Blog | Fourth River | A journal of nature and place-based writing, published by Chatham University's MFA in Creative Writing Programs

Issue 7 Now Available!

Issue 7 of The Fourth River is now available for purchase! The cover design is by Krista Terpack, and contributors include Michael Byers, Lori Jakiela, Christine Butterworth-McDermott, and Charlotte Pence, among others. Visit our Order page to purchase your copy.

About the Fourth River

The Fourth River is the literary journal of Chatham University’s MFA Program, printed annually. We welcome submissions of creative writing that explore the relationship between humans and their environments, both natural and built, urban, rural or wild. We are looking for writing that is richly situated at the confluence of place, space and identity–or that reflects upon or makes use of landscape and place in new ways.

–Sheryl St. Germain, Chatham MFA Program Director and Executive Editor, The Fourth River
Contact Us

If you have questions about our submission process or would like to order a copy of our journal, you can contact us at 4thriver[at]gmail[dot]com.

The Fourth River at AWP 2012 Chicago

The Fourth River will be at AWP 2012 in Chicago! Come see us at table 021 in the Bookfair. We’ll be selling current and back issues of the journal, and would love to meet our readers and contributors. We hope to see you there!

Stewart O’Nan’s New Novel Released

Stewart O’Nan’s new novel, The Odds, will be released this week by Viking Adult. O’Nan’s thirteenth novel, The Odds centers around Art and Marion Fowler, who throw everything they have into a second honeymoon in Niagara Falls in an attempt to salvage their finances and their marriage.

O’Nan was the fall 2011 Melanie Brown Lecturer at Chatham University, and an interview with him will be featured in Issue 9 of The Fourth River.

Janisse Ray’s Book Available as ebook!

Janisse Ray’s critically acclaimed book, Ecology of a Cracker Childhood, is now available as a Kindle ebook! The book has been selected as a New York Times Notable Book of 2000 and a Bloomsbury Review Editors’ Favorite Book of 2000, and has won numerous literary awards.

Ray’s essays, “An Endangered Literature” and “Sugaring with Jerry,” appear in Issue 8 of The Fourth River.

Peggy Rambach’s Book Out In Paperback!

Peggy Rambach’s novel Fighting Gravity is now available in paperback! And, for the first time, Fighting Gravity is also available for the Kindle. The New York Times writes of the book, “…[Rambach's] prose is wiry, deft and piercingly descriptive; she gets well inside emotional events while keeping her detached regard unruffled.”

Rambach’s story “Getting Rid of Pigeons,” about a delightfully cranky superintendent, appears in Issue 8 of The Fourth River.

New Interview with Brad Kessler

Brad Kessler is interviewed by Sarah Leavens for The Fourth River. They discuss Goats, Genre, and Getting Closer to the Truth in our Selections.

New Poetry by Shaun T. Griffin

Daffodils One Sunday Before Snow

Already the bulbs croon

the silent damp,

the edge of spring

not days from here, land

of the thin green necks that sprout

before the last white morning—

because, of course, it will come.

Helpless in another silence,

my father-in-law stargazes

the iris of his eightieth spring,

asks for coffee to glaze

the reruns from the History Channel,

grunts at the goldfinch sock

he reminds is empty—

and having no earth,

angles his good leg to the door

where, in a fit of declaration,

lights a cigarette to defy spring,

to stand among the bulbs

however lithe his stem

this Lenten Sunday.

Shaun T. Griffin is the author of four books of poetry, most recently Woodsmoke, Wind, and the Peregrine, 2008. He recently completed editing a book of essays on the late poet and critic, Hayden Carruth: From Sorrow’s Well. He runs a non-profit organization in northern Nevada.

Judith Vollmer’s Poem Featured

Congratulations to Judith Vollmer, who is featured today at Poets.org, selected by the Academy of American Poets. Vollmer’s poems “The Bowl,” “On The Hudson,” and “Trees At Night” appear in Issue 8. Vollmer’s poem “For Aaron Sheon” can be found here at Poets.org.

Pushcart Nomination: Lisa Heiserman Perkins

Fiction editor Robert Yune has nominated Lisa Heiserman Perkins’ story “Buds, and Bells, and Stars Without a Name” for a Pushcart Prize.

Explaining his decision, Yune said, “Perkins’ story has a wildness to it that I don’t see very often. The description of the Mormon missionaries is eerie and completely changes the story’s weather. And despite its weirdness and theatricality, this story has teeth. “Buds, and Bells” was a favorite among the readers, and it’s an honor to nominate it for this prize.”

“Buds, and Bells, and Stars Without a Name” appears in Issue 8.

Issue 8 Now Available!

Issue 8 of The Fourth River is now available for purchase! Contributors include Evan Morgan Williams, Dilruba Ahmed, Rose Black, BK Loren, and Judith Vollmer, among others. Visit our Order page to purchase your copy.

Hillary Wentworth at “Art on Foot”

Hillary Wenthworth, whose fantastic and mythic essay “Blowing Rock” appeared in Issue 7, is being featured in Minnesota’s “Art on Foot” festival.