Appalachian Review

Fiction

Max words: 7500

Max pieces: 1

We welcome work that is well crafted and tells a good story, with characters and prose that will linger in the minds of our readers long after they have finished reading. “Good stories do not resolve the mysteries of the human spirit but rather describe and expand upon those mysteries, “ novelist Tim O’Brien says. We concur. We do not publish genre fiction (fantasy, mystery, crime, science fiction). These will be automatically discarded.

Nonfiction

Max words: 7500

Max pieces: 1

We are seeking both traditional and experimental essays, including personal (nature, environmental, and travel essays), memoirs, lyric, meditative, and literary journalism. Good essays will feature an original voice that is rooted in engaging language and a multi-layered story. We agree with the essayist Robert Vivian, who notes, “Writing about what a person actually sees, feels, and experiences as a human being in this world is relevant, important, sometimes even revelatory as a way to make sense of oneself and others and that this is inherently worth doing.”

Poetry

Max pieces: 5

We are looking for poetry that is truly original, of nearly any aesthetic bent, that captures something that simply can’t be expressed any other way. We want poems that teach us something new, that move us to laughter or tears, that “require [us] to pay attention to the process of imagination and discover the sense of its mystery,” as Pulitzer Prize-finalist poet Maurice Manning says.

Review

We are interested in honest, in-depth assessments of new, creative publications related to Appalachia. As assignments of titles to be reviewed are typically made by the editor, unsolicited reviews should not be submitted without a prior query. However, we are open to considering proposals from prospective authors about titles they might like to review.