New England Review

  • Subscribe/Order
  • Back Issues
    • Vol. 42, No. 4 (2021)
    • Vol. 42, No. 3 (2021)
    • Vol. 42, No. 2 (2021)
    • Vol. 42, No. 1 (2021)
    • Vol. 41 (2020)
      • Vol. 41, No. 4 (2020)
      • Vol. 41, No. 3 (2020)
      • Vol. 41, No. 2 (2020)
      • Black Lives Matter
      • Vol. 41, No.1 (2020)
    • Vol. 40 (2019)
      • Vol. 40, No. 4 (2019)
      • Vol. 40, No. 3 (2019)
      • Vol. 40, No. 2 (2019)
      • Vol. 40, No 1 (2019)
    • Vol. 39 (2018)
      • Vol. 39, No. 4 (2018)
      • Vol. 39, No. 3 (2018)
      • Vol. 39, No. 2 (2018)
      • Vol. 39, No. 1 (2018)
    • Vol. 38 (2017)
      • Vol. 38, No. 4 (2017)
      • Vol. 38, No. 3 (2017)
      • Vol.38, No. 2 (2017)
      • Vol. 38, No. 1 (2017)
    • Vol. 37 (2016)
      • Vol. 37, No. 4 (2016)
      • Vol. 37, No. 3 (2016)
      • Vol. 37, No. 2 (2016)
      • Vol. 37, No. 1 (2016)
    • Vol. 36 (2015)
      • Vol. 36, No. 4 (2015)
      • Vol. 36, No. 3 (2015)
      • Vol. 36, No. 2 (2015)
      • Vol. 36, No. 1 (2015)
    • Vol. 35 (2014-2015)
      • Vol. 35, No.1 (2014)
      • Vol. 35, No. 2 (2014)
      • Vol. 35, No. 3 (2014)
      • Vol. 35, No. 4 (2015)
    • Vol. 34 (2013-2014)
      • Vol. 34, No. 1 (2013)
      • Vol. 34, No. 2 (2013)
      • Vol. 34, Nos. 3-4 (2014)
    • Vol. 33 (2012-2013)
      • Vol. 33, No. 1 (2012)
      • Vol. 33, No. 2 (2012)
      • Vol. 33, No. 3 (2012)
      • Vol. 33, No. 4 (2013)
    • Vol. 32 (2011-2012)
      • Vol. 32, No. 1 (2011)
      • Vol. 32, No. 2 (2011)
      • Vol. 32, No. 3 (2011)
      • Vol. 32, No. 4 (2012)
    • Vol. 31 (2010)
      • Vol. 31, No. 1 (2010)
      • Vol. 31, No. 2 (2010)
      • Vol. 31, No. 3 (2010)
      • Vol. 31, No. 4 (2010-2011)
    • Vol. 30 (2009)
      • Vol. 30, No. 1 (2009)
      • Vol. 30, No. 2 (2009)
      • Vol. 30, No. 3 (2009)
      • Vol. 30, No. 4 (2009-2010)
    • Vol. 29 (2008)
      • Vol. 29, No. 1 (2008)
      • Vol. 29, No. 2 (2008)
      • Vol. 29, No. 3 (2008)
      • Vol. 29, No. 4 (2008)
    • Vol. 28 (2007)
      • Vol. 28, No. 1 (2007)
      • Vol. 28, No. 2 (2007)
      • Vol. 28, No. 3 (2007)
      • Vol. 28, No. 4 (2007)
    • Vol. 27 (2006)
      • Vol. 27, No. 1 (2006)
      • Vol. 27, No. 2 (2006)
      • Vol. 27, No. 3 (2006)
      • Vol. 27, No. 4 (2006)
    • Vol. 26 (2005)
      • Vol. 26, No. 1 (2005)
      • Vol. 26, No. 2 (2005)
      • Vol. 26, No. 3 (2005)
      • Vol. 26, No. 4 (2005)
    • Vol. 25 (2004)
      • Vol. 25, Nos. 1-2 (2004)
      • Vol. 25, No. 3 (2004)
      • Vol. 25, No. 4 (2004)
    • Vol. 24 (2003)
      • Vol. 24, No. 1 (2003)
      • Vol. 24, No. 2 (2003)
      • Vol. 24, No. 3 (2003)
      • Vol. 24, No. 4 (2004)
  • About
    • Masthead
    • NER Award Winners
    • Press
    • Award for Emerging Writers
    • Readers and Interns
    • Books by our authors
    • Contact
  • Audio
  • Events
  • Submit

NER Interns: Where are they now?

Lucas Gonzalez

March 28, 2022

Lucas Gonzalez ’10 talks to NER intern Bella Cady ‘22.5 about his current work as an educator and what it means to “go boldly” into the literary world.


Bella Cady: What was the highlight of your experience as an NER intern?

Lucas Gonzalez: I had the unique chance to be the very first summer intern and totally immersed myself in the role. There was so much to do, and every little detail of my job felt new and exciting: riding my bike up to the old office at the Kirk Alumni Center in the mornings; wandering through the stacks of NER back issues; sifting through dozens of submissions, all of which were snail-mail back then. It sounds more and more romantic as the years roll on. I remember driving with Carolyn Kuebler to a storage facility outside of town to find obscure editions of the magazine in the cavernous NER archive. I recall that an entire garage-full adjacent to the archive was filled wall-to-ceiling with Stephen Donadio’s books alone, a detail which still staggers me. For years, I kept one of the coffee machines office manager Toni Best found for me at a local yard sale to make sure I was caffeinated enough to read through submissions and still work on my own writing at home. Thanks, Toni! Ultimately, understanding how NER—the writers, editors, and staff—worked together to create a standard-setting literary journal gave me a sense of the road map for my own journey.

BC: You were a co-creator of Blackbird, which is still in print today. What was your motivation for bringing an arts journal to Middlebury? 

LG: My motivation for bringing a new arts journal to Middlebury was to shine a light on our literary and artistic community. Blackbird was manifested through a collectivist mindset of good friends. We realized a print publication was the perfect medium for creating a focal point for literary and artistic life at the college. It took the effort and dedication of a large group of multi-talented people who had the motivation, communication skills, technological know-how, and discerning aesthetic sensibilities to put it all together. After months of planning, discussion, content review, and production stumbles, we held the first issue in our hands. We knew we had accomplished something special by bottling the collective lightning. The fact that Blackbird continues to publish today goes to show we struck a nerve, and says something encouraging about the enduring vitality of literary magazines in our culture.

BC: Are there any particular skills that you developed as an undergraduate–in school or through internships–that you believe most benefited you in your professional work? 

LG: I learned great project management through my time at NER. When I graduated, I was hired at 826 NYC as an intern, managing publication projects and volunteering as an after-school tutor. In my graduate years at Columbia University, I served as Community Outreach Editor at Columbia Journal. When I co-created the Incarcerated Writers Initiative at the journal, I remembered NER’s ethos and commitment to publishing regional, emerging, and marginalized writers. After months of outreach to currently-incarcerated writers, activists, and community organizations, we received over three hundred submissions from writers in over 30 states, everything by mail. It was like being back in the Kirk Alumni Center. The pieces we published I often reread and teach in the classroom. 

I feel the resonance of my NER days in my current role, where I serve as faculty advisor to an amazing literary magazine, Stone-cutters. The magazine is an institution at Harvard-Westlake School, where it has been published for 27 years running. Much like Blackbird, the literary magazine operates as a literary/arts collective on campus. We publish a Winter Tabloid, a Spring Annual print publication, and release online content to our website, www.stone-cutterscollective.com. We also run student-led craft classes and workshops for all genres and mediums, visual, literary, and beyond. I also help organize Wider Than The Sky: A Young People’s Poetry Festival (www.widerthanthesky.org). Guided by a group of stellar faculty and organized entirely by our students, we’ve welcomed poets like Richard Blanco, Claudia Rankine, Natalie Scenters-Zapico, and Kaveh Akbar to our midst, focusing specifically on outreach to the wider Los Angeles community, especially underserved communities and schools. 

BC: You’ve pursued both an MFA and MA since your time at Middlebury. Do you have any advice for students considering advanced degrees in the literary world?

LG: My advice would be to go boldly. If you’re thinking about a career in teaching and writing, the degree is a tangible way of getting a foot in the door and making your way in the literary world. Across the journey through both my MA and MFA, I made valuable connections with teachers and friends who guided and supported me towards realizing my ambitions, and continue to be my network and support system as a writer and educator. 

Lucas during his time as a student at Middlebury College.

BC: What brought you to teaching? How do you employ your experience as a writer to encourage aspiring writers?

LG: My very first informal teaching gig was on a dairy farm a few minutes south of the Middlebury College campus. A friend and I volunteered as English language instructors, teaching a group of men from Mexico employed as seasonal workers on the farm. The men ranged from aged 24 to 60. Each had traveled across the United States across the southern border to provide for their families. We hoped to offer language as a tool for access and agency in the complex odyssey of working undocumented in the United States. I came to realize something new and very real about the power of literacy. Writing brought me to that farm, and that farm brought me to teaching. Connecting it all is the hope that through education, we work alongside our fellow human beings with a common purpose towards bettering our world.

In terms of how my experience as a writer informs my work as a teacher, it’s easy for me to relate to the experience of struggling to find, refine, and hone one’s writing voice. As a practitioner of my craft, it’s much easier for me to know how to guide students with specific techniques at the level of their prose, creative expression, or exploration of a text. My hope is that my students can tell that I’m a genuine geek, and that my own sense of curiosity rubs off on them when it comes to the subject matter. I remember all my best teachers had truly awe-inspiring levels of nerdiness at the core of their persona in front of the classroom; they cared about their subject, but also cared about you and your own rapidly-expanding mind. As an educator, I hope to instill in my students a sense of interest in my academic discipline, while also affirming the infinitely nourishing feedback cycle of taking your own passions seriously.

BC: What have you read recently that’s moved you? 

LG: Aside from various literary magazine subscriptions like Rattle, Fence, and Crazyhorse, I like to read through as much of the National Book Award long lists in poetry and fiction as I can. I also like to follow the work of my friends and former teachers closely. I was floored by Timothy Donnelly’s collection, The Problem of the Many. I have also recently been stunned by Barbara K. Fischer’s Ceive, Jay Deshpande’s The Umbrian Sonnets, Emma Cline’s Daddy, and Joseph Fasano’s The Dark Heart of Every Wild Thing. This year, I’m most looking forward to the publication of my thesis workshop mate’s first collection of poems, Alexis Jackson’s My Sister’s Country.

Filed Under: Featured, Interns, News & Notes, Where Are They Now Tagged With: Bella Cady, Lucas Gonzalez

New Books from NER Authors & Middlebury College Faculty

March 2022 (Part 2)

March 22, 2022

March continues to be a busy month for New England Review authors! Here are six more recent releases to ease you into the spring season. Check out part 1 of our March author roundup here.

Megan Mayhew Bergman’s latest collection of fiction, How Strange a Season (Scribner), captures women’s struggles and interactions with the natural world as they navigate inherited challenges. Although each story stands alone, How Strange a Season is strikingly cohesive and layered in its exploration of intimacy and grief. Mayhew Bergman is a professor in literature and environmental writing at Middlebury College and is the director of the Bread Loaf Environmental Writers’ Conference.

Robert Lopez blurs the line between reality and perception in A Better Class of People (DZanc Books), a series of linked stories set in a distorted version of New York City. As we follow a man riding the subway “through the chaos of an ordinary commute,” Lopez shuffles back and forth through time and space to show the man in other disturbing situations, illuminating topics like immigration, police brutality, and sexual harassment. Lopez’s work has appeared in multiple issues of NER, most recently in issue 41.1.

Set in the backdrop of the Bahamas, Allegra Hyde‘s Eleutheria (Vintage) tackles the challenges of climate change through a thrilling utopian lens. In this debut novel, a troubled Willa Marks moves to Eleutheria to work at Camp Hope among a group of eco-warriors and their leader, Roy Adams. When she arrives in the Bahamas, she’s met with the startling realization that Adams is missing and Camp Hope’s mission is at risk. Willa yearns for hope and urgent action in this illuminating and timely tale. Hyde’s short story “Shark Fishing” appeared in NER 35.4.

Through a series of riveting mysteries, Dennis McFadden’s Old Grimes Is Dead (Summerhill Publishing) shares the fascinating resurrection of a Black man by a group of white doctors in western Pennsylvania in 1857. Although famous (or infamous) at the time, this antebellum tale is based in part on historical fact, bringing to life forgotten pieces of American lore and real characters from the past. This novel includes “Little Brier,” an excerpt originally published in NER 35.3.

From third person accounts to essays in the form of notes, instructions, and extended meditations, Matthew Vollmer’s collection This World is Not Your Home (EastOver Press) offers creative nonfiction in a variety of forms. One essay offers instructions for how to write a love story while another describes a spectacular cosmic phenomenon experienced by a husband and wife on a walk after dark. Vollmer’s work has appeared in multiple issues of NER, most recently in issue 33.1.

Ethereal, transitory, and bittersweet, Yanyi’s latest poetry collection, Dream of the Divided Field (One World), proposes that our complex identities embody all of these characteristics and more. As the poet grapples with the wounds left by heartbreak and diaspora, he also deliberates on the rose-tinted manner in which we recall the things and people we love, even as memory creates an image that has little resemblance to reality. Three poems from the collection—“Catullus 85,” “Detail,” and “Dreams of the Divided Field”—were published in NER 42.3.


Visit our page on Bookshop.org for cumulative seasonal lists of NER author releases.

Filed Under: Featured, NER Authors' Books, News & Notes Tagged With: Allegra Hyde, Dennis McFadden, Matthew Vollmer, Megan Mayhew Bergman, Robert Lopez

New Books from NER Authors & Staff

March 2022 (Part 1)

March 21, 2022

This roundup includes several poetry collections, a short story debut, and a biography of a groundbreaking neuroscientist. Give these titles a look and stay tuned for part 2!

Daisy Fried’s follow-up to Poems and Advice is The Year the City Emptied (Flood Editions), a collection that translates and reimagines French author Charles Baudelaire’s poems. Although Fried interprets Baudelaire “without the grave difficulty of confronting a completely blank page,” her poems are raw and visceral in their treatment of contemporary issues, including the ongoing pandemic, lockdowns, political protest, and the death of a loved one. Fried’s poem “Forcefeeding” appeared in NER 36.1.

In her debut short story collection Seeking Fortune Elsewhere (Catapult), O. Henry Prize winner Sindya Bhanoo tells the story of three South Indian immigrants. Each of these women embark on parallel journeys where “regret, hope and triumph remain in disguise.” Bhanoo’s stories are consistent in their haunting prose, as well as their meditative, empathic style. In “No. 16 Model House Road,” a woman deliberates on whether she will defy her husband; “A Life in America” focuses on a professor who is accused of exploiting his students; a school shooting destroys a mother’s world in “Nature Exchange.” “No. 16 Model House Road” appeared in NER 41.4.

Poet Tomás Q. Morín’s memoir, Let Me Count the Ways (University of Nebraska), explores and reconciles machismo, poverty, and obsessive compulsive disorder. Morín—who grew up in a small South Texas town in the eighties and nineties—recalls events from his tumultuous early life, including a memory of helping his father spot unmarked cop cars. Let me Count the Ways is a “vivid portrait of South Texas life” that “challenges our ideas about fatherhood, drug abuse, and mental illness.” Morín’s poems appear in multiple issues of NER, most recently in issue 35.3.

In The Brain in Search of Itself: Santiago Ramón y Cajal and the Story of the Neuron (Farrar, Straus and Giroux)—the first major biography of Spanish neuroscientist Santiago Ramón y Cajal—author Benjamin Ehrlich lauds the incredible achievements and research of his subject while telling a deeply human story set in early 20th century Spain. Beginning with Cajal’s complex relationship with his father—a temperamental physician—Ehrlich steadily makes the case for the importance of Cajal’s work to our modern understanding of neurons. Ehrlich is a senior reader for NER.

Wry, unorthodox, and delightful, Gallery of Postcards and Maps: New and Selected Poems (Salmon Poetry) by poet Susan Rich demonstrates a literary balancing act between the serious and the whimsical. Subjects in Rich’s fifth collection of poetry include vegetarian vampires, musings on middle age, and fun vignettes that explore the nature of travel. “Let love be imminent and let it be a train; / let it arrive at dawn, its whistle whiskering the air,” Rich writes in “A Middle Life: A Romance.” Rich’s poem “String Theory with Heartache” was published in NER 39.2.

Matthew Olzmann’s Constellation Route (Alice James) presents poems as letters—epistolary verses written by mailmen to recipients; conversations between couriers; points of understanding or chaos that flash out between nomadic souls. “In language at once direct and artful,” the author “memorably explores the question of how one might speak across the gulfs dividing humankind.” Olzmann’s work has appeared in multiple issues of NER, most recently in issue 42.2.


Visit our page on Bookshop.org for cumulative seasonal lists of NER author releases.

Filed Under: Featured, NER Authors' Books, News & Notes Tagged With: Benjamin Ehrlich, Daisy Fried, Matthew Olzmann, Sindya Bhanoo, Susan Rich, Tomás Q. Morín, Yanyi

Roman Malynovsky

Count the Wars

March 18, 2022

“I remember as a child, around the age of seven or eight, asking my parents how many wars there had been. For some reason it was up to me to find out . . . At the time, I had no doubt that they could all be counted.”

From his family home in Ivano-Frankivsk in western Ukraine, Roman Malynovsky offers some thoughts on language and war. Translated from the Ukrainian by Kate Tsurkan.

[“Count the Wars“]


Roman Malynovsky is a writer and publisher from Ivano-Frankivsk. In 2017, he founded the Civilization publishing house. He is also the editor-in-chief of the Library of Babel publishing house, which he co-founded in 2014. His first short story collection, Sweet Life (‘Солодке життя’), was published by Meridian Czernowitz in 2021. His work has been featured in Harper’s Bazaar Ukraine, Versopolis, and Akcent.

Kate Tsurkan is the co-founder and editor-in-chief of Apofenie Magazine, TAULT translator and board member, and PhD candidate at New York University. Her written work has previously appeared in the New Statesman, Los Angeles Review of Books, Asymptote, the Calvert Journal, and Arrowsmith Press Journal.

Filed Under: Dispatches, Featured, News & Notes Tagged With: Kate Tsurkan, Roman Malynovsky

  • « Previous Page
  • 1
  • 2
  • 3
  • 4
  • 5
  • …
  • 26
  • Next Page »


Vol. 43, No. 1

Subscribe

NER Digital

Shelley Wong

Writer's Notebook—The Winter Forecast

Shelley Wong

In “The Winter Forecast,” the fashion runway becomes a hibernating place. As a California poet, I was thinking about winters elsewhere, the ones I first saw in children’s books and experienced when I lived in New York City in my twenties.

Sign up for our newsletter

Click here to join our list and receive occasional news and always-great writing.

categories

Navigation

  • Subscribe/Order
  • Back Issues
  • About
  • Events
  • Audio
  • NER Out Loud
  • Emerging Writers Award
  • Support NER
  • Advertising
  • The Podcast

Categories

Copyright © 2022 · facebook · twitter

 

Loading Comments...