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cincinnatireview.bsky.social
The Cincinnati Review
@cincinnatireview.bsky.social
4.9K followers 340 following 490 posts
Publishing great literature and art since 2003.
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"So when we heard  / the hollow screech of hull / and saw the water /  flood in, we ran those mail sacks / to the upper decks— / all those tiny vessels..."

In this week's miCRo, Stephanie Choi memorializes the lost mail of the RMS Titanic.

Link in Thread.
Caption: "So when we heard  / the hollow screech of hull / and saw the water /  flood in, we ran those mail sacks / to the upper decks— / all those tiny vessels..." Stephanie Choi stands smiling in an outdoor, naturalistic setting. Choi is wearing eyeglasses and has long, dark hair.
November 26, 2025 at 12:15 PM
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The uncanny. The strange. However you slice it, things are getting spooky in our 22.2 folio featuring writing on HORROR by @gingerko.bsky.social, CD Eskilon, @richardscottlarson.com.bsky.social, Jen Fawkes, and Raul Palma. Link in first comment.
A shadowy figure is illuminated from behind by a cloud of red smoke. Headline reads, "Horror: On Writing the Uncanny and Strange."
November 21, 2025 at 12:45 PM
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Today's miCRo is a retelling of a classic fairy tale.

Link in thread.
Quote from Loehle: "So, tonight I'm going to tell you a different story, one about the wolf, and this is not a mean wolf or a sneaky wolf or even a hungry wolf..." Side profile of Zack Fox Loehle, who is wearing a black button-up shirt.
November 19, 2025 at 12:45 PM
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"I am myself/a crime."

This week's miCRo by Stella Wong makes possible an array of transformations.

Link in thread.
An excerpt from Stella Wong's poem: "I am myself/a crime." An Asian American woman with her hair parted to the side, smiling.
November 12, 2025 at 12:45 PM
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V. Hansmann, "Innkeeper" at Prospect Street Writers House, tells us what it takes to run a residency for writers.

Link in thread.
V. Hansmann sitting outside on a white rocking chair. His unbuttoned white shirt opens to reveal a grey T-shirt underneath.
November 10, 2025 at 4:10 PM
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"My mother could swallow insults whole like a crocodile."

Georgi Bargamian's miCRo enchants with its incantatory, riddle-like charms, swirling from line to line. Link in thread.
"My mother could swallow insults whole like a crocodile." From "Escapology" by Georgi Bargamian
November 5, 2025 at 12:15 PM
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We're delighted to announce our 2025 nominees for Best of the Net. Congratulations to all, and good luck! @Talkinghyphae.bsky.social @cberwick.bsky.social
A gold laurel wreath overlaid on a red velvet curtain, with CR logo in gold. In the center of the wreath are the words, "Best of the Net Nominees" in white with a neon glow. Text reads, "Best Poetry: Tramaine Suubi, "long live the queen" Kimberly Reyes, "A Heartbeat in a Cemetery in Tennessee" Haley Bossé, "The Eco-Audiologist, After Hearing" Steven Pan, "Perigee" B. Do, "Revision" Alex Wells Shapiro, "a buck" Text reads, Best Fiction: Carly Berwick, "Wool" Dinah Cox, "New Normal" Best Nonfiction: Richard Hague, "Sitting Inside the Poem" Julie Marie Wade, "Mrs. Williams [Or, A Study of Postmodernism and the Many Ways That Walls Are Broken"
November 4, 2025 at 8:37 PM
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You read that right! miCRo submissions are OPEN! Send us your best work of 500 words or fewer.
A miniature basset hound stands in front of a miniature bone in the middle of a palm of a hand. A thought bubble with a drawing of a dog reading a book hovers above its head.
November 1, 2025 at 1:02 PM
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"This liminal mood would spill into the house itself, no longer a constrained space, but porous and crackling with dangerous possibilities."

This week on site, Associate Editor Andy Sia explores eerie and liminal spaces in a Halloween feature.

Link in thread.
A poster, which includes an image of an empty platform on a subway station, and a quoted sentence, "This liminal mood would spill into the house itself, no longer a constrained space, but porous and crackling with dangerous possibilities."
October 31, 2025 at 11:45 AM
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"For a decade I carry the rotting mango, its pit humming with maggots. I cannot rid myself of it, I cannot glance away."

What happens when something goes from delicious to sickeningly sweet? Preeti Talwai's miCRo has all the answers! Link in thread.
Quote from Talwai--also in caption. Woman smiling. Her hair is parted to the side, and she is also wearing glasses, red lipstick, and a black top.
October 29, 2025 at 11:30 AM
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"We’re taught that disability is tragic, sad, and maybe inspiring. But comedy is the genre of survival."

Today on the site, contributor Anya Groner interviews @btrapperkeeper.bsky.social about his new novel, RANGE OF MOTION.
Featured Interview graphic with a photo of author Brian Trapp, a white man with brown hair and glasses wearing a yellow-and-black buffalo plaid shirt over a black tee, in front of some greenery. He half-smiles. Quote reads, "We’re taught that disability is tragic, sad, and maybe inspiring. But comedy is the genre of survival."
October 24, 2025 at 11:45 AM
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"That damn soul is going to go someplace else. It’s going to shrug me off the way we shrug off our raincoats, overcoats, and Ulster coats."

This week's miCRo by Shikhandin pays mind to possession: what we own, what we do not own, and what we feel owed to.
Quote from "Ma's Soul": "That damn soul is going to go someplace else. It's going to shrug me off the way we shrug off our raincoats, overcoats, and Ulster coats." Shikhandin, an older Asian woman with white hair, is elegantly dressed in a vest and scarf in front of a large body of water.
October 22, 2025 at 11:45 AM
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Playwrights (and CR contribs!) @bydanobrien.bsky.social and christopher oscar peña in conversation with director and producer @markarmstrong4.bsky.social about the two's recently published play trilogies and more. Link in first comment:
A white quote shape on a red background. Black text on it: "Featured Interview, 'The plays I like, like chris's plays, and the kind of plays I try to write, make people feel contradictory things." Below is a picture of Dan O"Brien, a white man with dark hair, a beard, and blue eyes, wearing a blue shirt. A white quote shape on a red background. Black text on it says "Featured Interview, 'Part of me misses the whimsical theatricality of my earlier plays. But I just want to be more honest now, you know?'" Below is a picture of christopher oscar peña, a Latinx man wearing a red jacket over dark button-down shirt and resting his hand on his forehead as he leans over and smiles.
October 10, 2025 at 3:10 PM
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"I won't call it a detonator. But after pressing the button, I scamper around the refrigerator, taking cover behind layers of sheet metal and white plastic finish from the machine's invisible munitions."

In a miCRo essay, @ellenkfee.bsky.social takes us on a tour of the microwave's origin.
Caption: "I won't call it a detonator. But after pressing the button, I scamper around the refrigerator, taking cover behind layers of sheet metal and white plastic finish from the machine's invisible munitions." Ellen K. Fee stands smiling in front of a window. She has long brown hair and is wearing earrings, a button-down polo style shirt.
October 8, 2025 at 11:15 AM
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The 2025 winners of the Robert and Adele Schiff Awards are:

Robert Sorrell Bynum (fiction) for "Like a Star"
@jessicacuello.bsky.social (literary nonfiction) for "Your Life for Another"
A. D. Lauren-Abunassar (poetry) for "Three Bombardments"

See our site for more! Link in first comment.
Photos of the winners of the Schiff Awards under the heading "2025 Robert and Adele Schiff Award Winners." Each photo gets its own post page, to follow. White text on a brick-red background: "Robert Sorrell Bynum, fiction, Robert and Adele Schiff Award winner." Photo is A white man with brown hair to his shoulders and tortoiseshell-frame glasses. He's wearing a black jean jacket over a puffer jacket and shirt, and he's standing on a beach in front of a body of water. White text on a brick-red blackground: "Jessica Cuello, nonfiction, Robert and Adele Schiff Award winner." Photo is a black-and-white photo of a white woman with curly hair. she is wearing a dark sweater and light-colored shirt and sitting oustide. White text on a black background: "A.D. Lauren-Abunassar, poetry, Robert and Adele Schiff Award winner." Photo is A Palestinian American woman with brown hair and hazel eyes. She's wearing a dark shirt, dangling earrings, and a necklace chain, and standing in front of a white window shade.
October 2, 2025 at 3:10 PM
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As September draws to a close, we celebrate the inclusion of CR contributors (and a former editor!) in lists from @clmporg.bsky.social. Check out work by @cdonosowriter.bsky.social , @memi-writes.bsky.social , Inger Christensen, and José Angel Araguz!
September 29, 2025 at 7:54 PM
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Now on our site, three writers from Nigeria share their experiences of the literary culture there and in the US. Thanks to Frances Ogamba, Hussain Ahmed, and KÁNYIN Olorunnisola! Link in thread.
In three columns, pictures (from left to right) of Hussain Ahmed, Frances Ogamba, and Kanyin Olorunnisola, three Nigerian writers. The CR logo in red is on the bottom right.
September 26, 2025 at 3:10 PM
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"...even if the task is to leap across the aporia or the big vacuous gap, if that is the task that sits before you, then that is your task."

Today on the site, Edgar Garcia discusses research, collaborative listening, and dreams.

Link in thread.
September 25, 2025 at 3:10 PM
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"...sometimes I dream about her thigh tattoo: 'Call your mother,' inked in curling script above a dolphin with an M16 clutched in its tiny, perfect flippers."

This week's miCRo by Sarah Chin navigates the sticky terrain of grief.

Link in thread.
White text on a black background, which is the quote that starts the text of the post. Sarah Chin, pictured in front of a flight of a stairs. Chin is wearing gold hoop earrings and a black and white graphic dress.
September 24, 2025 at 12:26 PM
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This evening at 5:30 pm in the Elliston Room we have the privilege of hosting three very successful UC creative writing alumni: @mariannelchan.bsky.social , @litmagreject.bsky.social , and Emma Hudelson. Assistant Editor Blessing Christopher asked each of them about legacy.
Marianne Chan, an Asian-American woman, stands in front of a white background. She has long dark hair draped over her left shoulder and wears dangly earrings and a black secretary blouse with large pink flowers on it. She glances away from the viewer. Quote from Chan: "This is what I hope for--that when I look back at the work at the end of my life, I will find a speaker--a writer--striving, humbly, to understand this great mystery of what it means to be human on Earth." Maggie Su, an Asian-American woman, smiles up at the camera. Her long, dark hair has streaks of green and she wears a black blouse. She stands next to a tree in a wooded setting. Quote from Su: "I do hope that perhaps my novel can spark a feeling of recognition in a reader or, maybe, make them feel less alone." Emma Hudelson, a white woman with shoulder-length brown hair with bangs, stands in front of a black background holding the reins of a black horse with a white star on its nose. It peers over her shoulder right at us. Hudelson wears a denim jacket. She smiles at us. Quote from Hudelson: "Every horse girl knows that horses need to be turned loose sometimes, and I guess I try to apply that principle to my writing, too."
September 18, 2025 at 11:30 AM
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"Clear. Nuclear. Like the Visible Woman in her plexiglass-clear skin once lied to me I wouldn’t grow to be. One button for her heart to light up red. One for the nervy, branching rivers in her head."

Alexandra Teague floods nervy, hot branches of language in this week's miCRo.
Excerpt: Clear. Nuclear. Like the Visible Woman in her plexiglass-clear skin once lied to me I wouldn’t grow to be. One button for her heart to light up red. One for the nervy, branching rivers in her head. Alexandra Teague smiles while sitting on yellow furniture in front of a sage colored wall. She wears red lipstick, eyeliner, and has a stud nose piercing.
September 17, 2025 at 11:15 AM
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A very special congratulations today to two friends of the magazine: former Assistant Editor @hollicarrell.bsky.social 's debut, APOSTASIES, releases today from @perugiapress.bsky.social , alongside contributor (& former UC faculty member) Brock Clarke's SPECIAL ELECTION from @acrebooks.bsky.social
CR book release graphic featuring cover of APOSTASIES: a sepia photo of a child's hands folded on her knees. She wears a white smock. CR book release graphic featuring the cover of Brock Clarke's SPECIAL ELECTION: a black-and-white photo of an accordion player framed in a white circle sits atop two thick stripes of color--red on top and blue on the bottom.
September 15, 2025 at 2:45 PM
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"We know that literary journals often come from a deep place of admiration and love, and to see this piece of literary past is akin to napping under a handmade quilt, hearing an old 45 as it spins, taking a sip of localized, antiquated soda."
An image of a hand wearing a watch, reaching toward potted meat, released from its can, sitting atop a folded paper on what appears to be a truck dashboard. There is a soft rain evident upon the windshield. The Kitty Snacks logo is transposed atop the image.
September 12, 2025 at 11:30 AM
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"She did not try to make each pot unique, did not sign them. This was not that kind of art."

This week's miCRo is an ekphrastic prose poem by Matthew Thorburn. Read more at our site; link in thread.
White text on a black background: She did not try to make each pot unique, did not sign them. This was not that kind of art. Matthew Thorburn, "The Landscape Painter" Matthew Thorburn, a white man with brown and gray hair, and tortoiseshell glasses. He is wearing a gray tweed jacket and colored shirt and standing in front of a warm pink wall.
September 10, 2025 at 11:45 AM
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"I’m drawn back to these places, these ruins, because they form the imagistic, psychological core of me, but I also don’t want them to become anyone else’s porn. Take your camera elsewhere, part of me whispers"

Now on our site, a craft essay by Maya Jewell Zeller; link in thread
On the bottom right, a photo of Maya Jewell Zeller, a white woman with brown eyes and gray/dark hair. She is smiling, wearing blue earrings and a necklace, and standing in front of a textured wood. Text on the top and left side of the image says "On Craft," "I’m drawn back to these places, these ruins, because they form the imagistic, psychological core of me, but I also don’t want them to become anyone else’s porn. Take your camera elsewhere, part of me whispers..."
September 5, 2025 at 3:10 PM