September 2019

T.C. Boyle to Receive KR Achievement Award

The brilliantly imaginative fiction writer T.C. Boyle has been chosen to receive the 2019 Kenyon Review Award for Literary Achievement. Boyle will receive the award at a gala dinner in New York City on November 6, then come to Gambier to deliver the Denham Sutcliffe Memorial Lecture on November 8 as part of KR’s annual literary festival. “T.C. Boyle is truly a master of both the contemporary short story and the novel,” says David Lynn, the Banks Editor of the Kenyon Review. “He is unrivaled in a kind of creative playfulness that allows him to probe deeply, with wit and insight and verbal precision, into a vast array of characters and dramatic contexts. We are thrilled to honor such a singular talent.” Boyle is the author of twenty-eight books of fiction and the recipient of numerous awards, including the PEN/Faulkner Prize for best novel of the year. Once again, as part of its award celebration, KR will engage the wider community through “Knox Reads!” Starting in early October, we will give away free copies of Boyle’s story collection The Relive Box—several of the stories first appeared in KR—and sponsor a series of discussions about the book. Our next newsletter will bring you more news about both the book giveaway and the literary festival. Meanwhile, click here to learn more about Boyle and the Kenyon Review Award for Literary Achievement.

Why We Chose It

BY NATALIE SHAPERO, GUEST POETRY EDITOR

“Finding a Drawer Full of Drivers’ Licenses:,” by Jennifer L. Knox, appears in the Sept/Oct 2019 issue of the Kenyon Review.

“Finding a Drawer Full of Drivers’ Licenses:” begins with an outsize epigraph; the space generally reserved for a snippet of language or quick glimpse of setting instead takes up about as much of the page as the actual poem. In the abstract, bulky epigraphs sometimes disagree with me. . . . But Knox’s epigraph is necessary where it is, expert in its design. It allows the poem that follows to begin at the moment of being overwhelmed, of being steeped in the lurid news cycle, aware enough of the appeal to the public to know what to look for. Read the entire essay

Sept/Oct Issue Ushers in Guest Editor Series

The newest issue of the Kenyon Review is now out, and it’s noteworthy in that it inaugurates a series of issues shaped in part by talented guest editors. For Sept/Oct, KR Editor at Large Natalie Shapero selected the poetry, gathering it in a section she has intriguingly titled “Speak Low.” You can get a feeling for Shapero’s sensibility by reading “Why We Chose It,” above, along with her introductory essay for the poetry in the new issue. The Sept/Oct issue also features the winning poems in the 2019 Patricia Grodd Poetry Prize for Young Writers, plus Editor David Lynn’s reflections on the current “golden age” in literature. Subscribe or order a print or digital copy today!

Reading by Ear: KR Out Loud

Powerful writing can become all the more powerful when it’s read out loud. This is certainly the case with “Twelve Words,” an essay by Brian Trapp about his severely disabled twin brother. The piece, which appears in the Sept/Oct issue of KR, comes to wrenching life in “KR Out Loud,” where Trapp includes a recording of a conversation with his late brother before going on to read the essay. This edition of “KR Out Loud” also includes readings by winners of the Patricia Grodd Poetry Prize for Young Writers. Click here for the latest out-loud readings.

Submit Soon—and Act Fast!

In less than two weeks, the truncated—yes, please note, the truncated—submissions period opens for the Kenyon Review and KROnline. Starting on September 15, you can use our online submissions system to send us your stories, poems, and creative nonfiction. As we’ve already noted, however, we will accept submissions only through October 1. With Editor David Lynn retiring in 2020, we’re trying to limit the usual avalanche of submissions just this once, so that upcoming issues don’t entirely fill before Lynn’s successor arrives. The goal is to give the new editor some flexibility and a chance to shape our print and online publications from the outset. Sorry for the squeeze, but it’s for a good cause: fresh eyes and fresh vision. Click here for more information about the 2019 submissions period.

Reading Series Launches This Week

You won’t want to miss the first reading of the KR fall reading series. On September 4, in connection with national “Writers for Migrant Justice” fundraising events, KR and Kenyon’s English Department will host a reading by new creative-writing faculty members Molly McCully Brown, Keija Parssinen, Ira Sukrungruang, and Orchid Tierney. (Brown is the Kenyon Review Fellow in Poetry.) The reading will take place in the Brandi Recital hall at 4:30 p.m. Learn more on Facebook, here, about this reading. And click here to to see the complete schedule for the fall reading series.

From the KR Blog: “The Most Direct Good: An Interview with Matthew Salesses”

BY RUTH JOFFRE

August 5, 2019

We need to talk about A) what culture has to do with craft, B) who we are writing for and why, and C) how power operates in creative writing and the creative writing workshop. On the institutional level, this starts with hiring people who can do this work—not only the work of making but the work of interrogating making—and supporting them with actual resources. Read the entire interview with Salesses, the author of the forthcoming Craft in the Real World. This is the fifth in a series of interiews about literary craft.

New in KR Podcasts

We’ve got two podcasts for you this month. Matt Suazo, a visiting assistant professor of English at Kenyon, catches up with poet Ed Skoog about New Orleans, cooperating with language, and the textures of poetry. Listen to it! And poet Shara McCallum talks to KR’s Anna Duke Reach about memory as an afterlife and reconstructing those we’ve lost through the language we use. Listen to it!

Proof Casts a Shadow

“One need not speak about politicians, or headlines, or atrocities to be political, and though I believe there is great value in creating art that engages directly with the subjects that people live, die, and suffer from every day, I also believe as a black poet that writing about black joy, for instance, is a revolutionary act. Especially now, especially in America, in this culture, I strive to write those poems. That poem.” Keith S. Wilson wraps up the KROnline project “Proof Casts a Shadow” with reflections on political writing—the illusory “safety” of avoiding politics as well as the cost to writers who more overtly embrace political issues. Wilson also looks back at the extraordinary poems and essays that appeared in “Proof Casts a Shadow,” a series that he and Misha Rai (the KR fellows) created last March as a way of exploring issues of injustice and identity. Click here to see the work, both new and older, in “Proof Casts a Shadow.”

SEPTEMBER 2019
CONTENTS
Boyle Wins Award
Why We Chose It
Sept/Oct Issue
KR Out Loud
Submissions Period
Reading Series
From the Blog
KR Podcasts
Proof Casts a Shadow

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