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The Cincinnati Review
@cincinnatireview.bsky.social
Publishing great literature and art since 2003.
"So when we heard  / the hollow screech of hull / and saw the water /  flood in, we ran those mail sacks / to the upper decks— / all those tiny vessels..."

In this week's miCRo, Stephanie Choi memorializes the lost mail of the RMS Titanic.

Link in Thread.
November 26, 2025 at 12:15 PM
"Alice and her father’s second wife are going to the museum. When the second wife stoops to kiss Alice’s little brothers goodbye, Alice can see all the way up her skirt."

Read "Alice & the Second Wife" by Jennifer Galvão, now out in issue 22.2.
Alice & the Second Wife - The Cincinnati Review
Alice and her father’s second wife are going to the museum. When the second wife stoops to kiss Alice’s little brothers goodbye, Alice can see all the way
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November 25, 2025 at 3:15 PM
We're in the process of making some big (good!) changes in how we accept and read your submissions. Because of that, we won't be opening for journal submissions on December 1 as we usually do. Stay tuned here for a call for submissions some time in early 2026.
November 24, 2025 at 1:45 PM
"The sea cucumber is alone

and cries in the corner. The hermit crab

recoils after finger jabs."

Read "Intertidal Zone" by @alexchand.bksy.social in issue 22.2, out now!
Intertidal Zone - The Cincinnati Review
In the winter a woman brings the oceanin a crate, goes about separating the seacucumbers from the starfish from the hermitcrabs and anemones into
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November 23, 2025 at 7:45 PM
"At twenty-six, while I bore no obvious outward sign of Mormon roots, I still hoped to make decent, if not wise, decisions. And I still wanted to meet someone."

Read Marilyn Abildskov's "At the Carousel" in issue 22.2, out now!
At the Carousel - The Cincinnati Review
As a child I loved all things related to travel. Watching my mother study an open suitcase at home as she puzzled over how to fit an extra pair of walking
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November 22, 2025 at 11:28 PM
"Taco Works chips and guacamole:
the task is simple, then for some reason
it goes all, like, you know, existential . . ."

Read "from Sixty-Four Trips to Vons" by Gabriel Arquilevich in issue 22.2, out now!
from Sixty-Four Trips to Vons - The Cincinnati Review
IX The parking- lot birds hop between carslike little dogs with wings looking for treats, making less of a call than a twisting scream from their metal-
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November 22, 2025 at 3:01 PM
'You are told to not rummage through the office room’s items.
That the homeowners are “private people.”'

Read "[Disarticulated Prose Poem]" by @iancappelli.bsky.social in issue 22.2, out now!
[Disarticulated Prose Poem] - The Cincinnati Review
while quarantining, you wear the partitioned office room of asummer home, lent to you as charity so you would not infectyour grandmotherYou are told to
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November 21, 2025 at 9:45 PM
The uncanny. The strange. However you slice it, things are getting spooky in our 22.2 folio featuring writing on HORROR by @gingerko.bsky.social, CD Eskilon, @richardscottlarson.com.bsky.social, Jen Fawkes, and Raul Palma. Link in first comment.
November 21, 2025 at 12:45 PM
'Victoria didn’t understand what kind of couple would have a last name that was a noun and still name their son “Harry.”'

Read "Struts and Frets" by Katherine Damm in issue 22.2.
Struts and Frets - The Cincinnati Review
In a fit of New Year’s can-do-ism, Victoria promised herself she’d find love by the end of the weekend. She waited for her Friday date, sipping the
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November 20, 2025 at 5:45 PM
Today's miCRo is a retelling of a classic fairy tale.

Link in thread.
November 19, 2025 at 12:45 PM
Congratulations to contributor @writerbrucej.bsky.social on the publication of LOVE, DIRT -- the winner of the Iowa Short Fiction Award with University of Iowa Press! buff.ly/Sf9Md1u
Love, Dirt
From the intimate confines of a Nebraska farmhouse to the bustling streets of South America, the characters of Love, Dirt traverse uneasy spaces in search of human connection. A closeted teen on a…
uipress.uiowa.edu
November 12, 2025 at 7:47 PM
"I am myself/a crime."

This week's miCRo by Stella Wong makes possible an array of transformations.

Link in thread.
November 12, 2025 at 12:45 PM
V. Hansmann, "Innkeeper" at Prospect Street Writers House, tells us what it takes to run a residency for writers.

Link in thread.
November 10, 2025 at 4:10 PM
"My mother could swallow insults whole like a crocodile."

Georgi Bargamian's miCRo enchants with its incantatory, riddle-like charms, swirling from line to line. Link in thread.
November 5, 2025 at 12:15 PM
We're delighted to announce our 2025 nominees for Best of the Net. Congratulations to all, and good luck! @Talkinghyphae.bsky.social @cberwick.bsky.social
November 4, 2025 at 8:37 PM
You read that right! miCRo submissions are OPEN! Send us your best work of 500 words or fewer.
November 1, 2025 at 1:02 PM
"This liminal mood would spill into the house itself, no longer a constrained space, but porous and crackling with dangerous possibilities."

This week on site, Associate Editor Andy Sia explores eerie and liminal spaces in a Halloween feature.

Link in thread.
October 31, 2025 at 11:45 AM
"For a decade I carry the rotting mango, its pit humming with maggots. I cannot rid myself of it, I cannot glance away."

What happens when something goes from delicious to sickeningly sweet? Preeti Talwai's miCRo has all the answers! Link in thread.
October 29, 2025 at 11:30 AM
"We’re taught that disability is tragic, sad, and maybe inspiring. But comedy is the genre of survival."

Today on the site, contributor Anya Groner interviews @btrapperkeeper.bsky.social about his new novel, RANGE OF MOTION.
October 24, 2025 at 11:45 AM
"That damn soul is going to go someplace else. It’s going to shrug me off the way we shrug off our raincoats, overcoats, and Ulster coats."

This week's miCRo by Shikhandin pays mind to possession: what we own, what we do not own, and what we feel owed to.
October 22, 2025 at 11:45 AM
Congratulations to contributor Paula Bohince on today's publication of A VIOLENCE with @princetonupress.bsky.social !
A Violence
A reckoning with psychological and ecological crises from a poet whose work has been praised as “beautiful and riveting” (Los Angeles Review of Books)
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October 21, 2025 at 3:10 PM
Congratulations to former CR editor @btrapperkeeper.bsky.social . His much-anticipated debut novel, RANGE OF MOTION, publishes today with our friends at @acrebooks.bsky.social .
Range of Motion
A tender, wrenching, and comic novel that follows two twin boys from infancy to the cusp of adulthood. Twin A and Twin B. That’s what Michael and Sal’s neuroscientist father irreverently calls them.…
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October 15, 2025 at 7:37 PM
Congratulations to former CR editor AND contributor Christian Moody on today's release of LOST IN THE FOREST OF MECHANICAL BIRDS, the winner of the Dzanc Short Story Collection Prize!
Lost in the Forest of Mechanical Birds by Christian Moody — Dzanc Books
For fans of George Saunders and Haruki Murakami, Christian Moody delivers his debut speculative short story collection, Lost in the Forest of Mechanical Birds ––tales of the strange beauty and…
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October 14, 2025 at 4:03 PM
Playwrights (and CR contribs!) @bydanobrien.bsky.social and christopher oscar peña in conversation with director and producer @markarmstrong4.bsky.social about the two's recently published play trilogies and more. Link in first comment:
October 10, 2025 at 3:10 PM