The Blog

From the Archives: Ray A. Young Bear's "The Lone Swimmer of Henry County, Virginia"

Ray A. Young Bear

The Lone Swimmer of Henry County, Virginia

ESP? We're not discounting anything at this stage.
—Undersheriff Earl Tassel, The Roanoke Messenger

One placed, four honored in THE BEST AMERICAN SHORT STORIES 2016

TIR Staff

We're delighted to announce that five works of fiction from previous issues of The Iowa Review have been honored by The Best American Short Stories 2016, including Yuko Sakata's "On This Side," which was placed in the volume. Congrats to all!

Best American Short Story

Yuko Sakata's "On This Side," Volume 45, Issue 1

Winners of the third veterans' writing contest

TIR Staff

It’s with great pleasure that we announce the winners and runners-up of The Iowa Review's third Jeff Sharlet Memorial Award for Veterans writing contest. Phil Klay, a veteran of the U.S. Marine Corps and author of Redeployment, which won the 2014 National Book Award, judged this year’s contest. The winning and runner-up manuscripts will be published in our Spring 2017 issue. Congratulations to the winners and runners-up, and many thanks to all who entered the contest.

Interview: Jennifer Colville, Amy Margolis, and Margaret Reges

Kelli Ebensberger

The Iowa Review’s Annual Prairie Lights Reading
With Jennifer Colville, Amy Margolis, and Margaret Reges
Thursday, September 1 at 7:00 p.m. at Prairie Lights Books & Café
With reception to follow

Spring Poetry Omnibus

Davy Knittle

Ali Cobby Eckermann’s Ruby Moonlight

Ali Cobby Eckermann’s Ruby Moonlight (Flood Editions, 2015) is a verse narrative focused on Ruby, an Aboriginal teenager, whose family is killed by white settlers in a late-nineteenth-century attack. Most of the poems follow Ruby after the massacre, as she meets and falls in love with Jack, a white fur trapper, and as she negotiates the aftermath of her loss. It’s Ruby’s attunement to the South Australian landscape and its animals, weather, and light that most strongly populates the poems and drives them forward.