Welcome to the fall issue of NER, and welcome, poetry editor Jennifer Chang! For her first issue on the masthead, Jennifer has gathered 14 poets into our pages, most of them appearing in NER for the first time. They are an accomplished group with wide-ranging aesthetics and perspectives, and include a recent Yale Series of Younger Poets winner, multiple NEA fellows, Lannan and CantoMundo Fellows, former Bread Loafers, and more. See the full list and sample works by visiting the table of contents.
The issue also features a novella by Alice Greenway that takes place in a refugee camp in Samos, and a short story by Jordanian writer Hisham Bustani (translated by Alice Guthrie) told from the other side of the Aegean, as one refugee faces his dread of crossing the sea. Scott Blackwood tells a story of American soldiers moving up the Tigris River through Mosul, while Blair Hurley brings us into the arcane world of medieval scholarly annotations. Gregory Spatz dives into the longings of a musician separated from his muse, and Nicole Cuffy takes readers on a father–daughter drive to Montauk.
Essayists in this issue include National Book Award finalist Jenn Shapland; May-lee Chai, whose previous essay in NER was selected as a notable in Best American Essays 2021; journalist and inveterate traveler Leath Tonino on the writer Charles Bowden; and NER newcomer Julie Riddle. Set designer and artist Ademola Olugebefola details his decades of experience with the Black Arts Movement and Weusi Artist Collective in an interview with Nathaniel G. Nesmith, and Polish writer Marek Zaganczyk takes us to Berlin through art and literature, in a meditative essay translated by Jakob Ziguras. Venturing into the absurd are four theater monologues by John Cotter and a little-known tale by The Brothers Grimm.
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[Readers of the front page of our website may note that we have not updated the homepage selections to reflect the current issue. Technical difficulties prevent us from updating them immediately, but we will do so as soon as it’s possible without breaking the website completely. Thanks for your patience.]