Mid-American Review
Encyclopedia
Mid-American Review is an international literary journal dedicated to publishing contemporary fiction, poetry, nonfiction, and translations. Founded in 1981, MAR is a publication of the Department of English and the College of Arts & Sciences at Bowling Green State University
. It is produced by faculty, students, and alumni of Bowling Green's creative writing program.
Mid-American Review has published such writers as Steve Almond
, Aimee Bender
, Sven Birkerts
, Billy Collins
, Carl Dennis
, Rita Dove
, Stephen Dunn
, Linda Gregg
, Yusef Komunyakaa
, Philip Levine
, Mary Oliver
, Richard Russo
, William Stafford, James Tate
, Melanie Rae Thon
, David Foster Wallace
, Dan Chaon
, and C.K. Williams. The journal is also dedicated to introducing non-English speaking voices to its audience through our translation chapbook series.
Work which originally appeared in Mid-American Review has been reprinted in The Best American Poetry
, The Best American Short Stories, The Best American Nonrequired Reading, Pushcart: Best of the Small Presses, The O. Henry Award
, New Stories from the South, Poetry Daily, and Harper's Magazine
.
, Charles Fort
, Jean Thompson, Tony Ardizzone
, Dara Wier
, Allen Wier
, and many other fine poets, fiction writers, and essayists.
In 1980, wanting to diversify the magazines contents, then-MFA students Scott Cairns
and Steve Heller
suggested to Early that they better use their resources to transform the magazine from an in-house publisher to a journal of international scope. Early accepted the challenge and created Mid-American Review, offering it, at the same time, as editorial experience for BG's MFA students. Writers were solicited for the inaugural volume, which features work by such writers such as Mark Doty
, Cathryn Hankla
, Jonathan Holden
, David Huddle
, T.R. Hummer, A. Poulin, Jr., Richard Russo
, and David Wagoner
, as well as many new voices. The success of this volume encouraged Robert to continue with the new project, and MAR has been publishing the work of talented contemporary writers ever since.
A special issue featuring new work by past contributors, including David Kirby
, Denise Duhamel
, Robert Olmstead
, Cate Marvin, Melanie Rae Thon
, and Bob Hicok
was released in 2004 to celebrate MARs 25th Anniversary. This double-sized edition was followed by the journal's "Unpublished Writers Issue", showcasing the work of writers never before finding themselves in print. Mid-American Review continues to publish issues biannually featuring both emerging and established writers, most recently with their 30th Anniversary Issue, released in the summer of 2010.
Bowling Green State University
Bowling Green State University, often referred to as Bowling Green or BGSU, is a public, coeducational research university located in Bowling Green, Ohio, United States. The institution was granted a charter in 1910 by the State of Ohio as part of the Lowry Bill, which also established Kent State...
. It is produced by faculty, students, and alumni of Bowling Green's creative writing program.
Mid-American Review has published such writers as Steve Almond
Steve Almond
Steve Almond is an American short story writer and essayist. He is the author of eight books.-Life:He was raised in Palo Alto, California, and graduated from Henry M. Gunn High School. He received his undergraduate degree from Wesleyan University. He spent seven years as a newspaper reporter,...
, Aimee Bender
Aimee Bender
Aimee Bender is an American novelist and short story writer, known for her surreal plots and characters.-Biography:Bender received her undergraduate degree from the University of California at San Diego, and a Master of Fine Arts from the distinguished creative writing MFA program at University of...
, Sven Birkerts
Sven Birkerts
Sven Birkerts is an American essayist and literary critic of Latvian ancestry. He is best known for his book The Gutenberg Elegies, which posits a decline in reading due to the overwhelming advances of the Internet and other technologies of the "electronic culture."Birkerts was born in Pontiac,...
, Billy Collins
Billy Collins
Billy Collins is an American poet, appointed as Poet Laureate of the United States from 2001 to 2003. He is a Distinguished Professor at Lehman College of the City University of New York and is the Senior Distinguished Fellow of the Winter Park Institute, Florida...
, Carl Dennis
Carl Dennis
Carl Dennis , an American poet and educator. His book Practical Gods won the 2002 Pulitzer Prize for poetry.-Life and work:...
, Rita Dove
Rita Dove
Rita Frances Dove is an American poet and author. From 1993-1995 she served as Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress, a position now popularly known as "U.S. Poet Laureate"...
, Stephen Dunn
Stephen Dunn
Stephen Dunn is an American poet. Dunn has written fifteen collections of poetry. He won the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry for his 2001 collection, Different Hours and has received an Academy Award in Literature from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. Dunn completed his B.A. in English at...
, Linda Gregg
Linda Gregg
Linda Alouise Gregg is an American poet.-Biography:Although born just miles northwest of New York City, Ms. Gregg grew up on the other side of the country, in Marin County, California. She received both her Bachelor of Arts, in 1967, and her Master of Arts, in 1972, from San Francisco State College...
, Yusef Komunyakaa
Yusef Komunyakaa
Yusef Komunyakaa is an American poet who currently teaches at New York University and is a member of the Fellowship of Southern Writers. Komunyakaa is a recipient of the 1994 Kingsley Tufts Poetry Award, for Neon Vernacular and the 1994 Pulitzer Prize for Poetry. He also received the Ruth Lilly...
, Philip Levine
Philip Levine (poet)
Philip Levine is a Pulitzer Prize-winning American poet best known for his poems about working-class Detroit. He taught for over thirty years at the English Department of California State University, Fresno and held teaching positions at other universities as well...
, Mary Oliver
Mary Oliver
Mary Oliver is an American poet who has won the National Book Award and the Pulitzer Prize. The New York Times described her as "far and away, this country's [America's] best-selling poet".-Early life:...
, Richard Russo
Richard Russo
Richard Russo is an American novelist, short story writer, screenwriter, and teacher.-Early life and education:Russo was born in Johnstown, New York, and raised in nearby Gloversville...
, William Stafford, James Tate
James Tate (writer)
James Tate is an American poet whose work has earned him the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award. He is a professor of English at the University of Massachusetts Amherst and a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters...
, Melanie Rae Thon
Melanie Rae Thon
Melanie Rae Thon is an American writer, "widely regarded as one of the most original stylists writing fiction today." Thon has received grants from the National Foundation for the Arts, the Ohio Arts Council, and the Mrs. Giles Whiting Foundation...
, David Foster Wallace
David Foster Wallace
David Foster Wallace was an American author of novels, essays, and short stories, and a professor at Pomona College in Claremont, California...
, Dan Chaon
Dan Chaon
Dan Chaon is an American writer.His first novel was You Remind Me of Me . His short-story collections Fitting Ends and Among the Missing were both well-received; the latter was a finalist for a National Book Award and was also named one of the year's ten best books by the American Library...
, and C.K. Williams. The journal is also dedicated to introducing non-English speaking voices to its audience through our translation chapbook series.
Work which originally appeared in Mid-American Review has been reprinted in The Best American Poetry
The Best American Poetry
The Best American Poetry series consists of annual poetry anthologies, each containing seventy-five poems.The series, begun by poet and editor David Lehman in 1988, has a different guest editor every year...
, The Best American Short Stories, The Best American Nonrequired Reading, Pushcart: Best of the Small Presses, The O. Henry Award
O. Henry Award
The O. Henry Award is the only yearly award given to short stories of exceptional merit. The award is named after the American master of the form, O. Henry....
, New Stories from the South, Poetry Daily, and Harper's Magazine
Harper's Magazine
Harper's Magazine is a monthly magazine of literature, politics, culture, finance, and the arts, with a generally left-wing perspective. It is the second-oldest continuously published monthly magazine in the U.S. . The current editor is Ellen Rosenbush, who replaced Roger Hodge in January 2010...
.
History
Mid-American Review was started in 1972 by Robert Early, a professor of creative writing at Bowling Green State University, as Itinerary, a publishing format for graduates of Bowling Green State University's Masters of Fine Arts program. Itinerary provided early publication credits for such distinguished BG alumni as Carolyn ForcheCarolyn Forché
Carolyn Forché is an American poet, editor, translator, and human rights advocate.-Life:Forché was born in Detroit, Michigan, on April 28, 1950, to Michael Joseph and Louise Nada Blackford Sidlosky. Forché earned a B.A...
, Charles Fort
Charles Fort (poet)
-Life:Fort graduated from Bowling Green State University with an MFA in 1977.He taught at the University of Nebraska at Kearney as The Distinguished Paul W. Reynolds and Clarice Kingston Reynolds Endowed Chair in Poetry , and Xavier University of Louisiana...
, Jean Thompson, Tony Ardizzone
Tony Ardizzone
Anthony V. Ardizzone is an American novelist, short story writer, and editor.-Biography:Ardizzone was raised on the North Side of Chicago. He graduated from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, in 1971 and from Bowling Green State University with an MFA in 1975...
, Dara Wier
Dara Wier
Dara Wier is an American poet and the author of eleven books of poetry, including most recently SELECTED POEMS from Wave Books. Awards include the Jerome J. Shestack Poetry Prize from the American Poetry Review, Pushcart Prize, San Francisco Poetry Center Prize. Her work is in Best American Poetry...
, Allen Wier
Allen Wier
Allen Wier , is an American writer and a professor at the University of Tennessee.Wier was born in 1946 in San Antonio, Texas and spent parts of his childhood in Louisiana and Mexico...
, and many other fine poets, fiction writers, and essayists.
In 1980, wanting to diversify the magazines contents, then-MFA students Scott Cairns
Scott Cairns
Scott Cairns is an American poet, memoirist and essayist.-Life:He was educated at Western Washington University with a BA, Hollins College with an MA, Bowling Green State University with an MFA, and the University of Utah with a PhD.He taught at Kansas State University, Westminster College,...
and Steve Heller
Steve Heller (fiction)
Steve Heller is the American award-winning author of The Automotive History of Lucky Kellerman.His novel The Automotive History of Lucky Kellerman was a selection of the Book-of-the-Month Club. His writings have earned a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship, two O. Henry Awards Steve Heller...
suggested to Early that they better use their resources to transform the magazine from an in-house publisher to a journal of international scope. Early accepted the challenge and created Mid-American Review, offering it, at the same time, as editorial experience for BG's MFA students. Writers were solicited for the inaugural volume, which features work by such writers such as Mark Doty
Mark Doty
Mark Doty is an American poet and memoirist.-Biography:He was born in Maryville, Tennessee, earned his Bachelor of Arts from Drake University in Des Moines, Iowa, and received his Master of Fine Arts in creative writing from Goddard College in Vermont.In 1989, his partner Wally Roberts tested...
, Cathryn Hankla
Cathryn Hankla
Cathryn Hankla is an American poet and novelist. She has taught at the University of Virginia, at Washington & Lee University, and is currently Professor of English at Hollins University, where she received both her Bachelor's and Master's degrees....
, Jonathan Holden
Jonathan Holden
Jonathan Holden, the first Poet Laureate of Kansas, is a Professor of English at Kansas State University, Manhattan, Kansas. Chosen in 2004, his two year term began July 1, 2005. He was succeeded by Denise Low on July 1, 2007.-Biography/education:...
, David Huddle
David Huddle
David Ross Huddle is an American writer and professor. His most recent book is Glory River: Poems...
, T.R. Hummer, A. Poulin, Jr., Richard Russo
Richard Russo
Richard Russo is an American novelist, short story writer, screenwriter, and teacher.-Early life and education:Russo was born in Johnstown, New York, and raised in nearby Gloversville...
, and David Wagoner
David Wagoner
David Russell Wagoner is an American poet who has written many poetry collections and ten novels. Two of his books have been nominated for National Book Awards....
, as well as many new voices. The success of this volume encouraged Robert to continue with the new project, and MAR has been publishing the work of talented contemporary writers ever since.
A special issue featuring new work by past contributors, including David Kirby
David Kirby (poet)
David Kirby is an American poet and the Robert O. Lawton Distinguished Professor of English at Florida State University . His most recent book is The Temple Gate Called Beautiful, published in 2008 by Alice James Books...
, Denise Duhamel
Denise Duhamel
-Background:Duhamel received her B.F.A. from Emerson College and her M.F.A. from Sarah Lawrence College. She is a New York Foundation for the Arts recipient and has been resident poet at Bucknell University...
, Robert Olmstead
Robert Olmstead
Robert Olmstead is an award-winning American novelist and educator.-Early life and education:Olmstead was born in 1954 in Westmoreland, New Hampshire. He grew up on a farm. After high school, he enrolled at Davidson College with a football scholarship, but left school after three semesters in...
, Cate Marvin, Melanie Rae Thon
Melanie Rae Thon
Melanie Rae Thon is an American writer, "widely regarded as one of the most original stylists writing fiction today." Thon has received grants from the National Foundation for the Arts, the Ohio Arts Council, and the Mrs. Giles Whiting Foundation...
, and Bob Hicok
Bob Hicok
-Life:Hicok is an associate professor of creative writing at Virginia Tech. He is from Michigan and before teaching owned and ran a successful automotive die design business...
was released in 2004 to celebrate MARs 25th Anniversary. This double-sized edition was followed by the journal's "Unpublished Writers Issue", showcasing the work of writers never before finding themselves in print. Mid-American Review continues to publish issues biannually featuring both emerging and established writers, most recently with their 30th Anniversary Issue, released in the summer of 2010.