Spring/Summer Issue Has Arrived!

We here at The Journal would like to announce the spring/summer issue, volume 31.1 for those keeping score. We are very excited about this issue, as we are about all issues. They are like children to us, and we don’t play favorites. This is the second issue to sport our new full-bleed cover configuration, and featuring artwork by Felicia van Bork. Between these beautifully rendered covers, you’ll find many literary treats to savor, including the contest winners of the William Allen Creative Nonfiction Prize and the OSU Alumni Flash Writing Contest. And it just gets better with several pieces of short fiction, and a number of excellent poems. If you are lucky enough to subscribe to The Journal, it should be in your mailbox shortly, oh so shortly. If you don’t subscribe, why not? Give us a try. You can write us a nice letter, or you can subscribe on-line:

http://english.osu.edu/research/journals/thejournal

The Journal Reads Aloud

OSU Libraries Readaloud invites you to join us from 3-4pm this Thursday at the Wexner Center as the Ohioana Library hosts this week’s program featuring The Journal editors and staff reading from their all-time favorite prose and poetry ever published in The Journal. The Journal, and its co-editors, Kathy Fagan and Michelle Herman, recieved the Ohioana Library’s Editorial Excellence Award in 2004.

Founded by Bill Allen and edited for many years by David Citino, The Journal is celebrating its 33rd year of publication. Please join us at the Wexner Cafe to hear editors Doug Watson, Pablo Tanguay, Jen Town, Brock Kingsley, Kathy Fagan, and former associate editor Jason Gray as they share a variety of wonderful readings from
The Journal.

Special guest star Don Pollock, whose first published story appeared in The Journal and whose collection, Knockemstiff, is being published by Doubleday next spring, will be on hand, as will several other surprise readers. Refreshments are provided for our audience and all are welcome to attend.

Visiting Writer

On May 16th, John Edgar Wideman will be reading at the Wexner Center Film and Video Theater. Mr. Wideman is the author of twenty books, and most recently God’s Gym. He has won numerous awards and prizes including an O’Henry Award, and the Rhea Prize for short fiction. We are very excited to have Mr. Wideman here, and can’t wait to hear him read. We here at The Journal really like his writing. If you are in the area, and by area we mean same time zone, you should stop in. The Journal will be there, and if you see us you should say hello. The reading begins at 7:30. It is sure to draw a big crowd and will no doubt fill up quickly.

– xo The Journal

What to do on a Thursday night in Columbus

Come on out–this Thursday, May 10, that is–to Barley’s Brew Pub in the Short North to hear OSU MFA poets and prosers read from their work. It’s the last “Mother Tongue” reading of the schoolyear! The readers will include The Journal’s current and incoming associate fiction editors! There will be beer! The event starts at 8pm! I like exclamation marks!!!

Congrats, Steven Wingate!

Journal contributor Steven Wingate’s short story collection Wifeshopping has won the 2007 Bakeless Award from the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference (judged by Amy Hempel). Wifeshopping, which includes the Journal’s 2006 short story contest winner, “Me and Paul,” will be published by Houghton Mifflin in 2008. Well done, Steven!