November 2020

Why We Chose It

BY KATHARINE WEBER, EDITOR AT LARGE

“The Alhambra,” by Kris Willcox appears in the Sept/Oct 2020 issue of KROnline.

The personal essay has long been the province of writers describing a journey, either physical or metaphysical—or both—that is a quest for the antidote to varieties of trauma, loss, depression, or illness. . . . Kris Willcox’s “The Alhambra” is not one of those essays. It is, instead, a quietly delightful gift to readers in the form of a reflection from the present moment back to a week in the summer of 2004, when she was twenty-nine, when she flew to London at the height of tourist season to get outside her life for a while and confront her own sadness, by staying alone in a modest hotel with a fancy name near King’s Cross train station. Read the rest of “Why We Chose It.”

Nov/Dec Issue: A Personal Touch

David Lynn retired as the Kenyon Review’s editor this past June. But he bids a “literary” farewell with the newest issue of KR, which features work by writers whom Lynn came to know and admire—as both artists and friends—during his transformative twenty-six-year tenure. Regular KR readers will recognize many of the names in the Nov/Dec 2020 issue, among them fiction writers Nancy Zafris and T.C. Boyle; poets David Baker, Natalie Shapero, G.C. Waldrep, Carl Phillips, and Mary Szybist; and nonfiction writers Roger Rosenblatt and Geeta Kothari. The magazine’s cover is a detail of a painting by Rick Landesberg, the artist and designer whose firm led the redesign of KR’s print journal and website, and who in retirement continues to act as KR’s design consultant. Don’t miss this memorable issue of KR, curated by our longest-serving editor. Subscribe or order a print or digital copy today!

Kenyon Review Out Loud

You can meet the extraordinary writers of the Nov/Dec issue in person, as it were, through Kenyon Review Out Loud. With every issue of the journal, we assemble a collection of audio recordings, with the writers reading their own work. It’s a respite for the eyes and a treat for the ears. Listen here.

Contest for High School Poets Now Accepting Submissions

We are accepting entries through November 30 for the Patricia Grodd Poetry Prize for Young Writers, open to high school sophomores and juniors worldwide. The winner receives a full scholarship to the Kenyon Review Young Writers Workshop, and the winning poem will be published in KR, together with the poems of the two runners-up. The judge for this eighteenth annual Grodd contest is Emily Nason, whose own poetry has appeared or is forthcoming in the Kenyon Review, the Georgia Review, the Indiana Review, and Triquarterly, among other journals. Nason has multiple connections to KR and Kenyon: She was a runner-up for the Grodd Prize in 2011 and attended Kenyon, serving as a KR Associate and Intern before graduating in 2016. She recently completed her MFA at the University of Virginia, where she worked with Rita Dove. Learn more about the contest.

Other Contests Coming Soon

Think small! Our annual short nonfiction and short fiction contests will soon be open. For the Short Nonfiction Contest (pieces of 1,200 words or fewer), the online submissions link will be open from December 1 to 31. For the Short Fiction Contest (same word limit), the submissions period is January 1 to 31, 2021. In both contests, the winning pieces will be published in the Kenyon Review.

Fellows Search Continues

In August 2021, we will welcome two new Kenyon Review Fellows, emerging writers—one in poetry, one in prose—who will join the Kenyon community for two years to teach, assist with editorial projects for KR, and pursue their own creative projects. The application period for the fellowships opened on November 1 and runs to December 1. The fellowships represent a vital aspect of KR’s mission: to recognize, publish, and support extraordinary authors in the early stages of their careers. For more information about the program, eligibility requirements, and application process, click here.

On Books and Their Harbors

A bookstore can be a kind of home. A bookstore can change lives, and the world. These ideas weave through the two most recent pieces in On Books and Their Harbors, our series in which writers launching new books during the pandemic reflect on the communities that have sustained them. Sumita Chakraborty, the author of a debut poetry collection, Arrow (Alice James Books, 2020), writes about her discovery of the Grolier Poetry Book Shop in Cambridge, Massachusetts: “Physically, the store consists of one very small room, but very little in my life had felt quite that vast to me before.” Deesha Philyaw, whose story collection The Secret Lives of Church Ladies (West Virginia University Press, 2020) is a finalist for the National Book Award, offers a conversation with Arlan Hess of City Books in Pittsburgh. “Books that urge readers toward empathy . . . have the potential to inspire meaningful change,” says Hess, who goes on to say that Philyaw’s debut collection forces readers “to admit the reality of complex Black women defying stereotypes and challenging what their religion has taught them.” Click here to read these pieces as well as others in the series, and to buy the writers’ books.

A “Narrative Space” for a Fraught Year

In partnership with Kenyon College, KR has launched In My Time: A Narrative Space, a literary project designed to help our community—on campus and beyond—share creative understanding amid the uncertainties, grief, and distance imposed by the current pandemic. Throughout the rest of the academic year, the project will post collections of readings from KR and KROnline, and supplement those readings with discussions, writing activities, and virtual public events. For each collection, the KR Associates will prepare discussion topics and writing prompts, as well as links to other resources (such as news articles) that deepen engagement with the readings. The first collection includes poetry by Victoria Chang, and stories by Jaquira Díaz and C Pam Zhang. In an introduction, KR Associate Editor Sergei Lobanov-Rostovsky meditates on the theme of grief addressed through these writers’ works: “We read what others have written about grief to feel less alone. We write, and in that act of writing, we speak as much to ourselves as to others.” To download the first collection and learn more about the project, click here.

From the KR Blog: “Letting Go of Publishing Anxiety: An Interview with Sarah Enni”

BY LAURA MAYLENE WALTER

October 16, 2020

Sarah Enni: “. . . you spend a good chunk of your early years as a writer fretting about finding an agent. It’s a very complicated and intimidating process to find someone you can trust with your work. But there’s something of a mono-focus on agents when talking to new and aspiring writers. It dominates conversation to the detriment of understanding of what the publishing process really is.” Read the rest of this interview with Sarah Enni, creator of the podcast mini-series Track Changes, about the ins and outs of the publishing industry.

NOVEMBER 2020
CONTENTS

Why We Chose It
Nov/Dec 2020 Issue
Kenyon Review Out Loud
Poetry Prize
Winter Contests
Fellowships Search
On Books & Their Harbors
“In My Time”
From the Blog

^ BACK TO THE TOP