MAY 2024 NEWSLETTER

Announcing Our Spring 2024 Issue

The Spring 2024 issue of The Kenyon Review includes Beth Bachmann’s 2023 Short Fiction Contest-winning story, chosen by judge Danielle Evans and a folio of Literary Curiosities, which features work by Jennifer Chang, Summer Farah, Eliza Gilbert, Phoebe Peter Oathout, and more. The cover art is a detail of Chitra Ganesh’s City Inside Her, from the artist’s Architects of the Future portfolio.

The online version of this issue includes additional material: stories by Short Fiction Contest runners-up Moon Hee and Mary Catherine Curley, a tribute to poet Robert Mezey by Maurya Simon, and a Why We Chose It post by Cindy Juyoung Ok on Christine Imperial's "The Picture Pines."

Read the issue on our site, purchase your print copy, or subscribe!

Announcing the Results of the Inaugural Kenyon Review Poetry Contest

The Kenyon Review Poetry Contest received 467 submissions in its inaugural year, and we’re thrilled to share the results. The winner is James Macmillen. His poem “War Grave” will appear in an upcoming print issue of The Kenyon Review, and he has received a full scholarship to the Kenyon Review Summer Residential Writing Workshops. In his citation, judge Pádraig Ó Tuama writes that the winning poem “traverses distance and time.… This elegant lament transfers its attention from remembrance to what might be possible.”

Read the full announcement, which includes the runner-up, on our website.

Announcing the Results of the Kenyon Review Short Fiction Contest

The Kenyon Review Short Fiction Contest received 473 submissions, and from them, judge Idra Novey selected “The Milk Incident” by Easton Smith. The story will appear in an upcoming print issue of The Kenyon Review, and Smith has received a full scholarship to the Kenyon Review Summer Residential Writing Workshops. Of the winning story, Novey writes, “Nothing predictable occurs in this story about tainted free milk and honey-crusted children in washing machines. I relished every sentence of it.”

Read the rest of the judge’s citation and the full announcement, including the runners-up, on our website.

Congratulations to Graduating KR Interns and Associates

The Kenyon Review staff has the privilege of working each year with an enthusiastic, thoughtful, and dedicated cohort of Kenyon College students through the KR Associates Program. These students make essential contributions to the culture and mission of The Kenyon Review. As the academic year comes to a close, we wish the graduating Associates and Interns the best of luck in whatever comes next!

Congratulations and many thanks to Emma Abate, Rachel Botkin, Sam Bowden, Anna Fahey, Brooke Fowler, Phoebe Houser, Lorien Kauffman, Isabel Keener, Caroline Keir, Luke Kim, Lila Lofving, Olivia Vreeland, Olivia Wieland, and Emily Yourman.

More News from the KR Community

• 2022 Developmental Editor Brandon Som won a Pulitzer Prize for his book of poems, Tripas.

• The Kenyon Review hosted and co-hosted a number of events on campus this month: April readings by KR contributor Felicia Zamora and the KR Associates in honor of President Julie Kornfeld’s inauguration and a conversation celebrating the release of Frances Cannon’s poetry collection Fling Diction and Kaveh Akbar’s novel Martyr! 

• 2023 Kenyon Review Peter Taylor Fellow and 2024 Summer Online Adult Writers Workshop faculty Ada Zhang received a Whiting Award in fiction. 

• The Community of Literary Magazines and Presses (CLMP) includes two poems from The Kenyon Review on its reading list for Arab American Heritage Month. “What the Exiled Are” by Sara Abou Rashed and “Hotel” by Safa Khatib both appeared in our Winter 2024 issue.

• Poetry Daily selected as its featured poem on April 24 Mónica Gomery’s “Aubade with Selichot.” The poem originally appeared in our Winter 2024 issue.

• Zen Ren’s first print fiction publication, “Content Violations,” won Nimrod Journal’s Francine Ringold Award for New Writers in the fiction category. The story grew out of a prompt from their time at the Kenyon Review Writers Workshops.