The Missouri Review

This week, we’re catching up with author Dennis McFadden’s, whose debut fiction-collection, Hart’s Grove, is just out from Colgate University Press.  Snag your copy here.  Dennis’s story, “The Three-Sided Penny” appeared in The Missouri Review’s Winter 2007 issue, which you can purchase here.  He lives and writes in an old farmhouse called Mountjoy on Bliss [...]

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Mathew Chacko’s “Ivy: A Love Story” (from TMR 31.2) is a vivid portrait of a grief-haunted man redefining the boundaries of his world after the loss of his wife.  Vibrant imagery, a dynamic Indian setting and a protagonist steeped in a lifetime of memories make Chako’s story a compelling and layered read.

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Some settings hold an almost mystical allure for us, enticing us to play tourist in an otherwise inaccessible land or time. This week we ask our staff: “What settings are you a total sucker for?” Paige Burnham, intern: 19th-Century Time Travel I love time travel stories where the main character travels in time from the [...]

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For the next three weeks, we celebrate the arrival of our Editor’s Prize issue with poems from 33.1: Uncharted.  First up is “Into your pocket,” from the winner of our 2010 Editor’s Prize in Poetry, Christina Hutchins. Her work appears in Alehouse, Antioch Review, Beloit Poetry Journal, Denver Quarterly, Missouri Review, Prairie Schooner, Salmagundi, the [...]

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We’ve just posted the final episode in our 2009 Audio Winners series. This episode features the first place winner for 2009, “Basement Story” by Austin Bunn. You can listen to this podcast here, or browse all of our podcasts to check out some of our previous winners. Congratulations to all of our 2009 finalists, and [...]

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In this episode of our podcast, we present our second place winner for 2009, “Women of Troy,” a work which was produced as part of the “In Verse” recording project, created by Ted Genoways and Lu Olkowski. In its full, multimedia incarnation, “Women of Troy” features poet Susan B.A. Somers-Willett, photographer Brenda Ann Kenneally, and [...]

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This week, we gladly present Joe Osterhaus’ original poem “Eden.”  Osterhaus is the author of Radiance (Zoo Press) and The Domed Road (Graywolf Press, in Take Three: AGNI New Poets Series). His work has appeared most recently in Slate, The Yale Review, and The Swallow Anthology of New American Poets. He was a Walter E. [...]

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On this Missouri Review podcast, we present “The Thing at the Foot of the Bed” by Rachel Yoder, a finalist in our 2009 Audio Competition. Look for more audio winners throughout the month of March! Listen here: .

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This week, we are pleased to present Lisa Lewis’s “Where, Oh, Where.” Her books are The Unbeliever (Brittingham Prize), Silent Treatment (National Poetry Series), Burned House with Swimming Pool, forthcoming from Dream Horse Press, and Vivisect, forthcoming from New Issues Press.  New work appears or is forthcoming in the Kenyon Review, American Literary Review, Washington [...]

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We’ve just posted the first episode in our four-part podcast series featuring the winners of our 2009 Audio Competition. On this episode, we present “Lucy and the Bike Girl” by Hillary Frank, a finalist in the competition. Lucy, a 28-year-old with cystic fibrosis, meets the “Bike Girl,” who has the same disease, in an internet [...]

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This week, TMR is pleased to present “Bird-Teasing After the Hurricane,” new work by John Casteen.  His first book of poems, Free Union, was published in 2009 by The University of Georgia press.  New poems have appeared in The Paris Review, Shenandoah, Prairie Schooner, and The Rumpus.  He teaches at Sweet Briar College, and serves on the editorial [...]

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This week we are excited to present “Love Letter to Flavor Flav,” new work from Marcus Wicker. His poems have appeared or are forthcoming in jubilat, Crab Orchard Review, Hayden’s Ferry Review, Harpur Palate, Rattle, Ninth Letter, Sou’Wester, DIAGRAM, and Anti-, among other journals. He is an Ann Arbor, Michigan native who holds fellowships from [...]

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We are pleased to announce the winners of our 2009 Audio Contest. In the coming weeks, the winning entries and select finalists will be featured on our website.  Congratulations to all our winners and thanks to everyone who submitted their work! First Place: Austin Bunn, “Basement Story” Second Place: Brenda Ann Kenneally, Lu Olkowski,  and [...]

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We’d like to congratulate some of our past contributors on their recent achievements: Peter Levine’s story “How Does Your Garden Grow” was recognized as a notable story in the University of Texas Press’ 2009 volume of Best of the West: New Stories from the Wide Side of the Missouri. The story first appeared in TMR issue [...]

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The latest “From The Archives” feature is up! Our selection is Cheryl Strayed’s essay “Munro Country,” which originally appeared in our Summer 2009 issue. The sensation of a shared small-town coming of age is the connection that leaves Strayed feeling powerfully linked to Alice Munro. Follow along as Strayed learns the balance between embracing this [...]

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We are pleased to announce the winners of our 2009 Jeffrey E. Smith Editors’ Prize. The winning entries in each category will be featured in our next issue, 33.1. Congratulations to all our winners and thanks to everyone who submitted their work! 2009 Contest Winners: Fiction Winner: Fiona McFarlane “Exotic Animal Medicine” Austin, TX Finalists: [...]

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Our deadline has been extended to January 16th!  Submit your entry in Audio/Voice- Only Lit or Video Documentary. Winners receive a total of $4,500 in prizes. First prize in each category receives $1,500, second prize $500. Five entries from both categories will be selected for a $100 Editor’s Prize. All entrants receive a 1-year subscription [...]

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Take a look behind the scenes of a literary journal as The Missouri Review reveals what happens to a manuscript once it arrives at our offices. Thanks for the creativity and diligent work by our team of video production interns: Scott Scheese, Kate McIntrye, Lindsay Sihilling, Cody Horton, and Emily Wunderlich. Original music by Kyle [...]

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Sixteen years ago we published a remarkable coming-of-age short story by Kevin Canty, which was later included in his fiction collection A Stranger in This World. This year, that story, “Blue Boy,” will come to life on the big screen at the upcoming Tribeca Film Festival. This short film is one of only 46 shorts [...]

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As one of over 600 volunteers at the True/False Film Fest this past weekend, I witnessed a passionate, diverse, and creative community–from international filmmakers to downtown dwellers–come together, transforming an already eclectic Columbia into a “small-town Midwestern utopia.” My first assignment at The Blue Note, a renovated vaudeville house–now a popular music venue–overlapped with the [...]

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Eric Daniel Metzgar’s Reporter profiles New York Times reporter Nicholas Kristof’s work in the Congo. The film, screened last weekend at the True/False Film Fest, concentrated on Kristof’s relentless pursuit to find the face of the Congo. He found that face attached to the 60-pound body of a 41-year-old woman displaced by the warring lords [...]

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Blood Trail centers on the work of freelance war photographer Robert King. The film shows King’s transition from a frightened and inexperienced nobody in Bosnia to a widely published and reliable correspondent in Iraq. . . .

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So, I am writing this post as an ode to my lovely fellow poetry readers at TMR. I have never been a part of an academic group so nerdy and so much fun in my entire life. Before joining the poetry team at TMR I had all of these worries about my ability to analyze [...]

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The time of year is upon us when some animals begin creeping into their holes for a long winter’s hibernation and our cultural mavens creep out of their lairs to deliver unto us their judgments enumerated in list form. Lest we be left out of this mass migration, we offer as one of our closing blogs of 2008 [...]

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A good anthology is like a party assembled by a master host: it brings together a diverse array of interesting people under a common roof. It is a vehicle for introducing you to people you might not otherwise meet and enabling you to draw connections you might not otherwise make. A bad anthology is like a terrible business convention: it corrals people and inflicts [...]

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What do we listen to as we write or do our creative work? When we raised this question here at The Missouri Review, we encountered (not surprisingly) a diversity of opinions on the subject. From one perspective, music is a instrusive and disruptive force, another artistic voice drowning out one’s own. To others, music serves [...]

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As election season draws to a close with the now customary fits and starts of provisional ballot counting, run-offs, etc., we thought we’d take a look at some of our favorite politicians from literature. Prince or puppet-master, tyrant or revolutionary, the figure of the politician is a canvas upon which we can project our fondest [...]

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We asked the captain what course of action he proposed to take toward a beast so large, terrifying, and unpredictable. He hesitated to answer, and then said judiciously: “I think I shall praise it.” –Robert Hass, epigram to Praise Some of our oldest surviving narratives are tales of monsters. Tiamat, Leviathan, Polyphemus,Grendel: monsters feature again and [...]

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Do we really care what our political candidates read? Well, as devoted readers ourselves, of course we do. And it seems the larger world does too. Some people are afraid of what the candidates read — witness the e-mail circulating that shows a photo of Barack Obama toting a copy of Fareed Zakaria’s The Post-American World. [...]

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                               Mammon led them on, Mammon, the least erected Spirit that fell From Heav’n, for ev’n in Heav’n his looks and thoughts Were always downward bent, admiring more The riches of Heav’n’s pavement, trodden gold, Than aught divine or holy else enjoyed In vision beatific: by him first Men also, and by his suggestion taught, [...]

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