What's on our minds
May Podcast: Laura Schadler reads “Reward for Bravery”
May, 01 2013 | no responses
Today, May 1, Ullr, dropped exactly forty gazillion inches of snow on Fort Collins, CO because apparently Norse gods don’t know when it’s spring already. Today, May 1, is also International Worker’s Day. Today, May 1, I am here at work (in sweatpants, but still). Apparently, today is one of those anything goes days. If [...]
Kevin Goodan on Upper Level Disturbances
Apr, 26 2013 | no responses
New Books in Poetry‘s John Ebersole has a great conversation with Kevin Goodan about his growing up on the Flathead Indian Reservation, fighting fires for the US Forest Service, his time in the MFA program at UMass, and his latest book, Upper Level Disturbances (Mountain West Poetry Series). Listen to the interview here.
Goodreads changed my life. And then it got bought by Amazon.
Apr, 09 2013 | one response
Colorado Review associate editor Derek Askey shares his thoughts on, and some personal experience with, Goodreads, and its recent purchase by online bookseller Amazon. Now that the dust has, at least marginally, settled over Amazon’s acquisition of the social-media platform Goodreads, it seems sensible to touch on how such a change might affect a small press [...]
MFA Thesis Reading: Mickey Kenny, Derek Askey, and Joanna Doxey
Apr, 04 2013 | one response
MFA Thesis Reading: Mickey Kenny, Derek Askey, and Joanna Doxey by Brittany Goss, editorial assistant On March 29, 2013, the Hatton Gallery at the CSU Visual Arts Center was packed with the friends, teachers, students, and proud family members of third-year MFA students Mickey Kenny, Derek Askey, and Joanna Doxey. Everyone came to hear [...]
March Podcast: Susanna Childress reads “The Hyssop Tub”
Apr, 02 2013 | no responses
Selections from Colorado Review is not good at April Fool’s pranks. We’re so bad at it, in fact, that we can’t even get the date right. Truth be told, we’re not even that funny. We were going to totally prank you by releasing the March podcast on April 1, April Fool’s Day. Hilarious, right? But then we screwed [...]
An Interview in 7 Parts with Susanna Childress
Feb, 28 2013 | 2 responses
Colorado Review Editorial Assistant Kristin George Bagdanov interviews Susanna Childress about her seven-part poem that appeared in the Summer 2011 issue of Colorado Review and the March podcast. I first encountered Susanna Childress’s poems while working on a review of her second book, Entering the House of Awe (Western Michigan University Press, 2011), for Ruminate [...]
January Podcast: Endi Bogue Hartigan reads “It Was a Church Then”
Jan, 30 2013 | no responses
Better late than never, right? C’mon, am I right? You know I’m right. I always am. Always. So let’s just pretend this little delay never happened. Let’s all just pretend and nobody gets hurt. No kittens, no puppies, nobody. We can all just be cool about it. And while we’re all being so cool about [...]
Dec, 13 2012 | no responses
Gathered by Mandi Casolo Your token gift-giving link for literary friends. If you’re like me, you haven’t started shopping yet, so here’s a head start with some “elegant and pithy” posters illustrating famous quotes by writers. Suspending reader disbelief for the moment is hard but suspending reader disbelief for an entire creative world is harder. [...]
Dec, 06 2012 | no responses
Gathered by Mandi Casolo If you like Henry Miller and long-winded metaphors that liken writing to journeys, roads, paths, and the polarization of paradise and hell, you might enjoy The Wisdom of the Heart. The elusive agent: ever so mysterious and unreachable. Six months passes after you’ve submitted a proposal and still no word. You [...]
Interview with Matthew Shaer, Winner of the 2012 Nelligan Prize
Dec, 04 2012 | one response
Colorado Review Associate Editor Derek Askey interviews Matthew Shaer about his story “Ghosts,” which appeared in the Fall 2012 issue of Colorado Review as the winner of the 2012 Nelligan Prize for Short Fiction, selected by Jane Hamilton. Read the full text of the story here, or listen to Shaer read the story on our [...]
Nov, 29 2012 | no responses
Gathered by Mandi Casolo Home, home on the range, where the poets and writers play…okay, the Front Range (Denver, FoCo, Boulder area) is hosting readings this weekend featuring Dan Beachy-Quick, Elizabeth Robinson, Tina Brown and Sasha Steensen, among others. A map of events for your literary weekend. A robot that scans 250 pages a minute [...]
Nov, 15 2012 | no responses
Gathered by Mandi Casolo If you haven’t realized it already, dialogue is perhaps the most complicated element of creative writing. Read “What We Talk About When We Talk About Love” and the underlying meaning behind speech is apparent. Contrary to common advice, short story writer Thomas Lee argues it’s not possible to write what you [...]
Nov, 08 2012 | no responses
Gathered by Mandi Casolo In the spirit of the 2012 lively, civilized and productive presidential election, The Poetry Foundation has matched former presidents with their poetic inspirations. Looking at these photographs, perhaps Roosevelt simply admired Robinson for his similar taste in spectacles and mustaches. Canadian artist, Guy Laramee, sculpts mind-blowing landscapes from volumes of books. [...]
November Podcast: Matthew Shaer reads “Ghosts”
Nov, 03 2012 | no responses
Dear friends, Did you accidentally eat yourself into a Halloween candy coma this week? If so, don’t worry about it. It’s not your fault. It was bound to happen. That said, gosh do I have just the thing for you! What better to accompany you on the couch in your gastronomical misery than the November [...]
Nov, 01 2012 | no responses
Gathered by Mandi Casolo With the intention of prolonging Halloween so as not to be bombarded by Christmas carols and holiday shopping coupons: a montage of vintage horror paperbacks. Lorin Stein, editor of The Paris Review, says you should pay attention to short stories–no, really? What’s next? Mary Karr writes country music? Well, yes. Nearly [...]
The Dreaded Cover Letter: A Colorado Review Primer
Oct, 26 2012 | no responses
By Abby Hill, Editorial Assistant There’s a lot of advice out there about how to write a cover letter when submitting to a literary journal. Some journals will be specific about the information they want, and some will simply just ask for a cover letter. Whether you’re submitting online or through the mail to [...]
Oct, 25 2012 | no responses
Gathered by Mandi Casolo Wolverine Farm is now accepting nominations for 2013 Fort Collins Poet Laureate–nominate yourself! In honor of the World Series game two, Ron Silliman meditates on poetics in baseball. Halloween recommendation reads are typically Frankenstein and anything by Stephen King–red rum. But if you want something new to keep you up at [...]
Oct, 18 2012 | no responses
Gathered by Mandi Casolo An exhausting, if not exhaustive, meta-list of writing rules from writers including Margaret Atwood’s “Do back exercises,” and “Take something to write on. Paper is good. In a pinch, pieces of wood or your arm will do.” In the helpful spirit, Kurt Vonnegut gives eight tips in his own voice, such as [...]
October Podcast: William Torrey reads “The Common Era”
Oct, 11 2012 | no responses
Well, kids, it’s October. Before you get all excited about dressing up, down, or sideways in your fancy Halloween costumes at the end of the month, I think we all need to sit down and have a talk. First off, eat your vegetables. It’s important. Second, we need to address a serious lack of culture [...]
Oct, 10 2012 | 2 responses
After a year on the job, our fiction editor, Steven Schwartz, offers some reflections on submitting stories. Reasons we accept stories: You had us at the title. (Okay, the first sentence.) * Not a cliché to be found, not even close; indeed, the authority of the voice feels immune to the very idea of [...]
Oct, 09 2012 | no responses
Gathered by Mandi Casolo Chicago designer Jenny Volvoski reads a book and re-creates its cover art with challenging color and type limitations. While a theme of green, black, and white unifies the covers into a series, “Cover to Cover,” each cover is imagined in the individual likeness of its story. After hemming and hawing and [...]
Oct, 04 2012 | no responses
Gathered by Mandi Casolo Hang on to your hats: After cryptically tip-toeing around with Gathering Blue and The Messenger, Lois Lowry has at last written a sequel to The Giver, the dystopian young adult novel that first captured our hearts for euthanasia and terror regimes in sixth grade. Behold Son. There are so many avenues [...]
Oct, 02 2012 | one response
Gathered by Mandi Casolo J.K. Rowling’s first adult novel, The Casual Vacancy, released on Sept. 26th. If you didn’t preorder it, shame on you. The Daily Beast gives a first look into the “viciousness of Rowling’s new fictional village.” “Literary Buroughs”, a Ploughshares series’ exploring the local literary community, highlights Great Falls, MT: where [...]
Sep, 20 2012 | no responses
Gathered by Mandi Casolo If you’re in or near the Big Apple, make sure you swing by the Brooklyn Book Fest this weekend, September 23rd. It’s like a rock concert of writers: Joyce Carol Oates, Billy Collins, and Tony Danza, oh my! Brooklyn Book Fest banners are displayed on the columns of the NYPL in [...]
September Podcast: James Henry Knippen reads “Attic”
Sep, 12 2012 | no responses
Well, kids, it’s back to school season, which can mean only one thing: it’s time for me to box up all of my white Ocean Pacific T-shirts and store them upstairs in the attic until spring. And speaking of attics, hey, James Henry Knippen was kind enough to record his poem “Attic” for Selections from [...]
June Podcast: Andrea Dupree reads “Lineage”
Jun, 05 2012 | no responses
The air conditioning in my car is broken, and the Miami Heat are in the NBA playoffs. That can only mean two things: it’s getting warmer, and my life is a little unfortunate right now. If you’re like me and can’t stand the heat, not only should you get out of the kitchen, you should [...]
May podcast double creature feature: Rachel Galvin & Andy Nicholson
May, 23 2012 | no responses
We took a month off, and we’re sorry. We took a month off because we had to, because we sat on the couch too long and ate too many Cheetos—whole bags of them at a time—and the comfortable couch and delicious snacks made us doughy and lazy. And for that, we’re sorry. But sometime around [...]
Colorado Review Digital Issue (PDF)
Apr, 23 2012 | no responses
Digital friends, we’re pleased to announce that the Spring 2012 edition of Colorado Review is now also available in digital format, in addition to our beautiful print format. The digital issue features all of the great content of the print edition. It comes in a tagged Adobe PDF that is compatible with Adobe Acrobat and [...]
Poetry Submissions Closed for the Summer
Apr, 10 2012 | no responses
Dear poets, Due to a recent influx in submissions, we’ve closed our poetry submissions early for the year. Fiction submissions will remain open until our usual deadline of April 30. Nonfiction submissions are read and accepted year-round. We respect the hard work you put into your craft, and we would feel terrible guilt at not [...]
March Podcast: John Gallaher reads “Where They Feed Their Children to Kings”
Mar, 26 2012 | one response
No foolin’. Selections from Colorado Review doesn’t pull pranks or play practical jokes. We’re not going to jerk you around by flushing the toilet when you’re in the shower or pretending we got engaged last weekend to that guy you don’t like. We’re here to bring you great poetry and prose from Colorado Review, and that’s [...]
The Professionalization of Writing at Colorado Review
Mar, 20 2012 | 2 responses
Colorado Review Editorial Assistant Derek Askey, citing author Cathy Day’s blog, outlines the discussion on professionalization in MFA programs, relating his experiences with the Center for Literary Publishing.
Contributing Editor Robin Black on Writer’s Block
Mar, 16 2012 | no responses
From Beyond the Margins, here’s a wonderful post by Colorado Review contributing editor Robin Black on dreams, ambition, genius, and self-sabotage.
February Podcast: Michelle Hoover reads “Our Little Bertha”
Feb, 28 2012 | no responses
Everyone knows the best holiday in February is on the 28. Everyone. Even Tina knows it, and she’s still non-ironically wearing Hypercolor shirts. Because Selections from Colorado Review is hip and cool and alternative and in-the-know, we waited until this exact date to release our February podcast where, by clicking this link, you can hear [...]
Laynie Browne, reading for mid-December podcast
Dec, 21 2011 | no responses
This is a bonus episode of “Selections from Colorado Review.” Do not be alarmed by its presence. Do not attempt to fight it. Do not attempt to destroy it immediately lest it destroy you first, because by waiting long enough you will be able to confirm that it has no designs on destroying you at [...]
Dec, 20 2011 | one response
Colorado Review Editorial Assistant (and Pennsylvania native) Derek Askey interviews Martin Cozza about his story “Pennsylvania Polka,” which appeared in the Summer 2010 issue (an excerpt follows this interview) Derek Askey: Among so many other things, what “Pennsylvania Polka” does well is capture (and in many ways hinges upon) its setting. What prompted the [...]
December podcast: “Beautiful Souls” by Joan Leegant
Dec, 05 2011 | 2 responses
“Selections from Colorado Review” must deliver fresh poetry and prose every month to its listeners and readers of Colorado Review. This isn’t a want thing, or a desire thing—it is a biologically-compelled-to-do-it thing, lest it suffer an unbearable and possibly fatal poetry and prose backup, which can be painful. Some people might find that fact [...]
November Podcast: Caroline Arden’s “Yolo County”
Nov, 04 2011 | no responses
Look, “Selections from Colorado Review” has a few ground rules if you and it are going to take this relationship seriously—just before you get any ideas, okay? SFCR is in this to provide you, the internet-savvy, literature-loving consumer, with fresh poetry and prose from the pages of Colorado Review every month. That’s it. So no [...]
October Podcast: Andrew D. Cohen’s “Boys School”
Oct, 07 2011 | one response
Listen—a clatterin’ in the distance. The cattle were restless today; that old sheepdog gave a plaintive howl. “I know this sound,” murmured Ole Sal. “‘Tis ‘Selections from Colorado Review‘, the cattle-rustlinest podcast ever to deliver fresh poetry and prose from Colorado Review round these parts. Reckon by the sound of it they brought some nonfiction [...]
Interview with Steven Schwartz, our new fiction editor
Sep, 09 2011 | 2 responses
The Wonder of It By Lauren Gullion, Associate Editor I recently sat down with fiction writer, Colorado State University creative writing professor, and Warren Wilson MFA faculty member Steven Schwartz to discuss his new role as fiction editor here at Colorado Review. The conversation—meant to be about Steven—quickly evolved into an enthralling contemplation on fiction [...]
September podcast: Leslie Johnson’s “Other Lives”
Sep, 09 2011 | no responses
If you have been meaning to read Leslie Johnson’s “Other Lives,” from the Spring 2011 issue, but have for several months now had your efforts foiled by a series of eyeglasses-related accidents, each one more tragic than the last, hang up on your emergency optometrist: the very first fiction episode of “Selections from Colorado Review” [...]
Three Cups of Veritas: A Review of Byliner.com
Jul, 01 2011 | no responses
A cross-post from Brevity’s nonfiction blog by Colorado Review alumnus R. B. Moreno, now a doctoral student at the University of South Dakota’s creative writing program. Moreno’s other work can be found online at RBMoreno.com. Here’s a thought. Byliner.com’s debut nonfiction stems from several American wars. And for good reason. So often this is “the most powerful way in human [...]
June’s Podcast: 2 Poems from Katherine Factor
Jun, 21 2011 | no responses
By Dan Moore Fans of poetry read by its authors and would-be mycophiliacs take heed: June’s “Selections from Colorado Review” has been released upon an unsuspecting internet, primarily because the internet has come to expect “Selections from Colorado Review” on the first Friday of every month. To make up for startling the internet like that, [...]
May 6, 2011 Podcast: Natalie Eilbert
May, 06 2011 | no responses
Dan Moore, Colorado Review Editorial Assistant and Podcast Editor It is the first Friday of the month, and it is our goal as nascent podcasters and glossers-over of B. F. Skinner to condition Colorado Review readers to associate that particularly joyous occasion with the release of another episode of “Selections from Colorado Review,” the [...]
It’s Always Nonfiction Season at Colorado Review
May, 06 2011 | one response
As noted in our guidelines, Colorado Review closes its submission period on April 30 and re-opens on August 1. Starting this spring, however, we’re reading nonfiction year-round. It’s not that we don’t love fiction and poetry—we do!—but we just don’t get enough nonfiction. Between August 2010 and today, 54.74% of the online submissions have been [...]
An Interview with Robert Boswell
May, 05 2011 | no responses
Colorado Review’s Managing Editor, Merrill Shane Jones, interviews Robert Boswell about his story “Destroy This,” which appears in the Spring 2011 issue (an excerpt follows this interview). Merrill Shane Jones: How did “Destroy This” come about? Can you talk a bit about the process? Robert Boswell: I don’t actually remember how I got started on [...]
Colorado Review Now Podcasting
Apr, 13 2011 | one response
By Colorado Review Editorial Assistant Dan Moore Consider, if you will, some of the situations in which it is typically dangerous to read a literary journal: while driving, while jogging, while attempting to impress all your new-media friends with your casual disdain for paper content-delivery systems. For these scenarios, among others, we at Colorado Review [...]
Apr, 12 2011 | one response
Colorado Review Editorial Assistant Nicholas Maistros interviews Shannon Cain, author of “Juniper Beach,” which appears in the Spring 2011 issue of CR Photo by Sarah Prall Nicholas Maistros: “Juniper Beach” is the story of a woman who spontaneously purchases an RV and embarks on a journey across the country. As a reader, I appreciated the [...]
Cooking with the Skloots: Veal Italienne “Sklootini”
Apr, 11 2011 | no responses
By Colorado Review Associate Editor Sarah Lin A few months ago, while in the middle of production for the Spring 2011 issue of Colorado Review, I was delighted to find myself reading for the first time Floyd Skloot‘s nonfiction piece “The Famous Recipe.” The essay details Skloot’s exploration of an intriguing, never-before-seen recipe authored by [...]
Apr, 05 2011 | no responses
With spring upon us and the end of the academic year almost in sight, the editors at Colorado Review have been seeking inspiration and enlightenment in our reading lists to give us that final push through to the close of the semester.
I Didn’t Read It, But I Saw the Movie
Mar, 31 2011 | no responses
By Colorado Review Editorial Assistant Nicholas Maistros I found myself in line for the opening of the latest Harry Potter movie. The woman in front of me was anxiously reading the book version of the film we were about to see, saying to anyone who’d listen things like, “Oh, they better get it right” or [...]
Mar, 30 2011 | no responses
By Colorado Review Editorial Assistant Nicholas Maistros In a recent New Yorker article, “The Information: How the Internet Gets Inside Us,” Adam Gopnik chronicles the debate between the two camps who’ve amassed since the Internet boom: the Never-Betters, those who “believe that we’re on the brink of a new utopia, where information will be made [...]
So I Got My MFA . . . Am I a Writer Yet?
Mar, 29 2011 | one response
By Colorado Review Editorial Assistant Nicholas Maistros In a recent online interview with the Paris Review, novelist Michael Cunningham had this to say in response to the ongoing debate over the necessity of MFA programs: “Few people question artists going to art school, or musicians going to music school. There’s some strange romance about the [...]
Timing It Right: Balancing Social Media & Our Love of Literature
Mar, 25 2011 | no responses
By Colorado Review Associate Editor Lauren Gullion Earlier this week, I wrote here to make my case in defense of Twitter as a viable tool for authors and other literary types. As we move into the weekend, I thought I’d offer up some tips on how we can engage in the social media game without [...]
An Interview with Katherine Hill
Mar, 22 2011 | no responses
Colorado Review Associate Editor Lauren Gullion interviews Katherine Hill, winner of the 2010 Nelligan Prize for her story “Waste Management” (selected by Andrea Barrett).
Mar, 21 2011 | no responses
Twitter turned 5 years old this past Saturday (March 19). In recognition of this marker, NPR ran a story covering the platform’s background as well as the role it’s played in recent political movements around the world. But does Twitter play a worthwhile role in the literary world?
Mar, 18 2011 | no responses
The Tournament of Books reached the end of its first round this weekend. That means it’s too late to get your bracket into the money at your office pool, but there’s still time to follow along with literature’s premier (mostly) single-elimination tournament of champions.
An Interview with Rusty Morrison
Mar, 08 2011 | no responses
Colorado Review Associate Editor Felicia Zamora interviews Rusty Morrison, co-publisher of Omnidawn and winner of (among numerous other prizes) the 2004 Colorado Prize for Poetry for her collection Whethering. Two of Morrison’s new poems, “Inventions” and “Necessities,” appear in the soon-to-be-available spring 2011 issue of Colorado Review.
Mar, 07 2011 | no responses
Bicyclists and our winged friends aren’t the only ones eager for spring. The beginning of March brings deadlines, deadlines, deadlines. It’s a full on smorgasbord of competitions for writers of all genres.
An Interview with Peggy Shinner
Mar, 03 2011 | no responses
Colorado Review Editorial Assistant R. B. Moreno interviews Peggy Shinner, whose essay “Leopold and Shinner” appears in our Fall/Winter 2010 issue (an excerpt from this essay follows the interview).
Feb, 24 2011 | no responses
Enter LitPak, a rather nifty service from NewPages that debuted earlier this month. Here, available for viewing or download from a single page, are nearly two dozen PDFs advertising contests and calls for submission pertaining to February.
In an Age of Great Nonfiction Writing, Too Much Nonfiction Writing?
Feb, 24 2011 | 2 responses
Thirty-seven books of poetry. Eighteen novels and short story collections. One book of reportage: Framing Innocence: A Mother’s Photographs, a Prosecutor’s Zeal, and a Small Town’s Response.
Nelligan Prize for Short Fiction: Deadline Approaching
Feb, 21 2011 | no responses
We want to remind the fiction writers out there that the deadline for the 2011 Nelligan Prize for Short Fiction is approaching: March 11. The writer of the winning story will receive $1,500, and the story will be published in the Fall/Winter 2011 issue of Colorado Review. Ron Carlson is the final judge. See complete [...]
Dec, 13 2010 | no responses
The 2011 Colorado Prize for Poetry, judged by Cole Swensen, is underway! We are accepting book-length poetry manuscripts now through the deadline of January 14, 2011. The author of the winning manuscript will receive $1,500 and the book will be published by the Center for Literary Publishing (that’s us!). And guess what! For the first [...]
Dec, 07 2010 | one response
Years ago, when he was an intern here, Christopher Arigo (author of Lit interim and In the archives) came up with a list of his most disliked words used in poems. We don’t have that list anymore, but I clearly remember two words from it: gossamer and diaphanous. It’s no longer possible for me to [...]
Birth Announcement: The Mountain West Poetry Series
Nov, 22 2010 | no responses
With the very generous support of the National Endowment for the Arts, the Center for Literary Publishing will soon launch a new book series, the Mountain West Poetry Series. This series features poets who live in the Mountain West (Idaho, Montana, Wyoming, Colorado, Utah, Nevada, Arizona, and New Mexico). The first four titles in the [...]
You Adopt Babies, Highways, and Puppies—Why Not a Literary Magazine?
Nov, 21 2010 | no responses
Colorado Review is among the many literary magazines in this excellent program launched by our good friends and supporters at CLMP: The Council of Literary Magazines and Presses (CLMP) is rolling out an expanded catalogue for its Lit Mag Adoption Program for Creative Writing Courses. This program offers discounted subscriptions for selected literary magazines to [...]
Nov, 20 2010 | no responses
Our web site has been given a major makeover, thanks to the Talented Mr. Nolte, the web designer for CSU’s College of Liberal Arts (and a former CLP intern). You may recognize Drew’s work from such book covers as Brenda Is in the Room, The Lesser Fields, and Annulments. You can find more of his [...]