Shenandoah: The Washington and Lee Review is a literary magazine published by Washington and Lee University.

Shenandoah
Disciplineliterary magazine
LanguageEnglish
Edited byBeth Staples
Publication details
History1950 to present
Publisher
FrequencyBiannual
Standard abbreviations
ISO 4Shenandoah
Indexing
ISSN0037-3583
Links

History

edit

Originally a student-run quarterly, Shenandoah has evolved into a biannual literary journal. Since 2018, the magazine has been edited by current English professor Beth Staples.[1] According to Shenandoah's mission statement, the magazine aims to showcase diverse voices because "reading through the perspective of another person, persona, or character is one of the ways we practice empathy, expand our understanding of the world, and experience new levels of awareness."[2]

Shenandoah was founded in 1949[3] by a group of Washington and Lee University faculty members, including English professor Samuel Ashley Brown, who published the fiction and poetry of undergraduates including Tom Wolfe. In the 1950s Thomas H. Carter became one of the founding student editors. During his tenure the Shenandoah corresponded with E. E. Cummings, William Carlos Williams, William Faulkner, Ezra Pound and many other Southern writers and the Shenandoah grew in stature and national prominence. From the 1960s to the 1980s, W&L faculty member James Boatwright expanded the journal and published occasional theme issues, including a 35th anniversary anthology. In 1995, R. T. Smith was selected as the first full-time editor of the journal. In 2018 after twenty-three years as editor, R. T. Smith retired, and Beth Staples took over as editor of the magazine. [1] Today, the magazine publishes biannually in the spring and fall.

Shenandoah is funded and supported by Washington and Lee University through the Office of the Dean of the College and is located in Mattingly House on W&L's campus. The magazine maintains a board of university advisors who offer guidance and advice, and the current editor maintains an intern program in which undergraduate students work for the journal and learn the craft of editing as an academic course in the English Department.

Recent contributors include Wendell Berry, Joyce Carol Oates, Jacob M. Appel, Speer Morgan, Lee Smith, Claudia Emerson, May-lee Chai, and Rita Dove. This list complements a long history of literary luminaries who have been published in Shenandoah such as W. H. Auden, James Merrill, J. R. R. Tolkien, T. S. Eliot, Ray Bradbury, and Flannery O'Connor.

Since moving away from print in 2011, the magazine can now be found online in its entirety.[4]

Fellowships and Contest

edit

In the past, Shenandoah has hosted several prestigious annual contests: the James Boatwright III Prize for Poetry, the Goodheart Prize for Fiction, the Thomas H. Carter Prize for the Essay, and the Shenandoah/Glasgow Prize for Emerging Writers. Presently, Shenandoah host the Graybeal-Gowan Prize for Virginia Writers. [5] In 2021, Shenandoah launched a fellowship for BIPOC editors. Through a competitive application process, the magazine selects one fellow for each issue to aid in the selection of fiction, non-fiction, poems, or comics.[6]

Recent honors, awards and reviews

edit

See also

edit

References

edit
  1. ^ a b Xu, Kristen. "Editing tradition: Shenandoah welcomes first female editor". The Ring-tum Phi. Washington and Lee University. Retrieved April 7, 2021.
  2. ^ "About". Shenandoah Literary.
  3. ^ "Top 50 Literary Magazine". EWR. Retrieved August 17, 2015.
  4. ^ Shenandoah literary
  5. ^ Graybeal-Gowan Prize 2009
  6. ^ "BIPOC Fellowship". Shenandoah.
  7. ^ Governor Virginia Archived 2008-12-30 at the Wayback Machine
  8. ^ Rock Bridge Weekly Archived 2011-07-15 at the Wayback Machine
  9. ^ Parag Desai (2018). "Shenandoah: Bodies, Bones, and The Space We Occupy". Archived from the original on March 30, 2019. Retrieved June 23, 2023.
edit