And then suddenly
The story of how this relaunch of The Review Review took shape feels like a minor saga.
What began in early 2019 as a conversation with Founding Editor, Becky Tuch, continued as a negotiation with multiple entities here at Gonzaga University. When the decision was made to bring The Review Review to Gonzaga, it was conceived as a teaching resource for our students, and I naively imagined we'd begin sharing new content in Fall 2019. After a series of fits and bursts—including an unforeseen set of administrative duties for me at Gonzaga, a near-total shutdown and redirection of all institutional resources due to COVID-19, and the time it takes to develop any new online platform—we are finally ready.
Keeping up with our past
We have begun the process of building the archive of content published on The Review Review prior to March 2019, aka Volume 1. This week, we've added a host of new content to Volume 1, including several Views on Publishing features focused on social issues, interviews with editors committed to sharing marginalized voices, and a passel of reviews from the original site.
What’s new
We are happy now to share Volume 2, Issue 1, our first offering of new content since early 2019.
In it, you'll find reviews of three recent literary journals: a collaboration between The Ilanot Review and Granta Hebrew, the architecture/design journal Soiled, and a brand new journal called Deep Wild. In addition, Teresa McCarthy offers an interview with Deep Wild editor Rick Penka, Caroline Gray conducts a short chat with Soiled editor Joseph Altshuler, and Asha Douglas has a conversation with Celia Schouteden, editor of peculiars magazine.
Our View on Publishing is a resource based on The Review Review's coverage of social issues related to race, ethnicity, language, and gender. Social consciousness has been an important aspect of our past. Because black lives matter, because trans lives matter, and because human dignity and flourishing for all is an essential commitment of writers around the world, the pursuit of social transformation (in literary publishing and beyond) will be central to our future. We look forward to building on the foundation that Becky and her colleagues laid
A preview of what's ahead
We hope to publish new material about every two weeks. In addition to continuing our tradition of mixing litmag reviews with Views on Publishing features and Interviews, we'll be launching an occasional series on the histories of American literary magazines. In time, we'll be developing an all-new part of the website: peer-reviewed scholarship on literary magazines and the industry. I'm hopeful that this will be a valuable resource for scholars and non-scholars alike. Readers interested in submitting their scholarship or serving as peer reviewers are strongly encouraged to email thereviewreview@gonzaga.edu.
Whether you are here for our first foray into new content or looking for a fresh read of something we offered in the past, I hope you enjoy.
Jeff
Jeffrey G. Dodd, Editor-in-chief