Introducing the May/June Issue

The May/June issue of the Kenyon Review features the annual “Nature’s Nature” poetry portfolio selected by former KR poetry editor David Baker, with work by Elizabeth Arnold, Brenda Hillman, Maya C. Popa, Evie Shockley, and many others. In this issue you’ll also find fiction by Renée Branum, Nolan Capps, David Crouse, Calvin Gimpelevich, Arinze Ifeakandu, and Uche Okonkwo; nonfiction by Melissa Seley; and a harrowing play by Sherod Santos.

Order a copy of the issue (print or digital edition) here.

Why We Chose It

By Sergei Lobanov-Rostovsky, Associate Editor

Calvin Gimpelevich’s story "Burned Location" appears in the May/June issue of the Kenyon Review

“Calvin Gimpelevich’s haunting story is both a confession and a deceit. The story takes place in an alternate—or maybe we should say prospective—reality in which dreams can be purchased as easily as we now stream TV shows. Terrifyingly, these dreams can also be shared, implanted in someone else’s mind the way a shared Netflix account can mix someone else’s taste for John Wick movies into your queue of British baking shows.”

Read the rest of “Why We Chose It.”

2022 Short Fiction Contest Results

We received a record 699 entries to our annual Short Fiction contest this year. The judge was acclaimed author Karen Russell, who selected “Siphonophore” by Michelle Webber as the winner. Webber will receive a scholarship to the Kenyon Review Writers Workshops this summer, and “Siphonophore” will be published in an issue of the Kenyon Review. Russell also selected two runners-up: “Doe” by Alexandra Munck and “Pareidolia” by Kira K. Homsher, both of which will be published online.

Of the winner, Karen Russell says:

“In ‘Siphonophore,’ a group of teenagers slingshot across the country on a PBR-and-whippet-fueled road trip to the Gulf Coast.

“‘Siphonophore’ has the economy and vibrancy of the best poetry. It also made me laugh out loud, and ache along with its narrator, and wonder how any of us survive until adulthood.

“Desires commingle and separate; friends become lovers and revert to friends again; the same people behave with casual savagery and unexpected tenderness in a matter of hours. In the rhythms of the sentences, we feel the tug-of-war between a yearning to belong and to swim free. This is a gorgeous meditation on the challenge of navigating life as a complex and ever-shifting entity. As a metaphor and a living mirror, the siphonophore has moved into my mind, and I’m sure it will haunt you too.”

Click here to read the rest of Karen Russell’s comments about this story, as well as her thoughts about the two runners-up and one honorable mention.

May/June Issue Dedicated to Nancy Zafris

The May/June issue of the Kenyon Review is dedicated to the memory of Nancy Zafris, a gifted writer, teacher, editor, and friend of KR. Zafris served for a time as the magazine’s fiction editor, and she was a beloved teacher in the Kenyon Review Writers Workshops every summer. After Zafris died in August, we invited her former students to each contribute a line of prose inspired by her teaching. KR Fellow Cristina Correa then remixed these lines, along with some by well-known poets, into a cento (a poem composed of lines from other works), which appears in this issue.

Thank you to all of Zafris’s students who contributed their words to this poetic memorial: Gail Galloway Adams, Cheyenne Autry, Lorraine Baumgardner, Evan Brooke, Marcia Butler, Christiane Buuck, Kate Lister Campbell, Shanti Chandrasekhar, Karin Cecile Davidson, Elizabeth DelConte, Anjanette Delgado, Nicola Dixon, Meredith Doench, Jennifer Genest, Gary Glass, Adam Golub, Sascha Goluboff, David Greendonner, Trudy Hale, Bruce Hartzell, Christopher Hathaway, Rachel Heng, J.D. Hosemann, Rebe Huntman, E.H. Jacobs, Alexandra Kontes, Elizabeth Lantz, Tara Lindis, Nancy Ludmerer, Emily Mirengoff, Katy Mullins, Kristen Nichols, K.E. Ogden, Caleb Parker, Jenny Patton, Tonja Matney Reynolds, Janet Schneider, Mark Steinwachs, Charlie Watts, and Cassie Wells.

Inaugural Nancy Zafris Scholarship Winner

Thanks to generous donors, there is now an annual Nancy Zafris scholarship for a fiction writer to attend the Kenyon Review Writers Workshops. This summer, Pingmei Lan will attend the summer residential workshops as the first Nancy Zafris Scholar. Congratulations, Pingmei!

Abigail Serfass: A True Classic

Anyone who has studied Latin knows that it is a rigorously organized language, one that is rule based and logical. Perhaps it’s not surprising, then, that Kenyon Review Managing Editor Abigail Wadsworth Serfass, known as Abby, used to be a Latin teacher. Serfass’s rigorously organized mind has benefited the Kenyon Review for nearly sixteen years, but this month marks the end of her impressive tenure. She is stepping down from her role because she and her husband, Adam, a professor of classics at Kenyon, will be spending the next academic year in Rome.

Click here to read the rest of the article.

Launch of May/June Issue

Join us for the virtual launch of the new issue on Wednesday, May 25 at 7:00 pm EDT! “Nature’s Nature” guest editor David Baker will join us, along with contributors Marilyn Chin, Uche Okonkwo, and Maya C. Popa. Register for the free Zoom event here. And if you missed the virtual launch of the Work Issue, you can watch the recording here.