The Southern Review, a literary journal co-founded in 1935 by Robert Penn Warren

Robert Penn Warren

Robert Penn Warren was an American poet, novelist, and literary critic and was one of the founders of New Criticism. He was also a charter member of the Fellowship of Southern Writers. He founded the influential literary journal The Southern Review with Cleanth Brooks in 1935...

 and Cleanth Brooks

Cleanth Brooks

Cleanth Brooks was an influential American literary critic and professor. He is best known for his contributions to New Criticism in the mid-twentieth century and for revolutionizing the teaching of poetry in American higher education...

 and located on the campus of Louisiana State University

Louisiana State University

Louisiana State University and Agricultural and Mechanical College, most often referred to as Louisiana State University, or LSU, is a public coeducational university located in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. The University was founded in 1853 in what is now known as Pineville, Louisiana, under the name...

, publishes fiction, poetry, critical essays, interviews, book reviews, and excerpts from novels in progress by established and emerging writers. The Southern Review appears four times per year and includes reproductions of visual art. When making editorial decisions, The Southern Review continues to rely on Robert Penn Warren's articulation of the mission when he said The Southern Review gives "writers decent company between the covers, and [concentrates] editorial authority sufficiently for the journal to have its own distinctive character and quality."

History

The Southern Review was co-founded in 1935 by three-time Pulitzer Prize-winning writer Robert Penn Warren who served as U.S. Poet Laureate

Poet Laureate

A poet laureate is a poet officially appointed by a government and is often expected to compose poems for state occasions and other government events...

 and wrote the classic novel All the King's Men

All the King's Men

All the King's Men is a novel by Robert Penn Warren first published in 1946. Its title is drawn from the nursery rhyme Humpty Dumpty. In 1947 Warren won the Pulitzer Prize for All the King's Men....

, and renowned literary critic of the New Criticism

New Criticism

New Criticism was a movement in literary theory that dominated American literary criticism in the middle decades of the 20th century. It emphasized close reading, particularly of poetry, to discover how a work of literature functioned as a self-contained, self-referential aesthetic...

 school, Cleanth Brooks. In 1942, after 28 issues, the journal stopped publishing and started again in 1965. After a long series of highly regarded editors and coeditors, including Charles W. Pimpkin, Cleanth Brooks, Robert Penn Warren, Albert R. Erskine Jr., Lewis P. Simpson, Donald E. Stanford, James Olney, Fred Hobson, Dave Smith

Dave Smith

-In sports:*Dave Smith , Scottish football goalkeeper*Dave Smith , Scottish football fullback for clubs including Burnley, managed several clubs in the 1970s/1980s...

, and Bret Lott

Bret Lott

Bret Lott is an American author of novels and short stories. Lott was born in Los Angeles, California, and went to school in the Northeastern United States. He taught creative writing at the College of Charleston for eighteen years, where he was also writer-in-residence.He was editor of the...

. Jeanne Leiby

Jeanne M. Leiby

Jeanne Leiby was an American teacher, fiction writer and literary magazine editor. Leiby's short stories were published in several U.S. literary journals, including Fiction, Indiana Review, The Greensboro Review, and New Orleans Review. In 2000, she won the Poets and Writers Writer Exchange...

 served as editor from 2008 until her death in 2011.

The Southern Review authors include 3 Nobel prize

Nobel Prize

The Nobel Prizes are annual international awards bestowed by Scandinavian committees in recognition of cultural and scientific advances. The will of the Swedish chemist Alfred Nobel, the inventor of dynamite, established the prizes in 1895...

 winners, 29 Pulitzer prize

Pulitzer Prize

The Pulitzer Prize is a U.S. award for achievements in newspaper and online journalism, literature and musical composition. It was established by American publisher Joseph Pulitzer and is administered by Columbia University in New York City...

 winners, 17 National Book Award

National Book Award

The National Book Awards are a set of American literary awards. Started in 1950, the Awards are presented annually to American authors for literature published in the current year. In 1989 the National Book Foundation, a nonprofit organization which now oversees and manages the National Book...

 winners, and 14 National Book Critics Circle Award

National Book Critics Circle Award

The National Book Critics Circle Award is an annual award given by the National Book Critics Circle to promote the finest books and reviews published in English....

 winners. Work originally appearing in The Southern Review pages is regularly anthologized in the Best American series

Best American series

The Best American Series is an annually-published collection of books, published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, each of which features a different genre or theme. Each book selects from works published in North America during the previous year, selected by a guest editor who is an established writer...

, the Pushcart Prize

Pushcart Prize

The Pushcart Prize is an American literary prize by Pushcart Press that honors the best "poetry, short fiction, essays or literary whatnot" published in the small presses over the previous year. Magazine and small book press editors are invited to nominate up to 6 works they have featured....

 series, and the O. Henry Prize series. In 2006, The Southern Review was awarded first place for Best Journal Design in the CELJ International Awards Competition.

Notable authors who have been published in The Southern Review include 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,...

, W. H. Auden

W. H. Auden

Wystan Hugh Auden , who published as W. H. Auden, was an Anglo-American poet,The first definition of "Anglo-American" in the OED is: "Of, belonging to, or involving both England and America." See also the definition "English in origin or birth, American by settlement or citizenship" in See also...

, Julianna Baggott, James Baldwin

James Baldwin

James Baldwin was an American novelist, essayist and civil rights activist.James Baldwin may also refer to:-Writers:*James Baldwin , American educator, writer and administrator...

, Amiri Baraka

Amiri Baraka

Amiri Baraka , formerly known as LeRoi Jones, is an American writer of poetry, drama, fiction, essays, and music criticism...

, Rick Bass

Rick Bass

Rick Bass is an American writer and an environmental activist.-Life:Bass was born in Fort Worth, Texas, U.S., the son of a geologist, and he studied petroleum geology at Utah State University. He grew up in Houston, and started writing short stories on his lunch breaks while working as a petroleum...

, John Berryman

John Berryman

John Allyn Berryman was an American poet and scholar, born in McAlester, Oklahoma. He was a major figure in American poetry in the second half of the 20th century and was considered a key figure in the Confessional school of poetry...

,
Elizabeth Bishop

Elizabeth Bishop

Elizabeth Bishop was an American poet and short-story writer. She was the Poet Laureate of the United States from 1949 to 1950, a Pulitzer Prize winner in 1956 and a National Book Award Winner for Poetry in 1970. Elizabeth Bishop House is an artists' retreat in Great Village, Nova Scotia...

, Harold Bloom

Harold Bloom

Harold Bloom is an American writer and literary critic, and is Sterling Professor of Humanities at Yale University. He is known for his defense of 19th-century Romantic poets, his unique and controversial theories of poetic influence, and his prodigious literary output, particularly for a literary...

,
James Dickey

James Dickey

James Lafayette Dickey was an American poet and novelist. He was appointed the eighteenth Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress in 1966.-Early years:...

,
Stephen Dobyns

Stephen Dobyns

Stephen J. Dobyns is an American poet and novelist born in Orange, New Jersey, and residing in Westerly, RI.-Life:Was born on February 19, 1941 in Orange, New Jersey to Lester L., a minister, and Barbara Johnston...

,
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"...

,
Mona Van Duyn

Mona Van Duyn

Mona Jane Van Duyn was an American poet. She was appointed Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress in 1992.-Early years:Van Duyn was born in Waterloo, Iowa. She grew up in the small town of Eldora Mona Jane Van Duyn (9 May 1921 – 2 December 2004) was an American poet. She was...

,
Claudia Emerson

Claudia Emerson

Claudia Emerson is an American poet who won the 2006 Pulitzer Prize for Poetry for her collection Late Wife.-Background:...

,
Ford Madox Ford

Ford Madox Ford

Ford Madox Ford was an English novelist, poet, critic and editor whose journals, The English Review and The Transatlantic Review, were instrumental in the development of early 20th-century English literature...

,
Nadine Gordimer

Nadine Gordimer

Nadine Gordimer is a South African writer and political activist. She was awarded the 1991 Nobel Prize in Literature when she was recognised as a woman "who through her magnificent epic writing has – in the words of Alfred Nobel – been of very great benefit to humanity".Her writing has long dealt...

,
Thom Gunn

Thom Gunn

Thom Gunn, born Thomson William Gunn , was an Anglo-American poet who was praised both for his early verses in England, where he was associated with The Movement and his later poetry in America, even after moving toward a looser, free-verse style...

,
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...

,
Tony Hoagland

Tony Hoagland

Anthony Dey Hoagland is an American poet and writer. His poetry collection 2003, What Narcissism Means to Me, was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award. Other honors include two grants from the National Endowment for the Arts, a 2000 Guggenheim Fellowship in Poetry, and a...

,
T.R. Hummer

T.R. Hummer

Terry Randolph Hummer is an American poet, critic, essayist, editor, and professor. His most recent poetry collection is Infinity Sessions...

,
Erica Jong

Erica Jong

Erica Jong is an American author and teacher best known for her fiction and poetry.-Career:A 1963 graduate of Barnard College, and with an M.A...

,
David Kirby

David Kirby

David Kirby is a journalist based in Brooklyn, New York, and was formerly a regular contributor to the New York Times since 1998. He is author of the 2005 book Evidence of Harm - Mercury in Vaccines and the Autism Epidemic: A Medical Controversy....

,
Philip Levine

Philip Levine

Philip Levine may refer to:*Philip Levine , American populist poet & professor of English, 2011-2012 Poet Laureate of the United States*Philip Levine , Russian-born American immuno-hematologist, researched blood groups...

,
W. S. Merwin

W. S. Merwin

William Stanley Merwin is an American poet, credited with over 30 books of poetry, translation and prose. During the 1960s anti-war movement, Merwin's unique craft was thematically characterized by indirect, unpunctuated narration. In the 1980s and 1990s, Merwin's writing influence derived from...

,
Joyce Carol Oates

Joyce Carol Oates

Joyce Carol Oates is an American author. Oates published her first book in 1963 and has since published over fifty novels, as well as many volumes of short stories, poetry, and nonfiction...

,
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:...

,
Walker Percy

Walker Percy

Walker Percy was an American Southern author whose interests included philosophy and semiotics. Percy is best known for his philosophical novels set in and around New Orleans, Louisiana, the first of which, The Moviegoer, won the National Book Award for Fiction in 1962...

,
Robert Pinsky

Robert Pinsky

Robert Pinsky is an American poet, essayist, literary critic, and translator. From 1997 to 2000, he served as Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress. Pinsky is the author of nineteen books, most of which are collections of his own poetry...

,
Stanley Plumly

Stanley Plumly

Stanley Plumly is an American poet, who is professor of English and director of University of Maryland, College Park's creative writing program....

,
Katherine Anne Porter

Katherine Anne Porter

Katherine Anne Porter was a Pulitzer Prize-winning American journalist, essayist, short story writer, novelist, and political activist. Her 1962 novel Ship of Fools was the best-selling novel in America that year, but her short stories received much more critical acclaim...

,
Francine Prose

Francine Prose

Francine Prose is an American writer. Since March 2007 she has been the president of PEN American Center. She graduated from Radcliffe College in 1968 and received a Guggenheim fellowship in 1991....

,
Ron Rash

Ron Rash

Ron Rash , an American poet, short story writer and novelist, is the Parris Distinguished Professor in Appalachian Cultural Studies at Western Carolina University. Rash was born in Chester, South Carolina, in 1953, grew up in Boiling Springs, North Carolina, and is a graduate of Gardner-Webb...

,
Fatima Rashid,
Theodore Roethke

Theodore Roethke

Theodore Roethke was an American poet, who published several volumes of poetry characterized by its rhythm, rhyming, and natural imagery. He was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for poetry in 1954 for his book, The Waking.-Biography:...

,
Muriel Rukeyser

Muriel Rukeyser

Muriel Rukeyser was an American poet and political activist, best known for her poems about equality, feminism, social justice, and Judaism...

,
Philip Schultz

Philip Schultz

Philip Schultz is an American poet, and the founder/director of The Writers Studio, a private school for fiction and poetry writing based in New York City...

,
Ron Silliman

Ron Silliman

Ron Silliman is an American poet. He has written and edited over 30 books, and has had his poetry and criticism translated into 12 languages. He is often associated with language poetry. Between 1979 and 2004, Silliman wrote a single poem, The Alphabet...

,
George Singleton

George Singleton

George Singleton is a Southern author who has written several collections of short stories and two novels. He was born in Anaheim, California and raised in Greenwood, South Carolina. He graduated from Furman University in 1980 with a degree in Philosophy. He also holds an MFA degree from the...

,
Dave Smith

Dave Smith

-In sports:*Dave Smith , Scottish football goalkeeper*Dave Smith , Scottish football fullback for clubs including Burnley, managed several clubs in the 1970s/1980s...

,
William Stafford

William Stafford

William Edgar Stafford was an American poet and pacifist, and the father of poet and essayist Kim Stafford. He was appointed the twentieth Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress in 1970....

,
Wallace Stegner

Wallace Stegner

Wallace Earle Stegner was an American historian, novelist, short story writer, and environmentalist, often called "The Dean of Western Writers"...

,
Wallace Stevens

Wallace Stevens

Wallace Stevens was an American Modernist poet. He was born in Reading, Pennsylvania, educated at Harvard and then New York Law School, and spent most of his life working as a lawyer for the Hartford insurance company in Connecticut.His best-known poems include "Anecdote of the Jar",...

,
Mark Strand

Mark Strand

Mark Strand is an American poet, essayist, and translator. He was appointed Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress in 1990. Since 2005, he has been a professor of English at Columbia University.- Biography :...

,
Allen Tate

Allen Tate

John Orley Allen Tate was an American poet, essayist, social commentator, and Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress from 1943 to 1944.-Life:...

,
Helen Vendler

Helen Vendler

Helen Hennessy Vendler is a leading American critic of poetry.-Life and career:Vendler has written books on Emily Dickinson, W. B. Yeats, Wallace Stevens, John Keats, and Seamus Heaney. She has been a professor of English at Harvard University since 1984; between 1981 and 1984 she taught...

,
Robert Penn Warren,
Eudora Welty

Eudora Welty

Eudora Alice Welty was an American author of short stories and novels about the American South. Her novel The Optimist's Daughter won the Pulitzer Prize in 1973. Welty was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom, among numerous awards. She was the first living author to have her works published...

,
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...

,
Miller Williams

Miller Williams

Miller Williams is an American contemporary poet, as well as a translator and editor. He has authored over twenty-five books and won several awards for his poetry. His accomplishments have been chronicled in Arkansas Biography. He is perhaps best known for reading a poem at President Clinton's...

,
Charles Wright

Charles Wright

Charles Wright may refer to:*Charles Wright , American botanist*Charles Frederick Wright , U.S. Representative from Pennsylvania*Charles Wright , Nottinghamshire and England cricketer*C. S...

,
Jake Adam York

Jake Adam York

Jake Adam York is an American poet. He has published three books of poetry: Murder Ballads, which won the 2005 Elixir Prize in Poetry; A Murmuration of Starlings, which won the 2008 Colorado Book Award in Poetry; and Persons Unknown, an editor's selection in the Crab Orchard Series in...

,
Robert Clark Young

Robert Clark Young

Robert Clark Young is an American author of novels, essays, short stories and journalism. Recurring themes in Young's fiction include the relation between alcoholism, the abuse of power, and institutional dysfunction in American life, while his nonfiction has recently focused on eldercare topics...

.

Masthead

Jeanne M. Leiby served as editor and director until her death in 2011. Jessica Faust-Spitzfaden is the poetry editor, Cara Blue Adams

Cara Blue Adams

Cara Blue Adams is an American author. She won The Kenyon Review Short Fiction Prize in 2008 and was first-runner up for the Blue Mesa Review Fiction Prize in 2010. Her work has appeared in many journals, including The Kenyon Review, Narrative Magazine and . She earned her MFA degree from the...

is the fiction editor, Barbara Neely Bourgoyne is the designer and typesetter, and Leslie A. Green is the business manager. Susan Kirby-Smith is the manuscript reader. Ryan Gibbs is the editorial assistant.

External links

• The Southern Review Website