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Whale Road Review
@whaleroadreview.bsky.social
3.7K followers 2.8K following 100 posts
A Journal of Poetry & Short Prose
Edited by @katiemanningpoet.bsky.social

https://www.whaleroadreview.com/
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whaleroadreview.bsky.social
Good news! You are invited to WRR's 10-Year Anniversary Reading!

Saturday, Dec. 13, 2025
9:00 a.m. Pacific Time

Register in advance:
pointloma.zoom.us/meeting/regi...
November 25, 2025 at 11:20 PM
whaleroadreview.bsky.social
Congrats to our 2025 Best Spiritual Literature nominees!
November 1, 2025 at 5:02 PM
whaleroadreview.bsky.social
And this year's Best of the Net nominees are...
www.whaleroadreview.com/nominations/

Congrats to all, and fingers crossed for you! :)
"Icon/Graph" by Tristan Beiter "Pregnant at the Taos Gorge" by Julie Ebin "Glass Animal Collection" by Suzy Eynon "My High School Teacher Tells Me Men Would Line Up to Get Me Pregnant" by Kindall Fredricks "Moeritherium" by Bex Hainsworth "Anxiety said let’s disappear" by Rachel Pittman "Things my mother has forgotten" by Beth Sherman "Celestial Navigation" by Christy Tending "Writing What We Know" by Angela Townsend "Apples in Bieszczady" by Rachel Walker
September 27, 2025 at 9:24 PM
whaleroadreview.bsky.social
We have a very belated announcement: while working on this year's award nominations, we discovered that we'd neglected to announce last year's nominees for The Nina Riggs Poetry Award!

www.whaleroadreview.com/nominations/
"My Sister Comes Home After Graduation" by Heather Qin "Inheritance" by Michael Sun "Horns" by Jared Beloff "Dangling Over the Sea" by Nicole Brogdon "To Be Ten" by Katy Luxem "Shelved" by Rita Maria Martinez
September 27, 2025 at 6:57 PM
whaleroadreview.bsky.social
Since I live in a place without colorful leaves or colder weather to make it feel like fall, our fall issues are my favorite harbingers of the season. This Fall 2025 issue is full of earnest language and surprising humor, and these pieces are packed with autumn.

www.whaleroadreview.com/issue-40
September 13, 2025 at 5:22 PM
whaleroadreview.bsky.social
Congrats to Molly Bolton for being a Best of the Net finalist!

Read her "Cosmic Slip" in Issue 33 of Whale Road Review.

www.whaleroadreview.com/bolton/
August 15, 2025 at 12:59 AM
whaleroadreview.bsky.social
Do you ever read something and feel like it’s reading you back? Our summer issue is doing this to me. My dad died just over a month ago (“A storm cannot grieve, but a grief can be a storm.” – Donna Vorreyer, “These Currents Turn Awry”).
June 6, 2025 at 2:45 PM
whaleroadreview.bsky.social
What a joy to celebrate 10 years of Whale Road Review at AWP last week! We had sparkling cider toasts, nonstop author signings, and a fantastic off-site event with @swwim.bsky.social, @merliterary.bsky, @perugiapress.bsky.social, and Cultivating Voices Live Poetry!
Happy writers toast with little cups at the Whale Road review
April 6, 2025 at 7:09 AM
whaleroadreview.bsky.social
Find us at Booth 948 at #awp25!

Our E-i-C @katiemanningpoet.bsky.social will be there most of the time, and we'll have book signings with many delightful contributors and staff!
March 26, 2025 at 8:38 PM
whaleroadreview.bsky.social
“Tomorrow will bring a different mess,” writes Maria Koors in “The Optimist’s Almanac.” As I’ve prepared this Spring 2025 issue, I’ve been thinking about the messes that continue to pile up, both personal and shared.

www.whaleroadreview.com/issue-38-spr...
March 17, 2025 at 7:36 PM
whaleroadreview.bsky.social
We're happy to announce our Best Small Fictions nominees!

Find the list with links to each piece here:
www.whaleroadreview.com/nominations
February 5, 2025 at 12:34 AM
whaleroadreview.bsky.social
That's a wrap!

Thank you to the several hundred of you who submitted during our December reading period! We're happily reading and will be in touch as soon as possible. 😊
December 16, 2024 at 8:39 AM
whaleroadreview.bsky.social
And while we're celebrating our new winter issue, let's also celebrate our Best Microfiction nominees!
www.whaleroadreview.com/nominations/

@lindybiller.bsky.social @kfergusonwrites.bsky.social @nbrogdonwrites.bsky.social @katabolical.bsky.social @jekwriter.bsky.social
The nominees for Best Microfiction from Whale Road Review listed over a background image that is looking out from a cave onto the ocean.
December 14, 2024 at 4:11 AM
whaleroadreview.bsky.social
Welcome to our Winter 2024 issue! This marks the 9-year anniversary of Whale Road Review, and publishing the fantastic work in this issue on a Friday the 13th feels like a scarily good way to celebrate!

www.whaleroadreview.com/issue-37
December 13, 2024 at 7:13 PM
whaleroadreview.bsky.social
And the nominees are:
“when asked what it's like being a poet” by Matthew E. Henry
"On My 47th Birthday" by @mjhigley.bsky.social
"I’m Afraid I Don’t Know How to Love" by @christinalinsin.bsky.social
"Whales" by Kathryn Petruccelli
"Keeping Time" by @whitlynnrioross.bsky.social
"Bleed" by Luci Shaw
An image of an island in a bright blue ocean with the words "Whale Road Review's Pushcart Prize Nominations" and this list: “when asked what it's like being a poet” by Matthew E. Henry On My 47th Birthday by Melissa Joplin Higley I’m Afraid I Don’t Know How to Love by Christina Linsin Whales by Kathryn Petruccelli Keeping Time by Whitney Rio-Ross Bleed by Luci Shaw
December 1, 2024 at 6:27 AM
whaleroadreview.bsky.social
The Spring 2024 issue of Whale Road Review welcomes you to Hell—or at least that’s where a teacher told the first poem’s speaker he’d go if he was bad—and sneaking a Wonder Woman comic to Sunday School was bad...
www.whaleroadreview.com/issue-34-spr...
March 25, 2024 at 3:11 AM
whaleroadreview.bsky.social
"Gunpowder Homestead" by Grant Clauser
Issue 33 / Winter 2023

www.whaleroadreview.com/clauser
Over a photo of misty forest trees, an excerpt from "Gunpowder Homestead" by Grant Clauser in Issue 33 of Whale Road Review: "Consider what centuries do to forests— a kind of strengthening of the muscles, a thickening of bones, but old homes— they crumble stone by ported stone."
March 9, 2024 at 4:48 AM
whaleroadreview.bsky.social
"First Imploration: Renewed Madness" by Duncan Campbell
Issue 33 / Winter 2023

www.whaleroadreview.com/campbell/
Over a painting of the platform of a dark cathedral with a ray of sunlight shining through an upper window onto the right side of the stage and a person in a dark robe, back to the viewer, facing the platform from the middle of the open space in front of the platform, an excerpt from "First Imploration: Renewed Madness" by Duncan Campbell in Issue 33 of Whale Road Review: "I love the way a voice evaporates into a cathedral only to return, a fidgeting nerve, to its ghost."
March 3, 2024 at 9:22 PM
whaleroadreview.bsky.social
"California, Driving Home After a Wedding" by Phillip Watts Brown
Issue 33 / Winter 2023

www.whaleroadreview.com/brown-2/
Over a photo of a hand on a car steering wheel, an excerpt from "California, Driving Home After a Wedding" by Phillip Watts Brown in Issue 33 of Whale Road Review: "To shed armor, our tender selves underneath, naked and shy: a new husband contemplating his husband in the early light."
February 28, 2024 at 5:46 PM
whaleroadreview.bsky.social
"Cosmic Slip" by Molly Bolton
Issue 33 / Winter 2023

www.whaleroadreview.com/bolton/
Over a photo of lots of colorful pottery pieces on a studio table, an excerpt from Molly Bolton's short prose piece "Cosmic Slip" in Issue 33 of Whale Road Review: I clutched her business card like a hall pass, a love note. I asked her if she could throw a piece big enough to cradle the cracks in the cosmos and small enough to rock wrens slipped out of their nest.
February 26, 2024 at 4:30 AM
whaleroadreview.bsky.social
Happy AWP week to all who celebrate! We don't have a table, but you can find our E-i-C, @katiemanningpoet.bsky.social, floating around and occasionally hanging out at the Last Syllable/PLNU booth. If you find her, ask for the WRR swag. 😁
A "Where to find Katie at AWP" graphic that includes many little clipboards with info about evening readings and bookfair signings. A photo of a WRR magnet in front of a tea shelf
February 7, 2024 at 4:16 PM
whaleroadreview.bsky.social
We can't wait for our AWP offsite reading with SWWIM, NELLE, and MER - Mom Egg Review at The Bauer on Friday, 2/9, 7-10 p.m. (6:30 doors).

Lauren Camp, Kai Coggin, Patricia Davis-Muffett, Kelly Foster Lundquist, & Jane Muschenetz will take the mic for WRR. Extended lineup coming soon. Join us! 🎉
January 25, 2024 at 5:07 PM
whaleroadreview.bsky.social
"Say goodbye to saltines,

soup. Ignore the deceit of easy wind,
downy flake. Look for me at the last mile marker
on the west side of Nebraska. You’ll find
I’m asleep, asleep, asleep."

www.whaleroadreview.com/bennion-2/
January 17, 2024 at 1:08 AM
whaleroadreview.bsky.social
www.whaleroadreview.com/tee/
"The birds, surface swimmers, make sense of the river’s ravages, ride the rippled waves from flood waters that have rolled down hillsides and off fields, an old story carried by river waters flowing their history into these places." from "Year's End" by Emily Tee Whale Road Review, Iss. 33
January 6, 2024 at 11:25 PM
whaleroadreview.bsky.social
Last hour! We close at midnight (Pacific)!
December 16, 2023 at 7:13 AM