December 2018

Kenyon Review’s Holiday Reading Recommendations

Ah, the holidays, season of lists. At KR, we celebrate by asking our editors and staff to enthuse about books—new and old, in any and every genre—that have captured their imaginations, so that you can put them on your own reading list or perhaps gift list. As 2018 blows away in a December gust, we wish all of you a comfortable armchair and warm hours to lose yourselves in a good book. Joyful reading! Click here to check out our holiday reading recommendations.

The Perfect Gift: A KR Workshop!

So you’d love to attend one of the KR Writers Workshops but you’re not sure how to cover the cost. Or you know a writer facing this question. One solution: a holiday gift. For our summer 2019 workshops, we decided to open the application site early so that writers (and their generous friends) can plan ahead and, if necessary, get creative about paying. Go for it. Apply now, while letting your loved ones know that, for this holiday season, you’d like to receive a week of immersive writing. Once you’re accepted, tell your Santa to make the gift, using this link to our online store. And if your loved ones make the purchase before December 15, we’ll mail a gift card for you to receive before the 25th. It’s a win-win! You’ll get the gift of creativity, and we trust that your Santa(s) will get a special mention on the Acknowledgements page of your book.

Here’s the lineup of our 2019 Writers Workshops:

June 16-22, 2019
Fiction: Nancy Zafris, Ghassan Abou-Zeneiddine,
E.J. Levy
Literary Nonfiction: Dinty W. Moore
Poetry: David Baker, Carl Phillips
Spiritual Writing: Rodger Kamenetz, Lauren Winner

July 7-13, 2019
Fiction: Nick White, Angie Cruz
Literary Nonfiction: Rebecca McClanahan, A.J. Verdelle
Poetry: Natalie Shapero, Solmaz Sharif
Translation: Elizabeth Lowe, Katherine M. Hedeen
Writers Workshop for Teachers: Erick Gordon,
Brad Richard

Click here to learn more about the Summer 2019 Writers Workshops.

Nonfiction Writers: A Contest for You

This month we’re delighted to introduce the KR Short Nonfiction Contest, a way to celebrate and recognize small essays that pack a big punch. The submission period opened on December 1 and will run through December 31. Entries should be no longer than 1,200 words. “The beauty of short form lies in the challenges the length presents to a writer trying to capture a real life event or experience,” says Geeta Kothari, KR’s nonfiction editor and the contest judge. “The limited word count forces the writing into places it might otherwise not have gone, and that’s what I’m most looking forward to—reading pieces that take an unexpected turn, show a necessary relationship between form and content, or surprise the reader in some way I can’t even imagine.” The contest is open to all writers who have not yet published a book of creative nonfiction. The winner will be awarded a scholarship to attend the 2019 Writers Workshop, and the winning piece will be published in the Mar/Apr 2020 issue of the Kenyon Review. Click here for more information about the contest.

Rita Dove, Live!

She spoke about the role of both receptivity and craft in writing poetry, about thorny assignments that she designs for her students (and herself), and about the paradoxes that poets live with, as introverts who bare their souls. She evoked both Rilke and Harold and the Purple Crayon. And in her warm, expressive voice, she read her own poems. If you missed Rita Dove’s lecture and reading at Kenyon on November 9, you can watch a video of her appearance via KR’s Facebook page. The acclaimed poet visited campus as the winner of the 2018 Kenyon Review Award for Literary Achievement; her lecture was part of KR’s annual literary festival. Click here to watch Rita Dove’s talk (video starts at 08:05:14). And to hear Dove speak when she received the award at KR’s gala in New York, click here.

New in KR Podcasts

Poet Eloisa Amezcua interviews poet Nabila Lovelace about the act of naming, the identification of violence, and the use of language to make sense of the places in which we find ourselves. Listen to it! We’re also presenting podcasts from our 2018 writing workshops. This month, Nathan Lipps (a poet and Peter Taylor Fellow) talks with poet and workshop instructor Solmaz Sharif about a poem’s audience, staying in the discomfort of a poem, and revising one’s beliefs within a workshop experience. Listen to it!

From the KR Blog: “Watching Her Library Burn”

BY LAURA MAYLENE WALTER

November 20, 2018

I watched my mother’s library burn when she died of cancer. I was twenty, an age that now seems heartbreakingly close to the days she and I visited the library together, or those times we popped into Waldenbooks at the mall, or when we grabbed our trash bags and rushed with giddy energy to the book sale. I watched my mother’s library burn without truly being able to comprehend it was happening—that our time together was ending, that all the stories and memories and moments I shared with her would no longer be cross-referenced between us but would instead exist only within me. As [Susan] Orlean writes of her mother in The Library Book, “I knew that now I was carrying the remembrance for both of us.” Read the essay.

Behind the Scenes: KR Associate of the Month

You may never meet them or even know they exist. But if you read or submit to the Kenyon Review—or attend a reading or community program, or see our publicity, or follow us on social media—you know their work. They’re the KR Associates, eighty-seven talented Kenyon College students who love the literary life and who help out, behind the scenes, with just about everything we do. Selected from about 160 applicants every fall, the Associates receive training from our editorial and administrative staff throughout the year. They’re an integral, and indispensable, part of the KR team. As a new feature, Tyler Raso—Kenyon Class of 2019, and a KR intern—will introduce you to some of these great young people, so that you can get a sense of their interests, creative gifts, and remarkable energy. This month, meet Samantha Culbert.

DECEMBER 2018
CONTENTS
Book Recommendations
Writers Workshops
Short Nonfiction Contest
Rita Dove Live!
KR Podcast
From the Blog
KR Associates

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