The Westchester Review

05/12/2023

Congrats to the outstanding artists we nominated for this year's Pushcart Prize, an annual acknowledgement of literary excellence in online publishing. We had so many great pieces of prose and poetry this past year that it was tough to choose the nominations, but we found these to be especially strong. Please visit www.westchesterreview.com to find the following fiction and poems:

Poems:

Austin Alexis — “My Father’s Room”

Jim Daniels — “Ode to Parking Lots”

Shannon Hardwick — “The House Called Fox in Yonkers”

Fiction:

Ayala Adler — “Black Market, 1949”

Steven Fromm — “Darkroom”

Isaac Rankin — “Jackpot” (forthcoming in Winter issue out next week, Dec 15!)

27/11/2023

Last chance for fiction and creative nonfiction submissions this year. We'll close fiction and creative non-fiction portals November 30 at 11:59 pm, and reopen in January.

Submission link and more info here: https://www.westchesterreview.com/submit

23/11/2023

Gratitude!

On this Thanksgiving, expressing our appreciation for our ever-growing audience, talented contributors from around the world, and many editors and others who have helped make The Westchester Review a success since its inception in 2007.

Thank you all, and Happy Thanksgiving.

12/11/2023

Here's a taste from Con Chapman's ice cream truck:

Read this and more from our Fall issue here: https://www.westchesterreview.com/

06/11/2023

From Steve Fromm's fictional "Dark Room"

Read this and more from our Fall Issue at https://www.westchesterreview.com/

27/10/2023

For tomorrow's full moon, from J.G. Jesman's story "Hyenas from Ntcheu"

Read this and more in our Fall Issue live here: westchesterreview.com

22/10/2023

Thrilled to share that our TWR poetry co-editor Amy Holman has a sixth poetry book out now, Captive, from Saddle Road Press:

"Amy Holman writes about what is held captive—wild animals by humans or environmental destruction, the self by fear—and what captivates: discoveries, exposures, and mysteries."

More here:

Amy Holman writes about what is held captive—wild animals by humans or environmental destruction, the self by fear—and what captivates: discoveries, exposures, and mysteries.

17/10/2023

Going up? From David Luoma's short story, "The Girl with Mahogany Eyes"

Read this and more in the Fall issue live here: https://www.westchesterreview.com/

10/10/2023

From B.R. Lewis' short story "Killdeer"

*Check out this and more in our Fall issue live at westchesterreview.com

04/10/2023

READERS WANTED!

We are looking for volunteers to read fiction and creative nonfiction submissions. Location not significant, as we meet via Zoom.

Interested? Email [email protected] to learn more.

30/09/2023

If you're enjoying the new audio author recordings we have alongside many of the prose and poetry pieces in our Fall issue (see: westchesterreview.com), here's a whole playlist of them altogether on Soundcloud:

https://soundcloud.com/westchesterreview/sets/fall-2023

A literary journal, founded in 2007, based in Westchester County, New York and published online quarterly. Sharing audio here of our contributors reading their short prose and poetry in each seasonal

27/09/2023

This week's quote from David Obuchowski's short story "The Simple Act of Remembering"

Read this and more in our newly launched Fall issue here:
https://www.westchesterreview.com/

22/09/2023

Highlighting the prose pieces in our Fall issue, quote by quote, starting with:

Ayala Adler's short story, "Black Market, 1949"

See this and more at: https://www.westchesterreview.com/

15/09/2023

Our Fall issue is live and full of amazing fiction, poetry, and a mini-play--many accompanied by audio of the authors reading their works.

Cover art (and our seasonal social media header and profile pics) care of Katita Miller.

Enjoy!

https://www.westchesterreview.com/

08/09/2023

Just a quick note to poets that our submission portal will reopen to poetry on Sept 15 when we launch our Fall issue. Bookmark this link:

The Westchester Review considers previously unpublished stories, creative nonfiction, poems, and ten-minute plays by established and emerging writers wherever they reside. We now exclusively publish online issues quarterly.We welcome submissions from a diverse range of writers, including voices and...

06/09/2023

On courage, from Rachel Arteaga's story "Territorial Claims"

Read this and more in our Summer Issue before we launch Fall next week!

https://www.westchesterreview.com/

01/09/2023

We're excited to announce another social platform for TWR, just for audio.

We now include many of our contributors reading their poems and their excerpts of plays/stories/creative-nonfiction on our website along with the text on each of their pages. But if you want to find a full seasonal issue of audio all in one place, you can now turn to our new Soundcloud channel.

Here's the Summer Issue, in sound, live on Soundcloud. We'll be posting Fall issue and the audio to follow, in the next few weeks. Feel free to follow us!

https://soundcloud.com/westchesterreview/sets/summer-2023

27/08/2023

From Jody Hobbs Hesler's story in our Summer issue, "Other People's Pain."

Read this and more here: https://www.westchesterreview.com/

19/08/2023

A lonely quote by Ifeanyi Ekpunobi, short story writer in our Summer Edition live now.

Read this and more here: www.westchesterreview.com

16/08/2023

Attention prose writers - our submissions portal for FICTION and CREATIVE NONFICTION will open Sept. 1, and we'd love to consider your finest work. Check out our guidelines in the meantime:

https://www.westchesterreview.com/submit

14/08/2023

It's that time of the year when we announce the fine Westchester Review writers we've nominated for the "Best of the Net" anthology, an annual acknowledgement of literary excellence in online publishing. This is for their 2024 edition (based on writing we published between July 1, 2022 and June 30, 2023).

Congratulations to the following contributors with the pieces that we considered especially strong among so many outstanding submissions of prose and poetry this past year.

POETRY

Ellen Devlin

Heart with Bacon, Broth, & Kale (Spring 2023)

https://www.westchesterreview.com/ellen-devlin

--

Cal Freeman

Tomorrow Fries an Egg (Winter 2022)

https://www.westchesterreview.com/cal-freeman

--

Suzanne Frischkorn

Elegy for the Chicks in Martins Ferry, Ohio (Summer 2023)

https://www.westchesterreview.com/suzanne-frischkorn

--

Erik Kennedy

The Anteater and the Ants (Summer 2023)

https://www.westchesterreview.com/erik-kennedy

--

Garnet Juniper Nelson

sestina w/ dysphoria & Marilyn’s gold pumps (Summer 2023

https://www.westchesterreview.com/garnet-juniper-nelson-2

--

Tolu Ogunlesi

Freedom (Spring 2023)

https://www.westchesterreview.com/tolu-ogunlesi

--

FICTION

Rachel Arteaga

Territorial Claims (Summer 2023)

https://www.westchesterreview.com/rachel-arteaga

--

Laurie Ann Doyle

Think of This as Home (Spring 2023)

https://www.westchesterreview.com/laurie-ann-doyle

--

NONFICTION

Jason Hardung

Dirt (Summer 2023)

https://www.westchesterreview.com/jason-hardung

--

Vincent Antonio Rendoni

A Bullfight Outside Mazatlan (Fall 2022)

https://www.westchesterreview.com/vincent-antonio-rendoni

06/08/2023

A cat-vs.-mantis moment from Destini Price's "Praying Mantis"

Check out this creative nonfiction piece and more in our Summer Issue, live at:

https://www.westchesterreview.com/

31/07/2023

The quote of the week comes from Jason Hardung's scorching story, "Dirt"

Read this and more from our summer issue here: https://www.westchesterreview.com/

25/07/2023

Congrats to the 23 poets just named 2023 Poet Laureate Fellows by the Academy of American Poets--an amazing group which we are proud to brag includes one of our own poetry readers Jay (Junious) Ward (representing North Carolina), and former contributor Lisa Bickmore (Utah).

More on the Laureates here:
https://poets.org/academy-american-poets-announces-2023-poets-laureate-fellows?mc_cid=4f193d34d2&mc_eid=2e232d0745

19/07/2023

Please note, our submissions portal is closed for all genres for the time being, at least until Fall, so get your writing-work ducks in a row and check back later in the year. Until then, back to our regularly scheduled hammock.

17/07/2023

The talented Ea Anderson, whose story "Debris" we were proud to include in last year's summer issue, shares that "I Want to be This Girl" is featured in Ploughshares' Summer 2023 Issue, edited by Tom Perrotta. She's in great company!
http://www.pshares.org

06/07/2023

No more drama (for now!). Attention playwrights, the drama portal for submissions will close July 15. We welcome your 10-min plays until then.

https://www.westchesterreview.com/submit

25/06/2023

Happy Summer! Do you feel your voyage taking shape? A quote from our mini-play of the season, Anne Dimock's uniquely crafted "The Voyage Taking Shape."

Read this and other prose/poetry from our Summer issue here:
https://www.westchesterreview.com/

15/06/2023

Written, visual and now aural! Our summer issue is live--complete with new undersea art care of Jane Crowley (also featured here in our profile and banner) and the exciting addition of audio recordings of many of our writers reading their works.

Check the "In this Issue" tab for highlights.

https://www.westchesterreview.com/

08/06/2023

Announcing that a new book of poetry, "Immigrant Prodigal Daughter," by recent Westchester Review contributor, English professor and multiple Pushcart nominee, Lucia Cherciu, has just been published by Kelsay Books and is now available to order. Congrats! Check it out:

Lucia Cherciu writes both in English and in Romanian and is the author of six books of poetry, including Train Ride to Bucharest (Sheep Meadow Press, 2017), a winner of the Eugene Paul Nassar Poetry Prize; Edible Flowers (Main Street Rag, 2015); Lalele din Paradis / Tulips in Paradise (Editura Eikon...

16/05/2023

On getting drafted - from Tom Hearron's creative nonfiction piece in our Spring issue, "Batman and Me" -

Read more here: westchesterreview.com/tom-hearron

Stay tuned, Summer launches in mid-June!

09/05/2023

Constructing an identity name by name in Laurie Ann Doyle's short story, "Think of This as Home."

Read this in and more in our Spring issue here: westchesterreview.com/laurie-ann-doyle

02/05/2023

A quick quote from a slow "Repose," short story by Ken O'Steen in this season's TWR:

https://www.westchesterreview.com/ken-osteen

26/04/2023

Last call for Prose submissions this round - short stories, creative nonfiction. Portal will close May 1.

Share here, and anywhere else you want, despite what that sign below says: https://www.westchesterreview.com/submit

21/04/2023

Highlight from Michael Loyd Gray's short story, "The John Wayne Effect"

Read here and explore more from our Spring issue: https://www.westchesterreview.com/michael-lloyd-gray

10/04/2023

Timely excerpt from Mary Liza Hartong's short story, "After Easter, Chocolate Lab" in this season's issue of the TWR.

Read more here: https://www.westchesterreview.com/

05/04/2023

A powerful quote from "The Man Who Was Lifted by a Cloud" by Marc Levy, with a vintage photo from the author.

See more from our Spring Issue here: https://www.westchesterreview.com/

30/03/2023

A taste of our 10-min play of the Spring issue, from Sarah Bracey White's "An Adventure in Greenswamp"

Read more here: https://www.westchesterreview.com/

*Our submission portal opens for plays on April 1: https://www.westchesterreview.com/submit

27/03/2023

In with the poetry!

Reminder that you have until April 1 to submit your poetry for consideration in The Westchester Review; then we move onto opening the portal to 10-minute plays.

Here's the link, and some seasonally inspired art from the 1920 poetry anthology "The Year's at the Spring."

https://www.westchesterreview.com/submit

15/03/2023

Live, Spring 2023 edition and new cover art from Westchester artist Jeff White.

Here's some "In This Issue" highlights from our editors:

Once again, we bring you a range of literary voices and characters, among them an errant young man revisiting his past, a lonely widower, and a root doctor in South Carolina. While we do not seek to publish themed issues, we also include here three remarkable pieces of prose about the Vietnam War and another about a former Ukrainian soldier finding peace in an American hospital. We were fascinated to see how each addresses war in a different way, but with one conclusion: War is hell.

Among our poems in this issue, we found unexpected perspectives that seem familiar, as with the actions of a cnidarian, the fear of a young girl at a public swimming pool, the interpretation of real estate as specific bird nests, and the orphaned raccoon that personifies heartbreak. The poets transport us to the Metro in Beijing, a brother’s Grand Prix in Indiana, and a commuter train in New York, as well as to the frozen lake of approaching dementia, the monkey business of hunter-gatherers, and the balding of Cate Blanchett’s Queen Elizabeth. There are references and projections to the protected past and uncertain future in poems that reflect on the self and consider alternate views of complicated histories.

https://www.westchesterreview.com/