"I had witnessed the miracle: my inspired thought had been conveyed and then experienced by my audience. I had created a moment." Benjamin Frandsen's new creative nonfiction piece on the craft of his essay from 66.4: open.substack.com/pub/themassa...

"When it’s cold, find some warmth by the fire. Pour a beer right before you retire To your favorite chair. Here are some you can share As these frostier evenings transpire." FIRESIDE BEERS in review by Marsha Bryant: substack.com/@themassachu...

Our winter BOGO sale ends this Saturday! Specify which two issues you'd like in the "Back Issue" text box: general-umass.nbsstore.net/massachusett...

Watch Mae Ellen-Marie Wissert read her poem "one night outlaw" from our INCARCERATION & FAMILY issue: youtu.be/DYXfrO-BSC4?...

This isn't the first time that children were taken from their parents by Immigration Enforcement and sent to Dilley, TX; in fact, Katherine Silver wrote about her experiences visiting the detainment center there for MR back in 2018: massreview.org/2018/10/22/t...

"We need more archives of African lives, especially of places like the north of Ghana, and [Wunpini Fatimata] Mohammed’s book is the right start." Ayesha Harruna Attah's review of MEDIA, CULTURE, AND DECOLONIZATION: substack.com/@themassachu...

After a not-so-brief hiatus, we've re-opened submissions to our #WorkingTitles series, our digital e-book collection of works longer than can fit in our print journal. For a full set of guidelines, check out massreview.org/new-submissi...

"I think a sporadic or low-stakes writing life can still be productive and deeply serious." Michael Fischer shares his unpopular writing advice (and confesses his great schemes): open.substack.com/pub/themassa...

"This art-form encourages a kind of vulnerability which is needed now more than ever, for those of us who cannot stop worrying yet refuse to look away." Samar Abdrabbou on the Palestinian art of Tatreez: open.substack.com/pub/themassa...

J. D. Mathes from our Winter Special Issue reads his essay "Momma Tried": youtu.be/kuPKYvoDCBQ?...

"The court of public opinion matters, because the public has power. In other words, the end of romance is where our own political work begins." Jim Hicks' review of Colangelo-Bryan's THROUGH THE GATES OF HELL: open.substack.com/pub/themassa...

We're hiring a production designer! Read the full job posting and apply here: open.substack.com/pub/themassa...

An unfortunately prescient piece, we go back to Beth Cleary on an ICE kidnapping in Minnesota from the MR blog back in December: massreview.org/2025/12/12/a...

Thank you to everyone who made a donation in the waning days of 2025! We know things seems scary and uncertain, but we'll continue to bring you the voices from around the globe that give us all a little hope.

So excited to be in this issue, which is absolutely stacked with amazing work

"I found an angle that also allowed me to give voice to my love of cats, as well as a specific form that let me play with—and satirize—academic scholarship." @srkraaijeveld.bsky.social on cats, Dostoevsky, and teaching ethics for our #10Questions: massreview.org/2025/12/29/1...

We're having a winter BOGO sale on all Volume 65 and 66 issues!! Order one copy from the past two volumes and we'll send you another of your choice for free. Name the two issues you want in the "Back Issue" text box. Happy holidays from MR! general-umass.nbsstore.net/massachusett...

"I think the same part of me [that wanted to be an actor] today enjoys reading poems aloud—the performance aspect can be electric." Caroline Stevens from our Fall 2025 issue answers our #10Questions (almost)! massreview.org/2025/12/17/9...

Can't wait for your Winter Special Issue to arrive? Hear commentary from our guest editors and select pieces from contributors in our recorded launch event: youtu.be/lWYLBXC0nFw?...

Our Winter Special Issue, FAMILY & INCARCERATION, is out now!! Guest edited by Caits Meissner and Nicole Shawan Junior; featuring poems by Zeke Caligiuri and Janice Lobo Sapigao, prose by Patty Prewitt, Rickey Cummings, and Teddrick Batiste, and more! massreview.org/issue/volume...

Check out our previous contributors' winter publications and events: massreview.org/2025/12/11/w...

Huge congratulations to our 2025 Pushcart nominees: Leila Chatti, Jan Clausen, Susan Li, Meghana Mysore, Amanda Sarasien and Elton Uliana, and Natalie Scenters-Zapico!!! Amazing pieces by amazing writers. Read more about them: substack.com/@themassachu...

Our silent auction is live!! We're offering three different manuscript consultations with our editors, a five-day poetry retreat, and a seat in an online writing workshop of your choice. Happy bidding! www.32auctions.com/MassRev25

"The stories of the genocide in Gaza are unbearably difficult to tell, but I believe they are most truthfully carried in a poem, surrounded by an expanse of white space that mirrors both silence and grief." Ibrahim Fawzy from our Gaza issue, for #10Questions: massreview.org/2025/12/08/7...

"Even under the fragile calm of ceasefires, fear and uncertainty linger, as every family wonders if the truce will hold and whether they can ever truly return to what was once their home." Khaled al-Qershali's new piece, "Between Ceasefires": massreview.org/2025/12/05/b...

#MassReviews "More than any other [memorial]—and more than enough—is Garcia’s simple commitment to seeing, hearing, and recording the people and history of a place that nearly everyone else has written off." Jim Hicks reviews J. Malcolm Garcia's ALABAMA VILLAGE: massreview.org/2025/12/04/m...

"Tepoztlán was where I came to know Spanish as a way of living, a way of relating to the world, where I acquired membership in a Spanish-speaking community, rather than 'a language.'" Mark Schafer talks all about translating for our #10Questions: massreview.org/2025/12/03/1...

Happy #GivingTuesday2025!!! Your support makes our work at MR possible. Please consider donating today to help us continue achieving our literary, artistic, and local goals! massreview.networkforgood.com/projects/265...

We're officially one week out from #GivingTuesday2025! Please consider joining us in our mission of platforming writers whose perspectives are desperately needed in these times with a gift!

So excited to receive my contributor copies of the Fall 2025 issue of the Massachusetts Review (@themassreview.bsky.social)! It includes my story "Anna Kavan's Cats"—a love letter to British novelist Anna Kavan (and cats) and a parody of academic scholarship.

One of our fiction readers Corinne Demas has just published a new novel: DAUGHTERS. Join us at the launch party tomorrow, November 20th at 7pm, at Amherst Books (8 Main St, Amherst, MA) to celebrate!!

"I love the idea of America, as often described through my mother’s nostalgia-laden lens... Thus, all my life, I pined for that miraculous birthland of which I have no memory." Jennifer Jang on her inspiration from imagined places, for #10Questions: massreview.org/2025/11/19/1...

"Perhaps, by hemming her protagonist in so tightly, Volckmer invites the reader to experience, on some level, a taste of Vanilla Travels Ltd.’s exhausting monotony." Christopher Santantasio, on CALLS MAY BE RECORDED, for #MassReviews: massreview.org/2025/11/18/a...

We're pleased to announce we will be hosting a virtual #reading with the guest editors of our forthcoming special issue, Incarceration & Families, along with contributors and their families on Dec. 10th at 7:30 pm est! Register here: www.eventbrite.com/e/incarcerat...

"I’m hoping and trusting that, as I turn toward that prose, poems will sneak in. They are always invited." Elizabeth Bradfield for our #10Questions, out now: massreview.org/2025/11/17/1...

Join us for an evening of Palestinian music and storytelling with award-winning novelist, Sahar Mustafah, 📚and a performance by Layaali Arabic Music Ensemble 🎶. Refreshments and light snacks will be served. Free and open to the public! Date: Friday, Dec 5, 7:00pm Location: UMass, Amherst

"I don’t remember wanting to 'be.' I wanted to know." Jan Clausen for our #10Questions. Read the full interview here: massreview.org/2025/11/12/1...

Wishing a restful #VeteransDay to those who served, and those who continue to "revere the end of the greatest carnage powerful elites had ever visited upon ordinary human beings."

"I am a big believer in maintaining corners of hope and joy in difficult times. Otherwise, what’s the point of living in this beautiful and chaotic world?" Meg Favreau for our #10Questions: massreview.org/2025/11/10/1...

"That people should honor and revere the end of the greatest carnage powerful elites had ever visited upon ordinary human beings was a great idea. It still is." Ex-Marine W. D. Ehrhart writes on Armistice (and Veterans) Day: massreview.org/2025/11/07/a...

"When I was young, I didn’t know that one could “be” a writer in the sense of a career. I wrote and read because I needed to, and because it kept me alive in very difficult circumstances." Translator Margaree Little for our #10Questions : massreview.org/2025/11/05/1...

#WesternMass friends! The Massachusetts Review published Sarah Ihmoud and Devin Atallah's searing A World Without Palestinians in February 2024. Sarah Ihmoud is giving a talk at Smith College on Tuesday November 11th titled "Hunger and the Palestinian Womb"

#WesternMass friends! Come hear MR contributors Christian G. Appy, Amy Dryansky, Uzma Aslam Khan, and @htreseler.bsky.social at @MassBook's 25 year anniversary celebration. RSVP here: www.eventbrite.com/e/a-night-of...

"My kids periodically ask me if I became what I wanted to be, which always makes me laugh so hard I cry and can’t breathe." Brian Russell talks Route 66, acrostic poems, and time management as a father for our #10Questions: massreview.org/2025/10/29/1...

"This section defines REASONS AND FEELINGS itself quite brilliantly: it’s a book working to avail itself of a different style of the “guide to writing” genre to attempt to know the world differently." Jon Hoel on Sarah Mesle, for #MassReviews: massreview.org/2025/10/28/w...

Check out MemoryWorks' Writing into Silence Workshop! This five-week remote workshop is for writers, story-tellers, and truth-tellers trying to trace elusive family histories within and across the Pacific. Registration closes November 1: www.qmzhang.com/writing-into...

Author Gabriela Cabezón Cámara and translator Robin Myers discuss WE ARE GREEN AND TREMBLING @ndbooks.bsky.social , shortlisted for the 2025 National Book Award for Translated Literature. Read here:

"Our family was torn apart not only in life but even in death. Some graves are in the north, others in the south. And we do not know if the graves in the north still exist, or if they were bulldozed by the occupation." Sarah Mahmoud, from northern Gaza: massreview.org/2025/10/24/s...

"All the poets in SIGN & BREATH create entanglements in which voices can be made more fully heard, visible, animated, complicated, and thus more grieveable... the very thing that makes us addressable." Melissa Parrish, reviewing SIGN & BREATH: massreview.org/2025/10/23/p... #MassReviews

Shocked and humbled for this essay to be listed as notable in the 2025 Best American Essays. Thank you, again, @themassreview.bsky.social for publishing this piece, and for your editors on the back-and-forth to make this essay the best possible version of itself.