Bennington Review

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From the Editor

Bennington Review is a national biannual print journal of innovative, intelligent, and moving poetry, fiction, creative nonfiction, and film writing, housed at Bennington College.

We intend to reinforce the value of the bound print journal as an intimate, curated cultural space in which a reader can encounter and experience new work with a degree of immersion not wholly possible through other media. We hope to bring together writing that is as playful as it is probing, that simultaneously makes lasting intellectual and emotional connections with a reader. Bennington Review aims to contribute distinctive style and substance to the national literary conversation through publishing sharp, unexpected, original poetry and prose from a geographically broad and culturally rich spectrum of prominent, up-and-coming, and new voices.

The magazine was originally founded in 1966 by Laurence J. Hyman, the son of Stanley Edgar Hyman and Shirley Jackson. The first iteration of the magazine focused on publishing work by distinguished faculty and alumni — Bernard Malamud, Helen Frankenthaler, and Kenneth Burke, but gradually more and more work came from outside the college community, and the magazine increasingly received national attention. In 1978, Bennington Review was relaunched as a highly visible national journal. Under editors Robert Boyers and later Nicholas Delbanco, Bennington Review became a testing ground for contemporary arts and letters, publishing work by such established figures as John Updike, Joyce Carol Oates, Annie Dillard, and John Ashbery, and by emerging writers like David Remnick and Louis Menand.

Fifty years after its original founding and thirty years after its last issue, in 1985, Bennington Review is resuming publication, with poet Michael Dumanis as Editor. Our first issue will be out in March 2016, in time for the annual AWP Conference in Los Angeles.

Submissions

We aim to stake out a distinctive space for innovative, intelligent, and moving fiction, creative nonfiction, poetry, film writing, and cross-genre work. In the spirit of poet Dean Young’s dictum that poets should be “making birds, not birdcages,” we are particularly taken with writing that is simultaneously graceful and reckless. We welcome submissions from established and emerging writers alike. We ask that writers who submit to the journal possess a familiarity with contemporary literature in the genre of their work.

We ask that writers who submit to the journal possess a familiarity with contemporary literature in the genre of their work. For poetry, please send no fewer than three and no more than five poems per submission. For fiction and creative nonfiction, please send no more than thirty pages per submission; any excerpts from a longer project must work as self-contained essays or stories.

For film writing (and/or television writing), we are not looking for evaluative “reviews”; rather, please send essays that engage with cinema in a unique and/or personal way. We want writers who are aware of the greater cultural, aesthetic, and social significance of their subject, be it domestic, international, avant-garde, classic, or contemporary cinema. We will also consider pieces on television, video art, viral videos, Vines, or any of the other alternative forms that moving images might take. Our preferred length for film writing is 10 to 20 pages. Pitches are welcome and encouraged.

We are additionally interested in publishing translations: translators should have permission from the copyright holder and should include a copy of the original work with their submission, regardless of language.

We do not accept unsolicited reviews or interviews, though we are always happy to entertain queries about genres of work that fall outside the journal’s current scope.

We will consider all submitted work for the print journal and for possible publication on Bennington Review’s website. We acquire first North American serial rights for all accepted work.

Upcoming

We will be at AWP in Los Angeles in April 2016.

Information

Editors Name Michael Dumanis & Jeva Lange
Print publication? Yes
Circulation
Do you take online submissions? Yes
Submission Guidelines URL https://benningtonreview.submittable.com/submit
Approx. Response Time? 3 months
How often do you publish? Twice a year
Year Founded? 1966. Relaunched 2015.
Do you pay? Yes

Contact

Twitter https://twitter.com/BennReview
Mailing Address:
c/o Jeva Lange
One College Drive
Bennington, VT 05201
Email BenningtonReview@Bennington.edu
Facebook https://www.facebook.com/BenningtonReview

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