Editor's Note

Each day it seems our country is shrinking further in its capacity to feel and express compassion for our neighbors. In the midst of narrowing political thought, we know that literature expands thinking, and it’s that threat of expansive thinking that has given way to book bans focused almost solely on writers who have been identified as “woke.” 

Given what’s going on in US politics, I’m especially happy, with the other editors of Good River Review, Lynnell Edwards, Ellyn Lichvar, and Katy Yocom, and the efforts of our student editors and alumni of Naslund-Mann, to publish this, the ninth issue of our magazine, which is full of diverse voices and landscapes in and also outside of America. This issue celebrates the paradox of literature: readers generally find meaning through the particular experiences of others.

With this ninth issue, we’re coming off a year of awards for Good River—we won a 2025 Pushcart Prize for Liz Femi’s poem “the world is a stool on my head but by all means take a seat,” published in our sixth issue. Audrey Rose’s poem  “Variations on the Electric Slide,” published in our seventh issue, was featured in 2024 Best New Poets anthology. So we’re plenty proud of the fine work we’ve published before, but, as a whole, this may be our best issue yet.

I hope you’ll find the work included as intriguing and rewarding as I do, from David Kirby’s poem "The Simplest Language Possible” to Itto Outini’s nonfiction piece “Who Watches the Witches. “

I’m happy too that we’re becoming a place known for publishing much-needed reviews of literature, which are mostly written by our Naslund-Mann current students or alumni—we may be swimming against the tide but as a writing community we greatly value the art of reviewing, so much so that we require our graduate students to write reviews as part of their coursework. We thank our colleague, Lynnell Edwards, who serves as Good River’s book review editor and spends countless hours helping our reviewers to polish their work for publication.

In this issue, readers will find compelling reviews of Rebe Huntman’s My Mother in Havana: A Memoir of Magic & Miracle by Becky Jeeves; Diane Seuss’s collection Modern Poetry by Melissa Shepherd; the anthology Troublesome Rising: A Thousand-Year Flood in Eastern Kentucky, edited by Melissa Helton, and reviewed by Angie Mimms; as well as a review from pine breaks on Roisin O’Donnell’s new novel Nesting. Each reviewed title is fascinating and represents some of the most exciting work being published today. Gratitude to each of our reviewers for their marvelous insights.

Enjoy!

Kathleen Driskell

Editor in Chief

Good River Review