Editor Kevin Young selected the following poems from NER for The Best American Poetry 2011:

Jennifer Grotz, “Poppies” (31.1); Eric Pankey, “Cogitatio Mortis” (also 31.1); and Natasha Trethewey, “Elegy” (30.4).

Best American Short Stories 2011 noted fiction from NER among its “distinguished stories” of the year:

Kirstin Allio, “Green” (31.3); Thomas Gough, “The Evening’s Peace” (30.4), Beth Lordan, “A Useful Story” (31.1); Christine Sneed, “Interview with the Second Wife” (31.4).

Best American Travel Writing 2011 cited Eric Calderwood’s “The Road to Damascus” (31.3) in its “Notable Travel Writing of 2010.”

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An excerpt from Trethewey’s poem “Elegy“:

I think by now the river must be thick
with salmon. Late August, I imagine it

as it was that morning: drizzle needling
the surface, mist at the banks like a net

settling around us—everything damp
and shining. That morning, awkward

and heavy in our hip waders, we stalked
into the current and found our places—

you upstream a few yards, and out
far deeper. You must remember how

the river seeped in over your boots,
and you grew heavy with that defeat.