May 19, 2026
Introduction
The 2025 Kenyon Review Nonfiction Contest was judged by Lucy Ives, author of An Image of My Name Enters America: Essays (Graywolf Press, 2024) and Life Is Everywhere: A Novel […]
November 3, 2025
Introduction
I first came to the word visitation while on a hike with friends in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, exchanging half smiles with the other leaf peepers we passed, not yet aware […]
September 19, 2025
Introduction
“greetings,” Forough Farrokhzad writes in Arash Saedinia’s translation, “i will again give.” This folio shares Farrokhzad’s greetings, inextricable from their meanderings, doubts, and resourcefulness, while giving them, too, to her […]
June 13, 2025
Introduction
The 2024 Kenyon Review Short Fiction Contest was judged by Idra Novey, author of Take What You Need, a New York Times Notable Book of 2023 and named one of […]
April 15, 2025
Introduction
The Kenyon Review’s annual nonfiction contest was judged by Melissa Febos, acclaimed author of four books, including the national bestselling essay collection Girlhood, which has been translated into eight languages. […]
February 4, 2025
Introduction
What do we see when we look to the far corners? What do we see when we look back from those distant places? Let’s be honest, any map that has […]
October 9, 2024
Introduction
When I take images, it’s like I’m dancing with the subject. It’s about rhythm, timing, and emotion — just like jazz. — Ming Smith Photographer Ming Smith’s fifty-decade-long career offers profound insights into […]
October 8, 2024
Introduction
In this, its inaugural year, The Kenyon Review Poetry Contest was judged by Pádraig Ó Tuama, presenter of the podcast Poetry Unbound with The On Being Project and author of, […]
October 8, 2024
Introduction
What are the young poets thinking and writing about? In reading this year’s brilliant submissions for the Patricia Grodd Poetry Prize, awarded to the very best writing by poets in […]
June 3, 2024
“Nature’s Nature” at Ten
In the May /June 2015 issue of the Kenyon Review appeared what I thought would be a one-time feature on poetry and the environment, “Nature’s Nature.” For several years I’d compiled […]
April 18, 2024
Introduction
We’re pleased to publish the winner of the 2023 Kenyon Review Short Fiction Contest, judged by acclaimed author Danielle Evans. Evans chose “The First Robot” by Beth Bachmann as the […]
September 29, 2023
Black Estrangement: An Introduction
Dear Reader, “How are you?” feels like an insensitive question in 2023. More so if you don’t sit down with someone or give them space to think aloud and find […]