Author’s Note: “The Wizard of Oz was probably one of the first movies I ever watched, and I loved the Wicked Witch. Often, villains are my favorite part of narratives, and she terrified me—her laugh, ... [Continue Story]
Author’s Note: “This poem explores the ways we attempt to justify our privileges to ourselves. While I wrote it thinking primarily of my own white middle class American culture, it asks questions more ... [Continue Story]
Author’s note: “I once had a friend who did yoga and wrote down her dreams and earnestly informed me that she could hitchhike alone and be safe because she was special. She seemed to truly believe that nothing could hurt her. In “Her Gestures, Her Rules,” I imagined that she had a daughter who would, like most daughters, go from acolyte to critic to something in between.”
Her Gestures, Her Rules
BY THE EARLY ’80s, when the new age was still new, my mother, a local legend, operated the most popular yoga studio in Ulster County. Valley Yin Yang catered to aging hippies, rich and poor. I, conceived in 1969 at an ashram in Goa, was a significant line in her biography: an illegitimate half-Indian daughter. Her students were fascinated by me, as they were by every aspect of my mother’s life—her clothes, her diet, her true beliefs, her original religion. And, of course, her long legs and her thick hair, so dark my hair could have come from her, not from a never-named Indian father... [Continue Story]
Delmarva Review's Executive Editor Wilson Wyatt emcees the brilliant performance of ten contributing writers (Volume 14), sponsored by The Writers Center in Bethesda, MD (many thanks) on November 20, 2021.
Our featured writers include (with approximate start times):
Caroline Bock [7:27]
Holly Karapetkova [14:40]
Irene Hoge Smith [17:06]
Jona Colson [22:29]
Susan Land [27:33]
Judith McCombs [35:00]
Sue Eisenfeld [38:38]
Katherine Williams [49:02]
Ronan Keenan [53:08]
Adam Tamashasky [59:15]
Listen now...
Click below for a transcribed edition...
Delmarva Review announced publication of its 14th annual literary journal presenting new poetry, short stories, and creative nonfiction from seventy authors in twenty-five states, the District of Columbia and four other countries.
“The fourteenth issue is our largest, with over four hundred pages of exceptional new poetry and prose selected from thousands of submissions during the year,” said Wilson Wyatt, executive editor.
The review also announced a writers’ submission period for the 15th anniversary issue, open now through March 31, 2022. It does not charge submission or reading fees. Writers’ guidelines are posted on the website: DelmarvaReview.org.
The cover of the 14th issue is “Tangier Island Light,” by contributing photographer Jay P. Fleming, of Annapolis, from his new book, Island Life.
As a literary collection, the focus is on outstanding new writing. Topics for this issue open with an essay about dealing with death over a lifetime. They continue with subjects about desire, loss, aging, bullying, equality, beliefs, the pandemic, and many others. “Ultimately, all of the themes revolve around change,” Wyatt said. “It’s through human change that we face the truths that guide us on our journeys or help us make sense of where we’ve been.”
The journal is divided into three major sections: poetry, fiction, and nonfiction. Each is an impressive collection of literary work. The sections open with an editor’s interview of a featured author, giving more in-depth perspective of the writing that follows. The book ends with seven reviews of recent books, and biographies of the writers.
Delmarva Review was created to offer writers a valued home to publish their best writing at a time when many commercial publications were reducing literary content or closing their doors. The review makes room for new authors, as well, including a featured high school student.
While favoring the permanence of the printed word, the review also publishes electronic versions to meet the digital preferences of readers. Both paperback and electronic editions are immediately available at major online booksellers. It can also be purchased at regional specialty bookstores.
Since its origin in 2008, the Delmarva Review has published new poetry and prose by over 400 authors. They are from most of the United States and sixteen other countries. About forty percent are from the Delmarva and Chesapeake region of the Mid-Atlantic. Seventy-eight have been nominated for a Pushcart Prize. Some have attained notable attention in “best of” anthologies or received public acclaim from other literary critics and editors.
In addition to Wyatt, the journal’s staff for this edition includes Bill Gourgey, the managing editor who designs and publishes the review, poetry editor Anne Colwell, poetry assistant editors Katherine Gekker and Wendy Elizabeth Ingersoll, fiction senior editor Harold O. Wilson, fiction coeditors James O’Sullivan and Lee Slater, creative nonfiction editor Ellen Brown, book section editor Gerald Sweeney, treasurer Judy Reveal, and copyeditor Jodie Littleton.
Published by the Delmarva Review Literary Fund Inc., a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization, the journal receives partial financial support from individual tax-deductible contributions and a public grant from Talbot Arts, with revenues from the Maryland State Arts Council. For more information, see the website DelmarvaReview.org.
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Author’s Note: “Welcome Day is about a parent’s angst of how a combination of flawed genetics and a murky past will impact her child. The central character, Maria, is a single parent trying to distance her young son from her history of involvement in Irish paramilitary activity. In the story Maria watches her son begin life in a new school and worries how the ‘nature versus nurture’ dynamic will impact his development.”
Welcome Day
YOU’D SWEAR THERE’S A PIPE BOMB INSIDE, the way Maria holds the envelope at arm’s length. “The strain of fear’s gotten into ya,” Jimmy would say if he could see her now, panicked about opening a letter. This is the same Maria who’d hardly break stride when planting loaded packages near the Belfast barracks, years ago. Back then, she could create thick barriers in her mind, making it easy to categorize the soldiers as a faceless enemy from across the water rather than young lads barely out of school, homesick and frightened in strange borderlands. These days, Maria’s barriers are low and permeable, allowing fear to seep through whenever it wants. Today, it has come through her letterbox.
Sure enough, this envelope contains what she dreaded…(story continued in Spy)
Author’s Note: “The poem began with a prompt—to show the beauty of something ugly. Having lived in the DMV all my life, and recently read a history of the Chesapeake Bay, I thought of the oyster. It is not attractive, but it is vital to the bay and, of course, delicious to eat. The poem imagines life from the oyster’s point of view.” ...[Continue Story]
Author’s note: “After I saw images of the small Hebrew dictionary William Bradford created in his notebook, I was drawn to imagine his later life. And though the parallels may not seem obvious, I ... [Continue Story]
Author’s note: “As a narrative poet, the process of creating this piece was somewhat of a departure for me. Lately, I have been intrigued by absence—what is not visible, not said, not done—even my own mental absence from much of what is going on around me. This appeal to ‘white space’ is especially strong on the page. It allows readers to fill in the blanks, interpret, create their own meaning"... [Continue Story]
Author’s note: “Each day, a young woman runs past my home. What drives her pace, pushes her on? She runs fifteen miles a day alone, on country roads. I tried stepping into her shoes, tried to understand, imagined a past that could not be faced, a hurt that could not be undone. The repeated pounding of soles on pavement became a meditation, a saving grace"... [Continue Story]
