Shenandoah Literary Magazine, Lexington, VA (2024)

07/05/2024

Happy Friday!! Head into the weekend with some fantastic poetry from our Spring issue!

“There was a bird that feasted on your dreams and another
that subsisted on the lies you told and every afternoon
these birds would fight for the entertainment of most
of the guys we went to high school with.”

— Robert Wood Lynn, “Plot Synopsis”

07/03/2024

Check out the first installment of our new series of Small Town Dispatches. The interview with contributor Laura Villareal explores the ins and outs of small town living in Lockhart Texas.

See the link in our bio for the full interview!

“My advice is: live where you’ll be happy, writing will always find you there.”

07/01/2024

Submissions for Stevie’s open call is now open!

Stevie’s Open Call

“For the Spring 2025 issue of Shenandoah, I’m seeking creative nonfiction that explores the relationship between language and identity. Send me your personal essays that bend and
break the “rules” of grammar, tackle the translation of self between and beyond languages, ruminate on verbal code-switching, your bilingual and multilingual writing, your emojis and emoticons where words won’t suffice, the words that fail you, the words that feel like home.

I am especially interested in promoting the work of emerging writers from marginalized backgrounds, communities, and experiences. I highly encourage folks who don’t have an extensive publication history to submit!

Pieces between 1000 and 4000 words is my preference, but is not a hard-set rule. Contributors are paid $80 per 1000 words up to $400.”

06/30/2024

In honor of Caribbean-American Heritage Month, Shenandoah Literary Magazine celebrates the vibrant contributions of Caribbean-American writers. This June, we recognize the powerful voices of A.K. Herman, a contributor to our new issue born in Tobago, and Dorsía Smith Silva, a contributor to our last issue who holds a Ph.D. in Caribbean Literature and Language.

“In the days after that, I read the last name under the face of a man the TV was showing over and over again. Atta. He could be anyone from anywhere. Somebody I coulda know in Trinidad. The fella who sell fruit near the train station at Grand Army in the summer. He was the biggest jumbie in what people was calling the terrorist attack on 9/11, the date it happen.”

— A. K. Herman “Small Castles”

“There is no one to save me.
I’m free to pretend this is an earthquake
drill.

Huddle across metaled sarcophagus.
Please look away—

many-footed canidae are coming
to roister by the carcass out of
habit.”

— Dorsía Smith Silva “I asked about desire”

06/26/2024

Another new Peak post gives us a look into David Siew Hii’s interview with poet Majda Gama.

Gama’s poem, “In Great Aunt Noor’s Salon” won the Graybeal-Gowen Prize and is featured in Shenandoah 73.2.

Follow the link in our bio to find her interview and poem!

“I like to write about my history and my history might be in Saudi Arabia in 1990 or it might be in DC in 1995 on the dance floor.”

06/22/2024

Celebrating some of our LGBTQIA+ contributors this month. Happy Pride!

“It’s a different kind of love
not forehead chest shoulder shoulder cross my
heart and hope to die but hope that our love
will endure not fitting up in the sky”
—Mack Rodgers, “Sonnet for the Q***r and Light-Skinned”

“For a little while I was an actual runner, not
a mother running away. I breathed in, breathed out, and I was someone. I existed.”
—Hannah Grieco, “Thin Dreams”

“It’s a fact: nothing remains static. A river softens a boulder’s jagged lines. A tree is felled, a sidewalk is put in its place. A glass is rinsed clean before slipping from hands and shattering over tile.”
—Daniel Garcia, “The Other Side”

06/21/2024

Check out The Story Becomes Fire: An Interview with Editorial Fellow Mubanga Kalimamukwento on The Peak.

Intern Chloe Duensing emailed with editorial fellow Mubanga Kalimamukwento to discuss her life, her work, and what she looks for as an editor.

Follow the link in our bio to explore the full article!

“There have been so many hard moments, and through them, literature has always saved me — I go to it and it comes to me.”

06/19/2024

Stevie’s Open Call
SUBMISSIONS OPEN JULY 1

“For the Spring 2025 issue of Shenandoah, I’m seeking creative nonfiction that explores the relationship between language and identity. Send me your personal essays that bend and
break the “rules” of grammar, tackle the translation of self between and beyond languages, ruminate on verbal code-switching, your bilingual and multilingual writing, your emojis and emoticons where words won’t suffice, the words that fail you, the words that feel like home.

I am especially interested in promoting the work of emerging writers from marginalized backgrounds, communities, and experiences. I highly encourage folks who don’t have an extensive publication history to submit!

Pieces between 1000 and 4000 words is my preference, but is not a hard-set rule. Contributors are paid $80 per 1000 words up to $400.”

06/15/2024

Our new issue is officially LIVE! We are so grateful for all of our contributors and all of the people that went into making this issue happen!

See the link to the full issue in our bio or visit shenandoahliterary.org

06/14/2024

Tomorrow is the big day!! We hope you’re as excited as us!

“I laugh loud, loud then cover meh mouth to stifle the laugh ‘cause I was frighten to be so happy when the world was now a harder place for people like me. No, people who are like how I was.”

— A. K. Herman, “Small Castles”

06/13/2024

Just 2 days left until 73.2!!

“Last month I saw a mute swan pull itself
up from the river as it approached the shore.
Its wings and joints flexed into wide worship,
a pose that mystifies biologists: horaltic.”

—Majda Gama,“In Great Aunt Noor’s Salon”

06/12/2024

Just 3 days left! We’re so excited to share our new issue with you!

“When we called out his name, our voices bounced around the naked walls. There was nothing in the room, save for a desk our children told us he sat at to read big books while he let them watch Spongebob SquarePants.”

—Shedrack Opeyemi Akanbi, “The Lance Corporal’s Door”

06/11/2024

Inching our way to Saturday! Can’t wait for our Spring issue!

“a peppered path: where
another pepper tree grows
solid, piercing
shielding up the soul
from anti-riot vehicles.”

—Weijia Pan, “Peppered Path”

06/10/2024

Our Spring issue launches in just 5 days!

“She said what I never would: “Those miniskirts saved your lives.” I nodded, and we knew we’d all party again, in too-tight short skirts, once her wounds healed and her nightmares eased.”

—Victoria Buitron, “Miniskirts”

06/09/2024

Only 6 more days until our Spring issue launches!

“My skin was as white as bone-colored January. There was nothing
but this day and then the next one. At the end of each, I tallied
with a tick mark to show how far from myself I had come.”

— Melanie McCabe, “Convalescent Summer”

06/08/2024

The countdown is on! Only 1 week until our Spring issue launches!

“Let me be a garden of unfruitfulness. Let me
give birth to a new defiance every day.”

— Jehanne Dubrow, “Tubal Ligation”

06/06/2024

Stevie Billow (they/them) is a writer, educator, and creative organizer living in DC. They are the founder of Rotary Arts, a multimedia arts collective for and by emerging LGBTQ+ creatives. Stevie has received support from GrubStreet as a 2023-2024 Emerging Writer Fellow and from the Straw Dog Writers Guild as a 2024 Edith Wharton Writer in Residence.

Stevie holds a BA in History and Art History from Smith College and an MAT from the Universidad de Alcalá. Their independent work has previously appeared in Fauxmoir, Meat for Tea: the Valley Review, Meow Meow Pow Pow, and Beyond Q***r Words among others.

Stevie’s Open Call
SUBMISSIONS OPEN JULY 1

“For the Spring 2025 issue of Shenandoah, I’m seeking creative nonfiction that explores the relationship between language and identity. Send me your personal essays that bend and
break the “rules” of grammar, tackle the translation of self between and beyond languages, ruminate on verbal code-switching, your bilingual and multilingual writing, your emojis and emoticons where words won’t suffice, the words that fail you, the words that feel like home.

I am especially interested in promoting the work of emerging writers from marginalized backgrounds, communities, and experiences. I highly encourage folks who don’t have an extensive publication history to submit!

Pieces between 1000 and 4000 words is my preference, but is not a hard-set rule. Contributors are paid $80 per 1000 words up to $400.”

06/05/2024

COMING JUNE 15

03/21/2024

Thanks to everyone who applied! The window for the editorial fellowship is now closed. We received a record number of applications, and are so grateful for your interest. We’re making our way through applications now, and will be awarding at least one fellowship in each of the genres: fiction, poetry, creative nonfiction, and comics. All responses will be sent by the end of April.

03/05/2024

*Reposting with slightly updated language!* Shenandoah is now accepting applications for our Emerging Editor Fellowship! We recognize that if we want writers from diverse backgrounds, varied perspectives, and underrepresented groups to feel at home in Shenandoah, and for the literature we publish to be full of varied and passionate perspectives that enliven, empower, and engage all of us, we need to have representation at our core. Through this editorial fellowship, we’re committed to expanding the roster of people we work with and to discovering new voices to amplify and empower. Selected fellows will receive a $1000 honorarium and will curate a selection of published work in a specific genre, working with the Shenandoah staff to guide the work to publication. This opportunity will give fellows the chance to learn about all aspects of a small literary publisher and create connections with peers and potential future employers in the industry and in academia. Check out the link in our bio to submit an application! 😊

02/22/2024

We’re so excited for our editorial fellow, Mubanga Kalimamukwento, who is launching the first issue of on Saturday, devoted to Zambian writing. Shenandoah will be featuring one writer each year in partnership with the magazine, through the Hope Prize. Congrats, Mubanga!

01/04/2024

Mark your calendars! We’ll be open for 250 fiction submissions—short stories and novel excerpts—on January 15. Link to Submittable is in the bio.

12/15/2023

Our new issue is live! Featuring and do many more. Special thanks to our editorial fellow jj peña!

12/14/2023

It’s 1 day until our new issue launches!

“I think of the Gulf that day, how the water shone, a blue-glass vase with its rose of sun.” — Cynthia Hogue, “To the Sheltering Island”

The last slide features a blue-glass vase with its rose of sun.

12/12/2023

It’s 3 days until our new issue launches!

“Here’s the old summer thunderstorm. / Now jump in the river with your plugged nose / and wait for cantaloupe season.” — Salonee Verma, “Batesian Mimicry”

The last slide features a cantaloupe harvested during peak cantaloupe season.

12/11/2023

It’s 5 days until our new issue launches!

“But sometimes things you can’t imagine fill in the blank squares of Bingo.” — Yeom Seungsuk, “The Bingo World”

The last slide features blank squares on Bingo cards that are soon to be filled with the unimaginable

12/08/2023

It’s 7 days until our new issue launches!

“Her hairs pricked me and I dropped her. She started to move across the floor. She moved fast as a cockroach. Her rangy hair worked like legs. In the light she would disappear.”

The last slide features a cockroach with its legs moving fast.

11/30/2023

With the weather becoming colder in many places, a dash of warmth is something that we could all do with. "Late September in the Garden," a piece by , Lucien Darjeun Meadows, is definitely worth a read in this chilly season

Shenandoah Literary Magazine