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The Massachusetts Review

@themassreview.bsky.social

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A 200-page quarterly of fiction, poetry, essays, and visual art by emerging and established authors since 1959. Whiting Literary Magazine Prize winner. Read more at massreview.org!

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The Massachusetts Review @themassreview.bsky.social · 26d

With work from Leila Chatti and Myronn Hardy and Yutong Li, plus translations including poems by Heeum (transl. by Jack Saebyok Jung) and art by Alex Callender, this collection pairs well with PSL's and apple-picking and political resistance: massreview.org/issue/volume...

Volume 66, Issue 3 - The Massachusetts Review

IN 1964, A SHORT STORY titled “Mississippi Ham Rider” appeared in the summer issue of the Massachusetts Review. Authored by a young writer named Toni Cade, the story follows Inez Williams, a copywrite...

The Massachusetts Review @themassreview.bsky.social · 4d

"I think that imagined place is the place of dreaming, the way that we write toward our precise and (im)possible utopias, another way of saying, toward a place that can hold all of us."

janan alexandra for our #10Questions: massreview.org/2025/10/08/1...

10 Questions for janan alexandra - The Massachusetts Review

On Saturday two men came to slaughter the palm, whose exuberant pinnate leaves I had made a habit of watching each morning from my post inside the bedroom, head cocked on the pillow. My Observation of...

The Massachusetts Review @themassreview.bsky.social · 5d

Looking for a new #read? Check out works from past contributors like Marissa Davis, Andrea Bajani, Austyn Wohlers, Brooke Sahni, and more, that have come out in the last few months: massreview.org/2025/10/07/l...

Late Summer and Fall 2025 MR Contributor Publications - The Massachusetts Review

Marissa Davis‘ poetry collection End of Empire arrived back in July 2025 from Penguin. Both her translation work and her own poetry have appeared in MR’s pages, in MR 62.2 and 65.3, respectively. Cynt...

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KalpitaPathak @kalpitapathak.bsky.social · 7d

Thanks again, @themassreview.bsky.social, for publishing "For the Trees", feat. an autistic main character. The debate about autism causes & prevention/cures threatens our existence. But we deserve to be loved & accepted as we are. We're human beings, unbroken. 10 Qs:
massreview.org/2025/09/24/1...

10 Questions for Kalpita Pathak - The Massachusetts Review

Detective Varela calls it an interview room, but it looks an awful lot like the interrogation rooms in Law and Order. Over-airconditioned, scuffed floors, grubby walls, one-way mirror, rickety chair t...

The Massachusetts Review @themassreview.bsky.social · 9d

"The curation of Afrikan feminism by organs of imperial states endangers freedoms across the continent that generations have fought for."

Lebohang Liepollo Pheko on the positionality of Afrikan feminism and anti-colonialism in Gaza: massreview.org/2025/10/03/a...

Afrikan Feminism is Not Neutral - The Massachusetts Review

This piece first appeared on African Feminism. As people living at the intersection of multiple oppressions, legacies of slavery and colonialism, and neocolonial capture of our nations, we must remain...

The Massachusetts Review @themassreview.bsky.social · 10d

"Work is a common theme in my writing, not just FALLOUT. I’m interested in how our jobs shape us, trap us, save us—and the weirder the job, the better."

Meg Toth, author of FALLOUT (MR 66.2), writes on jobs, ghost stories, and Cleveland for #10Questions: massreview.org/2025/10/01/1...

10 Questions for Meg Toth - The Massachusetts Review

Sometimes I think of my life as a big container with others stacked inside it, like one of those wooden Russian dolls they sell at Christmas. Chris—the smallest—insideNiagara Falls, insideMateo, insid...

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Meg Favreau @megfavreau.bsky.social · 11d

Am I good at remembering to post on here? NO. Do I have a story I very much want you to read in the new issue of The Massachusetts Review? YES. Is that story called "Tony Robbins Is Dead"? HELL YES.

The Massachusetts Review @themassreview.bsky.social · 26d

With work from Leila Chatti and Myronn Hardy and Yutong Li, plus translations including poems by Heeum (transl. by Jack Saebyok Jung) and art by Alex Callender, this collection pairs well with PSL's and apple-picking and political resistance: massreview.org/issue/volume...

Volume 66, Issue 3 - The Massachusetts Review

IN 1964, A SHORT STORY titled “Mississippi Ham Rider” appeared in the summer issue of the Massachusetts Review. Authored by a young writer named Toni Cade, the story follows Inez Williams, a copywrite...

The Massachusetts Review @themassreview.bsky.social · 11d

Happy October to all--but especially to those who have been waiting so patiently to submit work to MR... Our submission period is now OPEN! Read our guidelines and submit your own work today: massreview.org/new-submissi...

Submissions - The Massachusetts Review Submission Guidelines Submissions

The Massachusetts Review 2025 – 2026 Submissions Period is now open. If you have submitted to us online, please check that your spam filters do not block our email. You can add [email protected]...

The Massachusetts Review @themassreview.bsky.social · 12d

October officially starts tomorrow, which means we open up our submission manager! Get ready to share your prose, poetry, hybrid, and more: massreview.org/new-submissi...

Submissions - The Massachusetts Review Submission Guidelines Submissions

The Massachusetts Review 2024 – 2025 Submissions Period is now closed. If you have submitted to us online, please check that your spam filters do not block our email. You can add [email protected]...

The Massachusetts Review @themassreview.bsky.social · 17d

"I knew I’d be writing about anomie and the bewilderment many of us experience after college when we need to find a way forward into adulthood and its enchantments and (more numerous) disenchantments."

Christine Sneed gives us another great interview for #10Questions:
massreview.org/2025/09/25/a...

(Another) 10 Questions for Christine Sneed - The Massachusetts Review

. . . THE PHOTOCOPIER.If called on to produce more than a dozen double-sided copies, it began to overheat, and on its worst days, Jeanie’s efforts ended in the abduction of one pristine sheet after an...

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Jessica Cuello @jessicacuello.bsky.social · 18d

I answered 10 questions for @themassreview.bsky.social

10 Questions for Jessica Cuello - The Massachusetts Review

I could not bless. I could not bleed.My body was hers from first tolast. To not say bruise or burntand when the neighbor lay medown and unbuttoned me one by one, I did not pray. I did not ask or say.—...

The Massachusetts Review @themassreview.bsky.social · 17d

"Multi-disciplinarity is certainly a mainstay of the book: filmmakers and songwriters have wisdom to lend to a life of writing[...]"

Jon Hoel looks at Brian Morton's use of artists and baseball in his WRITING AS A WAY OF LIFE for #MassReviews: massreview.org/2025/09/25/r...

Rally Your Habits: A Review of Brian Morton’s Writing as a Way of Life - The Massachusetts Review

Brian Morton, known best for his novels Florence Gordon, Breakable You, and Starting Out in the Evening (the latter of which was shortlisted for the PEN/Faulkner award), has turned his skill to a book...

The Massachusetts Review @themassreview.bsky.social · 18d

"Media still gets so much wrong about autistic people. It dehumanizes us, turns us into devices—brilliant, eccentric, magical, supernatural, inspirational, burdensome—to further others’ stories."

Kalpita Pathak for our #10Questions: massreview.org/2025/09/24/1...

10 Questions for Kalpita Pathak - The Massachusetts Review

Detective Varela calls it an interview room, but it looks an awful lot like the interrogation rooms in Law and Order. Over-airconditioned, scuffed floors, grubby walls, one-way mirror, rickety chair t...

The Massachusetts Review @themassreview.bsky.social · 19d

"I started hiding a leather journal full of poems in a loquat tree in our backyard, but I think Peggy Sue was the only poem to make it out of my journals until college."

Caroline Harper New on polka-dot hippos and magic chairs for our #10Questions: massreview.org/2025/09/23/1...

10 Questions Caroline Harper New - The Massachusetts Review

I used to have a house full of sisters and a dress that smelled like oranges. I used to have a braid—from Caroline Harper New’s “Loom,” Volume 66, Issue 2 (Summer 2025) Tell us about one of the first ...

The Massachusetts Review @themassreview.bsky.social · 20d

"I’m drawn to fleeting encounters that stay with characters—small, weird interactions that hang around in memory."

Fiction writer Ariel Katz shares what inspired her--and where she's been inspired-- to write "Organizing Principle" for our #10Questions: massreview.org/2025/09/22/1...

10 Questions for Ariel Katz - The Massachusetts Review

For several years in her twenties, Ruth lived with a man who did not believe in happiness. When she thought of Edwin later, she remembered him in motion: pacing the uneven floors of their studio apart...

The Massachusetts Review @themassreview.bsky.social · 20d

Check out the latest from @thebeliever.net featuring an essay by MR's #translation editor Mona Kareem: www.thebeliever.net/the-labyrinth/

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Mary Peelen @ohmary.bsky.social · 22d

I have a new poem in The Massachusetts Review !! a piece called "Emergency" about a very creepy evening at an eye hospital in Paris.

Many thanks to the very excellent @themassreview.bsky.social

The Massachusetts Review @themassreview.bsky.social · 23d

"We ran back with hundreds of others, trying to find cover and escape the shooting, but so many more people remained there in the hope that the site would open."

A dispatch from #Gaza with Khaled Al-Qershali on the famine and the so-called 'humanitarian' efforts: massreview.org/2025/09/19/i...

“In Gaza, we are born to die”: a day in the life of an aid seeker - The Massachusetts Review

July 26th was a day like many others in Gaza. I woke up at 8:00 a.m. to fetch four gallons of potable water from the truck that would come every day to the school where my family and I had been displa...

The Massachusetts Review @themassreview.bsky.social · 24d

"Verses and images that travel in and reappear through
time and space are instructive signs for how the novel approaches language." Kanyin Ajayi looks at the language and story of Issa Quincy's ABSENCE for #MassReviews: massreview.org/2025/09/18/a...

Cover of Issa Quincy's Absence, featuring black text on an orange background with various photographs of still life

The Massachusetts Review @themassreview.bsky.social · 26d

With work from Leila Chatti and Myronn Hardy and Yutong Li, plus translations including poems by Heeum (transl. by Jack Saebyok Jung) and art by Alex Callender, this collection pairs well with PSL's and apple-picking and political resistance: massreview.org/issue/volume...

Volume 66, Issue 3 - The Massachusetts Review

IN 1964, A SHORT STORY titled “Mississippi Ham Rider” appeared in the summer issue of the Massachusetts Review. Authored by a young writer named Toni Cade, the story follows Inez Williams, a copywrite...

The Massachusetts Review @themassreview.bsky.social · Sep 11

#WesternMass Friends! Come hear a talk with
professor and scholar Jina B. Kim, in conversation with executive editor Britt Rusert, next Thursday:

The Massachusetts Review @themassreview.bsky.social · Sep 9

"Each of these poems follows one of Tate’s familiar formulae: either something extraordinary or supernatural disturbs the realm of the ordinary or vice versa. . ."

Noah Hale looks at the new #JamesTate collection from Press Brake for #MassReviews: massreview.org/2025/09/09/t...

Ten Poems Ten Years Later - The Massachusetts Review

A Review of Eighteenth in Line to the Throne by James Tate (Press Brake 2025) Ten years have passed since the death of the poet James Tate, but in that time something remarkable has happened: already ...

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Split Lip Magazine @splitlipthemag.bsky.social · Sep 5

"There is a measure of comfort in the nearness of others and there are ways in which a person can never be near enough."

Contributor @abbiekiefer.bsky.social reviewed CIVIL TWILIGHT by Cynthia Huntington for @themassreview.bsky.social! Give it read right here: buff.ly/6Go8W1a

Civil Twilight, poems by Cynthia Huntington.

The Massachusetts Review @themassreview.bsky.social · Aug 29

"We have so few moments when we can take a breath away from the war in Gaza."

Sara Awad mourns Gaza and its spaces of solace in AL-BAQA CAFÉ: massreview.org/2025/08/29/a...

Selfie of the author wearing a blue hijab.

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Abbie Kiefer @abbiekiefer.bsky.social · Aug 26

I loved this challenging, layered book. You might too. Thanks to @themassreview.bsky.social for publishing my review of CIVIL TWILIGHT by Cynthia Huntington from Southern Illinois University Press. massreview.org/2025/08/26/a...

Among the Pressing Wild: Cynthia Huntington’s Civil Twilight - The Massachusetts Review

By naming her collection Civil Twilight, Cynthia Huntington situates us in a narrow interval—the few minutes when the sun hovers zero to six degrees below the horizon. Any higher and it’s daytime. One...

The Massachusetts Review @themassreview.bsky.social · Aug 25

“...but now, in my work, I have a place to explore how I exist in and respond to these spaces in the current moment, in reinvented pasts, and in imagined futures.”

Jake Phillips writes for our #10Questions, now on our website: massreview.org/2025/08/25/1...

10 Questions for Jake Phillips - The Massachusetts Review

I. Evolution I dream of having wings. I fly in circlesabove the woods, out back beyondthe gate. My father raises a rifle at me,pulls the trigger. Shoots. Over & overhe misses, no matter how many times...