In 2017, the novelist Adam Ross (Playworld, Mr. Peanut) succeeded George Core as editor of the Sewanee Review. Under Ross’s tenure, the magazine was redesigned and the Review began to publish online as well as in print. 2017 also marked the Sewanee Review’s 125th year of publication. The Review has since received honors from publications such as The Best American Short Stories, The Best American Essays, The Best American Poetry, The Best Short Stories: The O. Henry Prize Winners, and elsewhere.
The Review's junior editorial staff is comprised of students from the University's graduating classes. You can read some their stories below.
Founded in 1892 by the teacher and critic William Peterfield Trent, the Sewanee Review is America’s oldest continuously published literary quarterly. “Whatever the new literature turns out to be,” wrote editor Allen Tate in 1944, “it will be the privilege of the Sewanee Review to print its share of it, to comment on it, and to try to understand it.” The mission remains unchanged.
It’s a rare thing to feel so capable in your own taste, so aware of your own instinct in your early twenties—before you even have a line of credit, you’re preparing an Alexander Chee essay for publication—and I felt the staff at the Review trusted my opinion as if I’d been there for decades. I was encouraged to elaborate on my instinct—to read, to write, and to improve the Review in whatever way made sense to me. My experience there fortified my subsequent career with a wide literary network, and my résumé reflects the initiative and varied skillset I acquired working in the magazine’s closely-knit environment. I learned the necessity of open communication, collaboration, and how to both support and lead a team. And besides all that, I continue to read myself into a Gordian knot. It was an invaluable education and opportunity, and the beginning of a lifelong affinity for reading, editing, and, perhaps most importantly, engaging with contemporary culture through literature.
The manifold duties of any literary magazine are usually assigned to staffs of at least ten or twenty people. But the Review’s five-person operation means that I went from knowing a thing or two about copyediting and reading submissions to having a hand in every aspect of the magazine’s rich life: event planning, editing prose, transferring the magazine online, social media, graphic design, and countless other responsibilities. This makes for a deeply rewarding workplace that trains us to undertake any responsibility future jobs may hold.
My two years working as an assistant editor at the Sewanee Review were some of the most formative of my life. The transition from student to young professional is an uncertain journey, and my tenure at the Review provided me not only with an ample introduction into the workforce but also instilled a sense of confidence and pride in what I was able to accomplish at the quarterly. I have always remarked that working at the Review was tantamount to getting a second degree. I left the office every day feeling like I learned something new, whether that is how to be a better editor or a better person. I am honored to be a part of an extraordinary legacy: from the myriad celebrated American writers the quarterly published during my time there to the opportunity to collaborate with gifted colleagues and supervisors, many of whom I still consider today to be mentors and friends. Every issue of the Review has its own beating heart, and if you look between the lines and you will find four to five editors who have spent months collaborating, fact-checking, laughing, and growing alongside it.
During my three-year tenure, I not only read and edited the work of major writers but also wrote solicitations to all my favorite living poets. These were closer to love letters, they were so in-depth and appreciative and, to my delight, most of these writers subsequently contributed work to the magazine. After three years as an assistant editor, I wound up in the MFA program at Johns Hopkins University, where I’m still a postdoctoral fellow sans PhD, publishing more poems and reviews at age twenty-seven than I ever dared hope at twenty-one. This wouldn’t be the case without my time at the Sewanee Review. It’s not that I get to hold my own at the nation’s top-producing research university, which, admittedly, feels pretty good, nor that I’ve spent the last six years being paid to read and write about literature, though ditto. Rather, my time at the Review brought the seriousness of literature into my daily life, and that, as a poet said, has made all the difference.
During my two years at the Sewanee Review, I learned so much about literature, narrative, and economy of language. I was given remarkably rare and valuable opportunities, especially for a first job out of college. I advocated for unpublished writers whose work I loved, interviewed and copyedited the work of award-winning authors, and collaborated with wonderful coworkers and managers—kind people and first-rate editors. The writing and editing skills I honed at the Review have served me enormously as a law student at the University of Texas-Austin. My commute may no longer be as charmed as it was when I worked in Sewanee (a walk through the woods beats I-35 any day!), but I'm grateful to put the lessons I learned at the Review into daily use as I begin my legal career.
I’m grateful for my time at our remarkable, small-but-mighty literary magazine. This experience offers a wellspring of both professional and intellectual training that is ultimately informed by an ongoing enthusiasm for literature and the stewardship of contemporary American letters. In addition to the fine editorial training I’ve received, this position has allowed me to cut my teeth on social media development, event management, podcast production, outreach and subscriber engagement, graphic design, and, of course, the craft of writing. Most important, perhaps, is the fact that I read more broadly in both classic and contemporary literature than at any other time in my life. Working alongside a dedicated team of four other editorial staff members, I’ve learned what it means to make a magazine that is earnest, authentic, and engaged with the people who write first-rate literature and those who are inclined to read it.
As an undergraduate, I encountered literature and criticism and community and craft in ways I hadn’t previously, in an environment tailored for me to do so. Towards the end of my degree, however, I began to worry about fostering these interests outside of the classroom. My time at the Review thus far has not only nurtured the critical capabilities seeded by my education, but sharpened them immensely. I am constantly gaining experiences and taking on responsibilities that would likely come much later in an equivalent position at another publication: doing first-pass edits on pieces by acclaimed authors; directly soliciting and editing blog content from writers I admire; contributing my own voice to the blog; producing episodes of the podcast. The Review operates at the crossroads of collaboration and autonomy, making it an excellent place to grow.
I started as an editorial assistant in July 2021 and quickly grasped the extent of what the position had to offer—running a verified social media account, learning to edit by way of some of the best writers in America, this in a professional environment where reading on the job is not just allowed but encouraged. My fellow junior editors and I accomplished a great deal together, from pioneering a series of readings at Nashville’s Soho House to coordinating and launching a line of merchandise. I also recorded podcasts with Gwen E. Kirby and Joanna Pearson, interviewed Lisa Taddeo at an event hosted by the Free Library of Philadelphia, and reviewed Maggie Shipstead’s You Have a Friend in 10A for our blog. During my two years at the Review, I was encouraged by the staff to continue to hone my own writing, and to engage in literary conversation with other writers, trusting that I had developed the knowledge and skillset to do so.
At the Sewanee Review, in my first full-time job after graduation, I did plenty of day-to-day work that prepared me well for future roles—everything from designing social graphics to editing podcasts. But the most important skill I learned was how to hone and trust my own instincts. As an editorial assistant, you read through mountains of submissions looking for that one poem, story, or essay that stabs you like a needle. This isn’t always easy. When you’ve spent years in the classroom being taught why a given author is worthy of study, it’s daunting to discover that it’s now your call, to some extent, whether or not a piece is worth readers’ time. With the guidance of the Review’s excellent editors and the model of its illustrious list of contributors, you learn quickly that there’s exhilaration in finding a piece that makes you feel something, and a special sense of fulfillment when it makes others feel something, too.
Through my collegiate experiences at the Virginia Quarterly Review and the Mountain Goat Journal—as well as my studies in English and creative writing—I came to my job at the Review with a fantastic foundation. Thanks to the singular experience of working at the Sewanee Review, I have learned more than I thought possible about every aspect of life at a literary quarterly. From editing and fielding submissions to podcast hosting and writing book reviews, working at the Review requires your participation in every aspect of magazine production. Since my first day in the office, my editorial sensibilities and inputs have been greatly valued by the staff, and I have truly felt like an integral member of the team.
The Fall 2024 issue is out. Read new work from Mary Jo Salter, Jenny Xie, Reginald McKnight, Dani Shapiro, and more.
The online features—Mariah Rigg’s “The All of It” and Dani Shapiro’s “Save Nothing”—are available to read for free on our website.
Named for the uppermost rock formation in Sewanee's corner of the Cumberland Plateau, the Sewanee Conglomerate is the magazine's blog. Check here for short pieces about books and current events written by SR staff and guest contributors.
In this episode of the SR Podcast, Cindy Juyoung Ok contemplates how fractures in language—such as the phenomenon of “trans-segmentation,” in which the boundaries between certain words are misheard—can give voice to fractured personal, public, and familial histories. Her collection Ward Toward won the 2023 Yale Younger Poets Prize. She is also the translator of The Hell of That Star by Kim Hyesoon. Her poems “Before the DMZ” and “Faint” appear in the Review’s Winter 2024 issue.
Subscriptions to the Sewanee Review cost $35.00 a year and include the printed quarterly as well as online access to back issues.
