there writers or artists who have inspired you or serve as models for your own aesthetic goals?

There are too many! The two contemporary poets whose work had the greatest influence on the poems in Causa Sui are Terrance Hayes and Nicole Sealey. Specifically, Hayes’s American Sonnets for My Past and Future Assassin and Sealey’s The Ferguson Report: An Erasure are two books I was actively reading and thinking about while writing my own. 

Each of your books—and Causa Sui is no exception—pays witness to domestic life: the gritty realities of motherhood, the joys and challenges of married life. Those anniversary poems are so lyrically rich and vivid. Do you have any tips or tricks that guide you when you’re writing up close and personal about loved ones? Is this any easier since your spouse is a writer as well?

Love poems and poems about motherhood are by far the hardest for me to write. I find it so difficult to approach those subjects without lapsing into sentimentality and cliché. I want those poems to have a certain amount of humor and tenderness, but I always find myself treading carefully around them. Now every year, I get anxious in the weeks before my anniversary, because I know I have an anniversary poem to write. And if I don’t write it, I won’t have a gift. The fact that my spouse is also a writer only makes it worse—he knows a bad poem when he reads one!

Dorian Elizabeth Knapp

Jane Satterfield

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Quiet and Loud, Present and Absent: An Interview with Jeannie Vanasco

by Jill Sisson Quinn

The silent treatment. We’ve all gotten it–or given it–at one time or another. But what if you’re a writer, and your mother, not for the first time in your life, stops talking to you for an extended period? And this time, it’s after you invite her to move into your home and she willingly agrees? Well, then you get Jeannie Vanasco’s third book, A Silent Treatment. Even in the absence of words, Vanasco finds a complex story.

In this metacognitive memoir cut from the same cloth as her earlier books, The Glass Eye and Things We Didn’t Talk About When I Was a Girl, Vanasco explores the psychology behind giving the silent treatment, the psyche driving her mother’s silent treatment, and her own persona as daughter. 

I asked Vanasco, associate professor of English at Towson University in Maryland, a few questions about writing and relationships. 

What is your writing practice? Do you write every day?

I write most days, but I avoid strict schedules or routines. I use notebooks, notecards, scraps of paper, book margins, my phone’s Notes and Voice Memo apps, Google docs, Word, email drafts, binders. But sometimes I treat a binder like it’s a closet before company comes over. I shove everything inside and pray nobody opens it. A few months ago, I found—in a closet, no surprise—a spiral-bound notebook labeled A Silent Treatment. I’d never transcribed it. Finding it felt like finding cash in an old pair of jeans. I’ll use it for something else.
 

Can you talk a little bit about structure? Your book consists of a mix of full paragraphs, word association, near-poems, lists, transcripts of thought. How do you structure a chapter? How do you go about structuring a book?

I want structure to reflect experience, but only after writing a full draft do I start to see the structure—specifically how structure and conflict connect. I mean, it’s all connected: character, plot, setting, all of it. The silent treatment itself is conflict, but for A Silent Treatment, I needed to vary the forms of conflict. The conflict couldn’t just be: my mom isn’t talking to me, my mom isn’t talking to me, my mom still isn’t talking to me. So I thought about other forms of conflict, especially with other characters, like when Chris said, “Why don’t you just go down there and talk to her?” And I came up with all these reasons why I couldn’t. That scene appears in chapter two, but I didn’t write it until very late in the process. Our conversation actually happened. I didn’t make it up. I just hadn’t considered it relevant until after I had a full draft. This is partly why I feel uncomfortable writing a memoir: it’s selective. It has to be. But I’m not manufacturing conflict, or minimizing conflict, to fill a received structure. I’m trying to find meaning from my experiences, and from there I’m trying to build a structure. 

Because the silent treatment itself seemed simultaneously quiet and loud, I wanted white space set against the franticness of associative leaps. But that risked complete disorder, so I used repetition to give the manuscript some coherence. For example, certain objects repeat: the wind chime, Chris’s boxers of the month, the newsletter that came with our fancy eggs. As for lists, I make those when life feels out of control. So I included them to show my anxiety. Finding the structure was hard. I almost gave up on the book many, many times. Whenever somebody tells me to outline or storyboard “to make things easier,” I think, But why would I want to make things easier? 

Although your mother isn’t talking to you for a good part of this book, you’re in conversation with her in parentheticals throughout much of the text. At times, these parentheticals seem like things your mother has actually said; at other times, I wondered if they could be things you thought your mother would say, like her voice in your head. At one point, you even ask yourself this question: “Her dialogue goes in parentheses–when? When it’s intrusive? (Mom:  You are such a disappointment.)” (p. 85). How did you come up with the parenthetical idea, which seems so perfect for the subject of the book? How did you decide what went in the parentheticals, and at what point did they get written into the manuscript? As you went along? Or later?

Here’s how I think it happened: I was staring into my refrigerator and remembered what my mom had said of her childhood refrigerator—that her mother had never cleaned it, and they had water bugs crawling out of it. I’m not sure when I added the parentheticals to the manuscript, but I think the refrigerator parenthetical was the first one I wrote. What I can say for sure: I’d written drafts that didn’t work, and they didn’t work because my mom’s character was missing. During her silences, she felt very present, but I couldn’t figure out how to represent that. The parentheticals seemed like an answer. Everything in them, she’d either said or written to me. And they were all sentences that interfered unexpectedly, like intrusive thoughts. During revision, I realized the parentheticals could help me move between past and present, or make a seemingly simple moment, such as grocery shopping, more complex. A lot of the parentheticals repeat throughout the book, but sometimes their tone changes because of context. 

Your memoirs seem to be not only metacognitive in your examination of your thinking about the events of the memoir, but also in your examination of the way you write about the events of the memoir. In other words, the book seems to be conscious of, or transparent about, its own rhetoric and how that rhetoric shapes the story. You talk about promises made in your book proposal in this book, you workshop the book in this book, and at one point, you say, “Even if a book’s form or style impersonates a journal, writing and journaling are very different” (p. 204). This seems almost like a confession to the reader. What’s it like to write in this way?

I love this question. No one has asked me what it’s like. Sharing how I think and feel—not strictly what I think and feel—that’s where the vulnerability is. Being vulnerable is hard. It’s scary. You risk embarrassment. Shame. 

The “writing and journaling” passage makes me think of fluency bias, how if something looks easy, people assume it is easy. A lot of us spend a lot of time trying to make things look easy. I don’t want to pretend. 

And the writing about the writing—I can’t imagine not including it. To me, that’s the plot. That’s me making meaning out of events. The reader knows they’re reading a memoir, so it seems normal to acknowledge it. For me, the meta-element also has to do with ethics. I want the reader to remember what a memoir really is: one person’s interpretation of an experience. 
 

How did you decide to incorporate Google Home in A Silent Treatment? Building on that, have you played much with artificial intelligence in other ways in your writing, or in exercises with your students at Towson University? How do you feel about writing now that LLM’s have entered the landscape?

Feeling desperate one afternoon, I asked the Google Home Mini, “What do you do when your mother uses the silent treatment?” I don’t know what I expected. Until then, I’d used it strictly as a light dimmer. It quoted a psychologist whose books about social ostracism I’d read, and I thought: okay, so this is how I can transform some of my research into scene. I didn’t use the Google Home Mini to do research. I used its answers to transition into research. Also, its dumbest replies offered some levity. When it talked, though, the cats would meow and circle it and look at me, like, “What are you going to do?” Maybe they thought a lady was trapped inside. So it’s back to being a light dimmer. 

As for LLMs, I hate them. Hate them. Everybody keeps saying, Well, AI is here now. We can’t avoid it. I’m like, oh my god, what are you talking about? Did nobody go to preschool? Where is the impulse control? I get very angry about this, and maybe, just maybe, I should consider a more nuanced view. But as a creative writer, I absolutely hate LLMs. Writing is noticing. If you’re using LLMs, you’re not noticing. Yet all the tech companies conflate them with writing. I was at the Apple Store earlier this year, buying a new laptop, and the guy selling it to me asked if I knew about its AI “writing” features. I said, “I don’t need to know.” But he excitedly described them and quoted Anne Lamott’s “Shitty First Drafts.” Apple’s AI would take my “shitty first draft,” he said, and clean it up. I almost said, I don’t think that’s what Lamott meant, and I almost quoted Thomas Mann to him—“A writer is someone for whom writing is more difficult than it is for other people”—but I just bought the thing and left. 
 

Can you give us examples of or recommendations of other metacognitive memoirs? I can think of Didion’s The Year of Magical Thinking and Jamison’s The Empathy Exams. Do you have any recommendations for reading further in this sub-genre?

Those are great examples. I’ll add Michael Loughran’s Windower, Jazmina Barrera’s Linea Nigra (translated by Christina MacSweeney), Therese Marie Mailhot’s Heart Berries, Peter Handke’s A Sorrow Beyond Dreams, and—this is an older one—Xavier de Maistre’s Voyage Around My Room. I also think Aisha Sabatini Sloan does this beautifully in her essay collection Dreaming of Ramadi in Detroit.

How did you find Chris?!  He seems like such a wonderful partner–supportive of your mental health needs, your writing, and in this book, your relationship with your mother. At the end of the book, you promise you’ll never write a memoir for him, and Chris says, “I’m okay with that.” Is this a foreshadowing? Do you think you’ll ever write a memoir about Chris?

Chris and I have been together for sixteen years now, and I feel very lucky to be with him. I would like to continue being with him, so I don’t think I’ll write a memoir about him. I recently brought it up, jokingly, and I think his exact words were, “Please, don’t.” My mom, meanwhile, was way more open to this. Had she asked me not to write the book, I wouldn’t have.

Finally, is your mom still living in the apartment across the street? And how is it going?

She’s still across the street, and life is so much better—for both of us. She still has Max and Brooklyn, and she recently adopted a bonded pair of kittens, Finian and Rainbow. They’re all happy, and Chris and I are happy over here with Catullus, Kiffawiffick, and Hildegard. She and I talk every day.

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Look For Us at the ESWA Holiday Book Festival

by Barbara Westwood Diehl

A busy fall for us! We're reading submissions (5,700 received so far since August 1) and will soon be selecting work for our winter issue. The upcoming issue will include contest winners, too, so we'll have a group of finalists ready for the final judge, Mandy Moe Pwint Tu, within a couple weeks of the November 30 deadline. 

We had a table at the Baltimore Writers' Conference at Towson University on November 15, and it was wonderful to chat with attendees and fellow publishers. Cheers to the conference organizers on another great event! I hope this long-running conference will continue for many years to come.

And a couple of us will be reading our own work and chatting with students at Notre Dame Preparatory School here in Baltimore in a couple of weeks. It's good to share our love of creative writing with young students when we have an opportunity.

Our next table: The Eastern Shore Writers Association Holiday Book Festival at Cult Classic Brewing on December 13. This one should be a blast. I'm planning on some fun table activities--along with having BR books for sale, of course. If you're in the Eastern Shore area, stop by and say hello. 

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Fall 2025 Issue Published October 19, 2025

by Barbara Westwood Diehl

We hope that you enjoy the poems, short stories, and creative nonfiction—along with a special micro section—by the following writers in our fall 2025 issue, published on October 19, 2025.

Mikki Aronoff
Allison Field Bell
Brett Biebel
Nina Boutsikaris
Mike Bove
Jiordan Castle
Ron Dionne
Dana Brewer Harris
Audra Huang
Abbie Kiefer
Rebecca Klassen
Veronica Kornberg
Helen Meneilly
Megan Nichols
Christopher Notarnicola
Per Olvmyr
Matt Poindexter
Z. Yasmin Waheed
Claire Wyatt
Allison Zhang

As a regular reader and writer of micro-length work myself, I especially enjoyed seeing what hundreds of writers created with this 400-word limit. In meetings with other BR editors, we noted how some had fantastical elements, and some were simple, direct, entirely realistic. Some told stories with complete narrative arcs; some were glimpses into a world or anecdotes; some were portraits. Some were abstract; some were filled with imagery. Some were perfectly comfortable being well under the 400-word limit. Some begged to be much longer works. Since these didn’t need to be shelved into a category (as submissions are for our contests), we sometimes talked about how we’d define them, how the language in this one made it a prose poem, or how that one sure sounded like creative nonfiction. 

In the end, though, we read all of them as simply micros. Small boxes of compressed language and emotion like jack-in-the-box toys ready to spring a surprise on us. We always wanted to be surprised by something in the micro—a freshness in the subject or language or both. I’m so glad that we were able to include this special category. And, of course, we always welcome micro-length works in all our categories. 

A huge thanks to everyone who made this issue possible. 

And thank you for being a Baltimore Review reader!

Writers: Our Submittable doors, for contest and non-contest submissions, are open until November 30, 2025. See our submission guidelines for each of these categories. No submission fee, ever, for non-contest submissions—but we’ll send you a big doc with 65 writing prompts and a bunch of tips if you donate $5. Contest fee is a modest $8 (and we’ll send you the writing prompts doc if you ask for it—prompts are helpful sometimes, right?). The final judge for the contest is Mandy Moe Pwint Tu. We look forward to reading your work.

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A Hero’s Journey, with Pockets: Claire McCardell, by Elizabeth Evitts Dickinson

by Seth Sawyers

I picked up a biography about a woman I’d never heard of who practiced a form of art I don’t often think about, and I couldn’t put it down.

Such is the storytelling ability of Elizabeth Evitts Dickinson in her super-readable biography of midcentury fashion designer Claire McCardell. Though the book’s subtitle tells us McCardell becomes the “designer who sets women free,” Evitts Dickinson has structured her biography so that triumph never feels assured. The result is a book that compels.

We’re told a version of the hero’s journey story. In the early 1920s, McCardell, a talented but academically disinterested young woman from Frederick, leaves for New York. There, she encounters a thousand obstacles, gets knocked back, ultimately succeeds, only to be largely forgotten after her early death at the age of 52. It’s those obstacles—less-talented business partners, prejudice toward dresses containing pockets, Christian Dior, and, above all else, a business world hostile to successful women—met with McCardell’s talent and drive that make this the kind of satisfying story in which the hero conquers after having risen from little.

Beyond only recounting the stones thrown and the stones dodged, Evitts Dickinson writes with such seeming ease, such richness of 1920s Paris or wartime New York or McCardell’s New Jersey country house, that the pages fly by. It all goes down so easy, the feel of the linen, the chill of the transatlantic voyage, the warmth of the weekend stews she’d make, that you forget you’re reading a biography. It feels like you’re reading a story.

It’s a sewing machine of a biography. You’re the fabric, pulled along. It’s a book that leaves a mark. Even if you’re like me, who hasn’t thought much about fashion, you’ll not again look at something on a hanger without thinking about how it came to be or how it, as McCardell so often thought about, might make a body feel.

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Claire Wyatt

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Matt Poindexter

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Per Olvmyr

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Christopher Notarnicola

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Megan Nichols

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Veronica Kornberg

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Rebecca Klassen

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Abbie Kiefer

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Andra Huang

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Dana Brewer Harris

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Ron Dionne

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Baltimore Review News - Upcoming Events and a Special Micro Category for Fall Issue

by Barbara Westwood Diehl

Events:

The BR will have a table at the Baltimore Book Festival, September 13 and 14. We have copies of our print compilations, Baltimore Review 2025 and books from past years. And we’ll have writing games and various fun things at the table because, well, festivals are supposed to be fun, right? If you’re in the area, stop by and say hello. We love to chat. 

Also coming this fall, the Baltimore Writers’ Conference on November 15 at Towson University. We’ll have a table there. This conference is always excellent. 

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Announcing a new, special category for our fall issue. Micros!

What we say in our Submission Guidelines about that:

A micro submission period for micro works. Open two weeks, September 1-14. Responses sent by the end of September. 

Because we love micros so much, we plan to feature a group of these small wonders in our fall issue. 

Are micros fictions, CNF, prose poems, something in between? Who knows. There's something mysterious in the undefinable nature of many of them. We like this in-between-ness. 

How long? We'd like to see micros of 400 words or less. Don't feel the need to stretch it to the max. Micros of 200-300 words, even 100, can pack a punch.

Submit one or two micros. If submitting two, please submit both in one document, not individually. If you later need to withdraw one, please send us a message through Submittable. No need to email us. No need to withdraw the entire submission. One submission in this category during this reading period. 

(The short forms contest opens on October 1. Just a heads up in case your work leans more toward flash length.)

For micros: Double space or single space or something in between. However you want to present your work. Standard 12-pt font. Something easy on the eyes. Please proofread your work carefully before submitting. 

No fee. 

We look forward to reading your work.

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Where to Submit

by Julia Wilson

            It’s time! You have a piece you have been working on for months, you’ve had it read by peers and mentors, and you are ready to have the world read it. So where should you submit it? There are hundreds (sometimes thousands, depending on your search filters) of possible publications out there, both online and in print form. Some pay contributors, most do not. 

            How do you choose where to send your piece?

            First of all, submitting is not difficult. Publications very clearly set out their requirements and expectations. Follow them carefully. Many use Submittable for submissions, which is free to use, and easy to check up on your progress.

            Some publications, like Poets and Writers, are dedicated to finding suitable publications for writers. Resources like the Chill Subs and NewPages sites have huge lists of publication possibilities. But you are the best judge of where you would like to be published.

            Read as many publications as you can. Most have an online presence and can be read for free. Carefully judge if the publication is a fit for you. Do you enjoy the writing? Do you see your writing as a good fit there? Are pieces the same general length as yours?  Do they print poetry in most issues? Would you be proud to be published there?

            As you are reading copiously, take special notice of writers you enjoy reading. Check out their bios, and look up other publications where they have been published. They might very likely also be a good fit for you.

            And it might be a good idea to check out contests. Many publications conduct contests at least once a year. The pro? If you win, it’s a great thing. Even if you don’t win, you can read the submissions of those who did and learn some tips. The con? Your chances of winning may be slim, given the number of submissions. 

            I often get pieces rejected, sometimes get accepted. I have started to get an idea of what sort of publication will publish the sort of prose I write. I have never earned a penny from any accepted piece. That doesn’t matter to me—I’m just happy to see my work in print. But as a BR editor, I’m glad that we do pay the writers we publish.

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What the Rejected Poem Means and Doesn’t Mean

by Dwaine Rieves

In screening poetry submissions to the Baltimore Review, I often feel as though I am walking along a path lined with carefully curated plants. I know each plant is truly a poem, the poem pulling words from the earth and displaying them in a way that occasionally makes me pause. This pause is my choice, for the poem has touched me in a way that makes me feel a new part of myself. I call these the “chosen” poems, for I chose to pause and reexamine the mysterious power within these plants. This power typically arises from a surprise or a time-stopping insight. Sometimes, I can only describe this power as beauty. The “chosen” poem is a rarity. Far more often, I need to keep walking among the “unchosen” poems.

I know many people label my “unchosen” poems as “rejected” poems. The word “rejection” strikes me as a weed in the garden of poetry—“rejection” does not mean the same thing as “unchosen.” I am touched by every “unchosen” poem. In this fleeting connection, I feel the bittersweet touch of a friend who knows I must keep walking onward, despite a passing touch. I do not reject this touch. I savor its brief visit. In the brevity, I often sense the poem growing and by walking onward, I like to think I am giving this creation the time to grow into what it is meant to be. The touch can also suggest how the poem is largely awaiting another reader, this person who will choose to pause. In short, why a screening reader will pause and spend time with a poem may depend far more on the reader than the poem. 

The internet is loaded with advice on how writers should handle “rejection.” From my experience in the garden of poetry, I offer the following ideas on what a caretaker of an “unchosen” poem might wish to consider:
 

1)   Work around it. The poem may need words or lines pruned or reshaped or transplanted into soil that makes the creation blossom with the magic that demands a reader’s pause. Time and tenacity are key ingredients in my work around suggestion.

2)   Look around it. Explore submission opportunities at other literary journals and magazines that may well have readers eager to pause and spend time with this unique poetic creation.

3)   Keep it around. Archive every poem for future use in grafting, in fertilizing, and in stimulating the growth of many more poems. And hopefully further flourishing of this original poem. The “unchosen” are the creations that largely keep our world growing.
 

I hope I have not strained your tolerance of metaphor. Of course, I will never know. Which is why I keep reminding myself that not knowing what the word “rejection” always means is the most liberating way to grow.

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Library Love: The Island Library—Chincoteague Island, Virginia

by June Locco

Just beyond a marsh-fringed causeway lies Chincoteague Island, Virginia. Summertime brings thousands of tourists to the island for camping, fishing, beachcombing, and a few days to slow down and breathe the salty air. If you are lucky enough to find a vacancy in July, you can watch the annual Pony Swim and visit the Fireman’s Carnival to take a spin on the tilt-a-whirl and enjoy the sweet summer taste of funnel cake. 

But when tourist time slows and the community has a chance to breathe, one of the elements that makes a town a home is a library. Book lovers may recognize the island’s name from Marguerite Henry’s 1947 children’s novel Misty of Chincoteague, but the literary heart doesn’t stop there. 

Whenever I go on vacation, my love of words draws me first to the bookstores, and second to the local library. I need the grounding that only being surrounded by books can bring. This year’s summer break brought me to the eastern shore of Virginia. Libraries have a way of drawing people together, and Chincoteague’s Island Library has a history of being a gathering place for islanders and visitors alike.

At first glance the tiny white building, with its stained-glass transom windows, is a glimpse of another time. A historical marker on the porch railing tells the story. Built in 1887 as the town’s drug store, the building later belonged to Wallace “Tig” Jester, the town barber. For 75 years, the walls would echo with laughter, stories, and town gossip as Mr. Jester cut hair and shaved away the bristly chins of his neighbors. 

In 1983, there was a drive to save the historic building, and it was (literally) moved down the street to become the town library. I felt a buzz I couldn’t quite explain when I read that the library opened on July 4, 1995. Independence Day. Books are freedom, and could there be a better birthday for a library?

The entryway room of the library is, as expected, very small. Ornate woodwork frames shelves of books and local art, and the librarian’s desk holds a shadowbox containing—what else—Mr. Jester’s antique barber tools. 

However, just like a great book, the library encompasses a depth that took me by surprise. In 2010, the library’s new wing was opened, with a remarkable staircase that is breathtaking in both its scope and the way in which the design flawlessly connects old and new. An elevator is tucked neatly in the wall, bringing access to the upstairs loft, where more books wait by live plants and cozy reading chairs. When I asked permission to take photos for this piece, I was told to be sure to notice the view from upstairs— “the best view on the island.” Indeed. 

Meeting spots are tucked among the walls of books, and the library offers book events and a welcoming children’s area. Bits of local history are displayed throughout, and a sense of pride hums in the air. The library itself is a story.

The Island Library is privately funded, but open for anyone to visit. Libraries are a hub of the community. There will always be worries about budgets and book bans, but oh how lucky we are to have these spaces to be surrounded by books. No matter how far we travel, a library feels like home.

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Summer 2025 Issue Launched July 15, 2025

by Barbara Westwood Diehl

We hope that you enjoy the poems, short stories, and creative nonfiction by the following writers in our summer 2025 issue, published today, July 15!
 

Stefan Balan
Adriana Beltran
Kate Broad
Tom Busillo
Dolapo Demuren
Sam Flaster
David Hansen
D.E. Hardy
Andrea Figueroa-Irizarry
Michael T. Lawson
M.S. Reagan
Fay Sachpatzidis
Tim Stobierski
Maureen Tai
Cammy Thomas
Julie Marie Wade
Carson Wolfe
Corey Zeller
 

Congratulations to our contest winners:

D.E. Hardy
M.S. Reagan
Corey Zeller

And special thanks to our contest final judge, Pamela Painter.

A huge thanks to everyone who made this issue possible. 

And thank you for being a Baltimore Review reader!

Our Submittable doors open again on August 1, 2025. We look forward to reading your work.

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Corey Zeller

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Carson Wolfe

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Julie Marie Wade

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Maureen Tai

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Tim Stobierski

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Fay Sachpatzidis

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M.S. Reagan

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Michael T. Lawson

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Andrea Figueroa-Irizarry

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D.E. Hardy

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David Hansen

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Sam Flaster

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Dolapo Demuren

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Tom Busillo

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Kate Broad

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Stefan Balan

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Emma Dries at Loyola MD: On Reading and Publishing

by Ari Acevedo

To become a better writer you must read. It seems obvious, but Emma Dries, a literary agent at Triangle House Literary and former editor at Alfred A. Knopf, Doubleday Books and Ecco, stressed that it’s absolutely necessary. I recently attended a talk by Dries at Loyola University Maryland, where she spoke to students about her career and opportunities for students interested in editing and publishing.

An element that she looks for when accepting a client is a strong voice. For Dries, voice is ineffable; it also is something you cannot change: You cannot turn someone’s voice into something it isn’t. Dries mentioned that in many cases she will take on a client with a piece that has a strong voice and weaker plot over a piece with a weak voice and strong plot. It’s also an aspect of writing that can be hard to identify. Dries’ process is similar to the work of readers at The Baltimore Review: combing through submissions to find a piece that is not just technically well-crafted but has a voice that will connect with readers. You cannot care or be invested in a piece if you do not feel a connection. You feel invested in a piece—you care and can learn from it—if you can connect with that voice.

In an industry driven by Amazon and jeopardized by Artificial Intelligence, independent publications are the backbone of communities, uplifting voices and perspectives that are often not seen as marketable. Indie publications and bookstores are also opportunities to read what is currently being published and to get a taste for the publishing world. Dries said that working or interning at a literary magazine gives you the chance to “dip your toes.” 

Another tip Dries mentioned for students is to look beyond editing. There are so many ways you can apply your writing abilities. Editing can be creatively draining, so think of other routes you can take to be involved with books. She encouraged the audience to apply to any position and to be creative about the ways you're pursuing work in the industry. 

At The Baltimore Review, I find myself proud to be a part of a magazine driven to platform excellence. We read through countless submissions to ensure that what is being published is the best, discussing pieces that speak to us. In a lot of ways, Dries reaffirmed the space writers and creatives have in the workforce and that there are many ways we can engage with that field beyond editing. 

Ari Acevedo is a Baltimore Review intern from Loyola University Maryland.  

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Speed Dating at Conversations & Connections

by Julia Tagliere

For those of you who have never done editor speed dating, it’s a writing conference activity wherein writers bring a snippet of writing for a ten-minute one-on-one feedback session with an editor from a local literary magazine. Last week, I was fortunate to represent Baltimore Review at Barrelhouse Magazine’s outstanding Conversations and Connections writing conference, which took place April 12 at American University in Washington, D.C. 

I did editor speed dating once as an aspiring writer myself, years back. I still remember waiting in the long line of writers for my turn, feeling so in awe of the editors assembled inside. What an opportunity! 

Although I was on the other side of the proverbial table last week, I still felt so much awe: this time around, it was for the writers I met. You see, at Baltimore Review, we’re all writers, too; we know how much courage it takes to put your work out there, to trust us with it, but believe me, it takes a whole ’nother level of gumption to sit and watch someone read your work live while you wait for immediate feedback. 

So many things were written across each writer’s face as they handed me their work: hope that I’d find it “good enough”; worry that they’d shared the wrong piece—it wasn’t ready yet, they’d missed a typo, they should have changed that character’s name to Delilah, would I understand what they were trying to do? But underneath all of those, I could also feel from each writer their steely faith that what they had created was worth creating. It meant something to them. 

I can’t express what a wave of gratitude I felt as I read their pieces: their wild inventiveness, their quirky characters, the unexpected new things I learned, the moments where I laughed out loud or blinked back tears, the gobsmackingly vivid language I knew would linger in my mind for days. Yes, I was the one in awe again, at the gift of receiving those writers’ sacred offerings and getting to talk about them together, even if it was just for a few minutes. 

For the most part, we Baltimore Review editors read through submissions on our own or in group sessions during our regular team meetings; we just don’t get to interact much with the writers who submit them. What a joy it was, then, to share with those writers last week, in real-time, my reactions to a beautiful sentence, or a wickedly funny bit of dialogue, or a crazy title that hooked me before the writer even sat down. I simply could not contain myself. 

“Oh, my gosh, that’s great!” 

“Holy crap, I did not see that coming!” 

“Are you serious? Is that a real thing?” 

And again and again: 

Wow. 

Wow. 

Wow. 

It was the best kind of participatory experience, one that’s really hard to achieve via Submittable. 

Something truly mystical happens when we share art with each other in these communal spaces, when we set aside everything else in the crazed world outside to enter a different world. Having the honor of those artists sharing their creations with me was a true gift. What a privilege it is to read your work, always, whether it’s in person at speed dating or through Submittable. We at Baltimore Review all know how much trust you place in us as editors, and experiences like Conversations & Connections serve as lovely reminders of why we volunteer in the first place: to share our love of the craft. 

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Spring 2025 Issue Launched April 15, 2025

by Barbara Westwood Diehl

We hope that you enjoy the poems, short stories, and creative nonfiction by the following writers in our spring 2025 issue, published today, April 15!
 

Hannah Keziah Agustin
Stephanie J. Andersen
Nicholas Barnes
Merrill Oliver Douglas
Jake Bienvenue
Kimberly Gibson-Tran
Erik Harper Klass
Andrea Lewis
Ron MacLean
Hila Ratzabi
Jemma Leigh Roe
Daniel J. Rortvedt
L. Soviero
Kelly Terwilliger
Qiwen Xiao 
 

A huge thanks to everyone who made this issue possible. 

And thank you for being a Baltimore Review reader!

Our Submittable doors are open through May 31, 2025. We look forward to reading your work.

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Concision and Precision in Flash Fiction

by Barbara Westwood Diehl

Selected notes from my Eastern Shore Writers Association Bay-to-Ocean Writers Conference presentation on March 8, 2025

Concision and Precision in Flash Fiction

And by concision, I mean conveying meaning with as few words as possible and by precision, I mean the quality of being accurate, exact, and distinct.
 

So what am I talking about when I talk about short forms? And what’s so great about them?

Micro fiction is usually defined as 300-400 words or less (for the annual Best Microfiction anthology—400 words or less); flash fiction is usually 1,000 words or less. I’m including prose poems under this short-forms umbrella. The lines between the genres can often be blurry. 

The short forms provide more of a license to experiment, for example, to introduce more elements of poetry into a piece than you usually would with a longer, more traditional short story. Some experimental forms would be difficult to sustain in a longer work—and likely a challenge for readers, too.

Flash often has a sense of intensity, an urgency. I see a lot of flash in present tense, which makes it feel more immediate. Plunging the reader right into the story does this, too, of course. 

Flash is often surprising, with some twist or element that stuns. 

Even the shortest fictions usually have a narrative arc, even if parts are only implied, or the readers are able to fill in the gaps and come to their own conclusions. This brings to mind paintings and graphic designs with broken lines that the human brain can easily fill in. 

Baltimore Review Editors—among many other editors—read a lot and we want to be surprised, shaken up, our attention captured. We want clarity. A short work with focus and all the parts in sync, working together to create an emotional impact. Much like longer work: a beginning that gives the reader a reason to keep reading, a middle that doesn’t sag, and an ending with impact, surprising but still the natural culmination of everything that came before. 

With a short piece, you can wrap your mind around the whole and focus on making each word, each sentence, work toward the effect you want. 
 

What’s so great about them? 

The best short works deliver an impact, quickly. They’re memorable. They make us think of the world in fresh ways. They can create empathy. They’re fun to write, and they’re versatile—you can publish them in bite-size pieces or string them together into a longer work if you decide to do that. I also believe that having constraints can aid you in being a more creative writer and in being a better self-editor. 

There’s a solid market for them. Take the Chill Subs database. You can filter by flash fiction and get 905 literary magazines; 69 for micro fiction. And if your goal is publishing a book-length work, having short works published in at least a few reputable literary journals can provide you with some credentials. There’s also a supportive community out there for flash fiction writers. I see a lot of that on social media. 

So—concision and precision

Concision and precision are tools to enhance clarity for your reader and create a connection with your reader. Think of it as calibrating a camera lens to get the sharpest image possible. First, some of these methods—and then examples. 

Concision methods

Most obviously—using the fewest words for maximal clarity and impact. Economy writing. Like economy cars that get great mileage. But maybe hybrid cars would be a better comparison.

A frugal use of language, using only the words that are absolutely necessary. Taking time to revise and cut out any excess words, lazy words, clichés, words that fog up the meaning, words that don’t even register as blips on the reader’s radar. Words you want to swat out of the way like gnats. 

Sometimes rearranging the order of words can allow you to trim a word or two. Like “word order” instead of “order of words.” (Although sometimes my poetry ear wants to add a syllable.)

Repetition: Sounds counter-intuitive, but no. Repetition of certain words, phrases, structures, images—can be used for reinforcement, enhancement, and development of ideas instead of coming up with new ideas and images to roll around in a reader’s head. This is an efficient and focused use of language. Repetition can stitch ideas together with fewer words, less effort. 

Use of a particular image or phrase near the beginning and the end of a piece—an echo—can provide a satisfying coming-full-circle feeling for a reader. 

Concision on a larger scale: (more like excision, cutting out chunks of text, exposition—like lengthy descriptions, background information, historical context, world building, information dumping—that aren’t necessary for your short work, text that slows the pace, that works against tension, that readers’ (and editors’) eyes tend to skip over. A reminder here that we’re talking about compressed forms here—although some of these short-form characteristics can often be used to tighten up longer works of fiction. 

Figurative language and vivid imagery can also be viewed as a concision and precision tool—the picture—or a metaphor or a sensory image—is worth a 1,000 words idea (so concision). The right image can do a lot of heavy lifting for you. 

Another language efficiency: sometimes purposely using words with multiple meanings—provided all those definitions work toward deepening the meaning of your story or prose poem (or sometimes adding a touch of humor).

You can also be concise in sentence lengths. Shorter sentences—but not choppy—can sometimes be easier for readers to digest. And sentence fragments are often fine, too. More like natural speech. You can break some of the rules of formal writing. 

Use of speech in your short works (sometimes in italics in very short work), even only a snippet or two, can aid in concision. You can ramble on for sentences, or paragraphs, describing someone’s personality or a relationship between characters—or you can have someone say something. And I think our ears perk up when we see dialogue; we’re in scene and engaged. You may not see as much dialogue in short-short work, but when it is, as in longer fiction, dialogue should serve the purpose of revealing character and moving the plot forward. Not the mumbling and rambling of real life. 

Another way you can cut words from a short piece: make the title do a lot of work. Hence, some of those long titles we see—which usually aren’t included in word counts, by the way. 
 

And some precision methods

Know the definition—denotation and connotation—and usage for each word in your flash. For example: I used the word frugal when I was talking about concision. When I started writing my notes, I used stingy, but I looked the word up, and the definition wasn’t quite what I had in mind. I also considered thrifty. Merriam Webster had 52 synonyms for stingy. Look words up. Make sure each word is exactly what you have in mind. 

Like that famous line from The Princess Bride:  “You keep saying that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.” Know what the words mean. 

If you’re precise—if you’re using strong nouns and verbs—you don’t need many adjectives and adverbs. Similes are great, but look at how many you’re using. Do you need them all? Everything doesn’t have to be compared to something else. Purple prose—language that’s flowery and pretentious, multisyllabic, melodramatic—just don’t. Lean toward the natural. Maybe a touch smarter and less sloppy than natural, but tipping in that direction. 

When you use sensory detail, you are being precise. You can say something smells sweet—or you say something smells like you just popped open a can of Betty Crocker Rich and Creamy Vanilla Frosting. The more precise the sensory imagery—what readers can taste, hear, smell, see, and feel—the more intense and immersive the experience is for the reader. And make sure those precise and sensory details are working together to create a coherent experience. By coherent I mean integrated and clear, and holding together. 

Revision

Generative writing practice is great to warm yourself up, to discover what’s piquing your interest or what’s bothering you, to get some words on paper—but you’ll need to work on those words to get them in publishable shape. If you’re breaking tradition, for example, with formatting or punctuation—do it with a purpose. This shouldn’t come across as gimmicky or plain old errors. Considering what you know about concise and precise writing, read your short piece over and over again, out loud, and ask yourself if every word in your work is carrying its weight, if every word is the best word, if all the words are working together to create a unified effect. Do you experience an emotional impact when you finish reading it? If you can, ask a trusted reader to give you some honest feedback. Not someone who will just pat you on the back. 

Submission

If you’re on Facebook, you can find groups that are seriously into flash fiction. You can also use resources like Poets & Writers, NewPages, and Chill Subs to cruise through journals. Chill Subs has great filters for finding journals—what their reading periods are, genres and subgenres, their vibe, and more. Often, flash isn’t a separate fiction category in Submittable. Many journals like their fiction on the short side. Flash fiction is simply—fiction. Same for prose poems. They’re not always a separate category. Spend some time cruising through the journals. Familiarize yourself with them. Some you’ll love; others, not so much. 

Consider what matters to you. When sampling journals—and this is the beauty of being able to read so much online now, for free—read at least a few works, maybe check out a past issue or two, as well, to get a feel for what they publish, to see if you like what they publish and if you think your own work might be a good fit. Look at the masthead (there should be a masthead). How do you feel about the publishers? Do they charge fees (many do), and how do you feel about that? Some writers are fine with small fees; they're all for supporting the journals they love. For other writers, fees are a problem. Do you like the way the journal presents the writers’ works? Would you feel good (and not kind of embarrassed) to have your work on the site? Is the journal active on social media and helping to promote the writers they publish? Can you find those journals in annual prize anthologies like Best Small Fictions, Best Microfiction, Best of the Net, and others that publish the writing you love to read and write.

With apologies for all the em dashes. (They help me read my presentation notes and, OK, I really do like em dashes way too much.) 

All the best to you writers of short forms!

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Qiwen Xiao

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Kelly Terwilliger

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L. Soviero

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Daniel J. Rortvedt

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Jemma Leigh Roe

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Hila Ratzabi

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Ron MacLean

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Andrea Lewis

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Erik Harper Klass

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Kimberly Gibson-Tran

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Jake Bienvenue

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Nicholas Barnes

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Summer Short Forms Contest - Guidelines and Judging Criteria

by Barbara Westwood Diehl

No changes for our summer 2025 contest categories, but here are reminders about the guidelines and judging criteria, in case they’re helpful. 

Our general guidelines are provided in each Submittable category, but some additional thoughts on the short forms are included here. Keeping in mind that there are very few “rules” for writers with boundless imaginations and creativity. 

Total word limit for each contest category (prose poem, flash fiction, flash creative nonfiction) is 1,000. One, two, or three flash fiction works in one Word doc, but no more than 1,000 words for all works combined. 

A $400 prize is awarded in each category (prose poem, flash fiction, flash creative nonfiction). If a finalist is not selected for a $400 prize, the editors may decide to select the work for publication with payment at the BR’s usual rate of $50. 

Judging criteria: 

• Adherence to the submission guidelines. No more than three works and/or 1,000 words total in a submission. Submissions in the prose poem category should clearly be prose poems, e.g, not lineated.
  
   
• Other grounds for disqualifying contest submissions: Use of copyrighted material such as song lyrics or lines from other writers’ poems. Other legal and/or ethical considerations, such as plagiarism or defamatory or demeaning statements. Writers misrepresenting themselves. (The identities of contest submitters are concealed, but we do check for this later during the judging process.)
  
   
• Contest submissions should be well crafted and not in need of significant editing. A punctuation error or a skipped or misspelled word in otherwise well-written work—not a problem. But prize-winning work should show careful attention to language.
   
• Clarity, concision, precision, authority, evidence of the writer’s skill with language and grasp of subject matter. No factual inaccuracies. Smooth, logical flow. We should feel that we’re in capable hands when we read the work. We can slow down and enjoy the writing; it would likely be a pleasure to read it out loud. 
  
   
• Does the work fit the short-form genre? Would the work be better suited to a longer form? Maybe it feels like the writer has a lot to say but is squeezing it into a flash for contest purposes. Or narrative lift-off is taking too long. Or the work doesn’t end well. You’re left unsatisfied. The work should have a tight focus; there’s usually no space in the short form for going off on tangents—unless those tangents serve a purpose and enrich the work; they’re clearly part of a design, the architecture of the work. 
  
   
• Is the content fresh, original, surprising—or address a familiar subject in an unexpected way? If it delivers a message, does it do so without feeling heavy handed, agenda driven? Does it grab your interest and keep it until the final word? 
  
   
• Does the content feel significant, meaningful, have some sort of emotional impact—not frivolous, silly? Humor can be good—we all love humor—but it should still be meaningful. 
  
   
• Does the ending have power and contribute to that feeling of emotional impact? Is the ending the natural culmination of everything that came before? Twists and surprises of various kinds can work in flash (great flash is often full of surprises), but they should make sense in the context of the work. Endings shouldn’t come out of the blue; they also shouldn’t feel like a punchline. Subtlety can be lovely but not to the point of dullness, or being overly ambiguous, or leaving the reader with a flat feeling.
  
   
• The short-form work can be a tightly compressed narrative, stream of consciousness, burst of emotion through images, or something experimental, like a set of operating instructions or a classified ad. The possibilities are endless. Short forms are a wonderful license to experiment, e.g., when writing a prose poem, for the prose writer to be more playful with language and for the poet to write without the constraint of lines. When experimenting with forms, think about how that form (such as a recipe or prayer) may, or may not, enrich the meaning of the work. Does the form fit the content? Does the experimental form cloud the meaning? Or does the form enhance the work and provide an experience that would have been lost in a more traditional form?
   

Our contest deadline is May 31, and the final judge is Pamela Painter.

Surprise us. Make us wonder how you abracadabra meaning into such a small space. 

We love shorts. 

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Winter 2025 Issue Launched January 25, 2025

by Barbara Westwood Diehl

We hope that you enjoy the poems, short stories, and creative nonfiction by the following writers in our winter 2025 issue, which launched on January 25:

Shelley Berg
Dawn Dupler
Marika Guthrie
Diane LeBlanc
Joanne Merriam
Kayla Rutledge Page
Tyler Patton
Fran Qi
Rook Rainsdowne
Emily Ransdell
Maggie Riggs
Elizabeth Rosen
Leanne Shirtliffe
Nancy Takacs
Sage Tyrtle
Ben Van Voorhis
 

Congratulations to the winter contest winners—Dawn Dupler, Marika Guthrie, and Kayla Rutledge Page—and a special thanks to the final judge for our contest, Francine Witte. 

And thank you for being a Baltimore Review reader!

We open our Submittable doors again on February 1. We look forward to reading your work.

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Nancy Takacs

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Ben Van Voorhis

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Sage Tyrtle

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Elizabeth Rosen

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Maggie Riggs

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Emily Ransdell

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Rook Rainsdowne

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Joanne Merriam

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