Blood Orange Review 4.3 is here!

We're pleased to announce the new issue of Blood Orange Review.

Featuring photography by Jim Lind, audio poetry, and an interview with award-winning poet Brian Turner.

This issue includes work by:

Jackie Bartley
Kimberly Burwick
Cecelia Hagen
Addie Hopes
Sister Hilda Kleiman
Caroline Klocksiem
Sara E. Lamers
Colette Tennant
Brian Turner
Sarah Zale

Editor’s Note -- The Big Picture

Blood Orange Review 4.3

I don’t remember which we accepted first for this new issue, Addie Hopes’ prose piece “Not a Love Story” or Sara E. Lamers’ poem “Proof:A Love Story.” But I do remember what it feltlike: grabbing two pieces from a just opened jigsaw puzzle and having them snap effortlesslytogether ... [continued]

Blood Orange Writer Receives Pushcart Mention

Congrats to Brandon R. Schrand, whose essay “On Failure” received an honorable mention in the 2010 Pushcart Prize anthology. Read his essay here.

Since 1976, the Pushcart Prize anthology has been published from an 8' x 8' backyard shack on Long Island, NJ. This honored literary project collects the best of the year’s writing from small presses and literary journals. We are pleased to have one of our writers, published from equally humble origins—a laptop on an editor’s kitchen table—recognized by this prestigious press.

Each year Blood Orange Review nominates writers from the previous year’s issue for anthologies and prizes, such as the Pushcart. It’s our way of continuing to support those who believe in us enough to send their best work our way.

Honoring Our Veterans

In honor of Veterans Day, Blood Orange Review is posting an excerpt of an interview with poet Brian Turner, author of Here, Bullet and US Army veteran who served in Iraq and Bosnia-Herzegovina. The newest issue of Blood Orange Review, coming out in mid-November, will feature the full interview with the award-winning poet.

* * *

HKH: At a panel you participated in at the 2009 AWP conference, I was moved by what you had to say about our responsibility towards returning veterans. Can you tell me more about what you see our citizens' responsibility is to our veterans?

BT: For the health of our large and complicated tribe, America, we must not bury the living among us. Ignoring the walking wounded who return from war, marked and altered by what we cannot see (as well as those whose physical wounds are evident)—this is not the answer. Ignoring them only helps the next generation gain an inheritance they would be healthier without. How do I say this? We, as a nation, are like a small pond. If the water is troubled for one, it is troubled for all—whether we are aware of it, or not. And if we are not aware of this dynamic, what does that say about us as well, as a nation, as a people? How great are a people who can wage a war and care little, if any, for those they wage it against? How great are a people who can wage a war and care little, if any, for those who wage it for us?

* * *

Check back in mid-November for the full interview: http://www.bloodorangereview.com.

See our listing on NewPages!

NewPages.com is one of our favorite online resources, so we're thrilled to have a listing on the site so that more readers and writers can find us. Take a look at our description and while you're there browse through other print and online journal listings as well.

Blood Orange Review
Blood Orange Review publishes fiction, poetry, and nonfiction in an online quarterly. Established in 2006, the review is committed to cultivating an audience for exciting literary voices and promoting its writers.
[Read more about Blood Orange Review]

Review of "Suitcase" from recent issue

Here's an excerpt from a review of Diane Simmons' "Suitcase," published in the most recent volume of Blood Orange Review. Click on the link below to go to the full review.

Her finely-realized fiction piece, "Suitcase," is an incisive look at the hazy dawn of a young girl's maturity and simultaneous capture of the slow fade of an earlier idealistic era.

Read Diane's work in its entirety here.

Blood Orange in the News!

Orange with envy
Writers and artists nationwide vie to have works published in the online-only literary journal Blood Orange Review
By Barbara Curtin • Statesman Journal
August 14, 2009


Poets and artists nationwide vie for a chance to appear in the Blood Orange Review, a literary journal published from Salem. The latest issue came out last weekend, but you won't find it in local bookstores. It's published online only at http://www.bloodorangereview.com/. Internet publication made it possible to create the journal on a shoestring budget four years ago, said co-editor Stephanie Lenox of Salem. The online-only format continues to be an asset during tough times. [Read the entire article]

Blood Orange Review 4.2 is here!

We're so excited to announce our new issue of Blood Orange Review!

Featuring artwork by Leonard A. Heid, audio poetry, and translations from Romanian poet Floarea Ţuţuianu.

This issue includes work by:

Tabitha Dial
Bonnie McClellan
Colin Pope
Diane Simmons
David Thacker
Donna D. Vitucci
Lafayette Wattles

Editor’s Note--The Familiar Blip
Blood Orange Review 4.2

Last week at the local Goodwill, I found an old AIWA stereo that plays compact discs and cassette tapes. It was equipped with a speaker and a red and black wire that one would have to manually attach the speaker to the outlet in the back of the stereo. The speaker box was large, the size of a small filing cabinet, but probably weighed less than three pounds. I inspected the tag where someone had scribbled ten dollars in a blue sharpie. I inquired from one of the workers if the stereo worked. She smiled strangely—insultingly—and said yes. I smiled back, thinking sold. [continued]

Nominations for Best New Poets 2009

Blood Orange Review is pleased to announce its nominations for Best New Poets 2009. For those of you who are unaware, Best New Poets is an anthology that selects 50 poems from literary magazines and writing programs each year. Jeb Livingood, series editor, approached our table at this year’s AWP conference, though this was not our first introduction to BNP. Our very own Stephanie Lenox published her poem, “Making Love to Leopard Man”, in the 2006 series.

Our Nominations:

Sarah Layden—“Something in the Way”

Jacqueline Powers—“Continuum Mechanics”

We appreciate publications that focus on emerging writers and hope you will keep an eye out for this year’s selection which BNP will announce sometime after June 1. By the way, every year features a guest editor and the GE this year is the fun, intriguing, and perhaps infamous poet Kim Addonizio.

Sweet Sixteen

We're pleased to announce the arrival of the 16th issue of Blood Orange Review!

It's nice, clean and ready for a new day!









Featuring artwork by:
Charles Borges Accardi

Writing by:

Bridget Bell
Jon Boisvert
Leah Browning
Scott Gould
Sean Patrick Hill
Jalina Mhyana
Adam Pellegrini
Richard Schiffman

And audio poems by:

Anne Haines
Sarah Layden

Happy ♥ Day!

The next issue of Blood Orange Review will be coming out at the end of the month. In the meantime, please enjoy this Valentine from poet Sean Patrick Hill, who will appear in the forthcoming issue. (Sign up here to be first in line to get an email when the new issue is available.)

Love Terns
to Erynn

There is no love like theirs.
They couple, I’m told,
for life.

They build no nest
but balance eggs in palms,
on fronds and bare branches.

When trade winds come
roaring off the ocean,
there is no greater exposure,

and terns have no choice,
either they know
or hope

the branch will hold.
I can’t pretend to know
on what such brooding turns.

Theirs is the deepest love.
They must prevail.
The wind will never end.



About the poet: Sean Patrick Hill is a freelance writer in Portland, Oregon. He earned his MA in Writing from Portland State University, where he won the Burnham Graduate Award. He received a grant from Regional Arts and Culture Council and residencies from Montana Artists Refuge, Fishtrap, and the Oregon State University Trillium Project. His poems appear or are forthcoming in Exquisite Corpse, elimae, diode, In Posse Review, Willow Springs, RealPoetik, New York Quarterly, Copper Nickel, Juked, Sawbuck, Redactions, and Quarter After Eight. He also is a blogger for Fringe Magazine. His blog site is theimaginedfield.blogspot.com.

About the poem: "Long story short: I wrote the poem after watching the same PBS special about the Seychelle Islands and the "Love Terns" there over the course of a few years. Spent seven hours or so writing the poem for my wife. A friend told me to enter it in this "Love Letter" contest held by the millionaire Henry Zimand in honor of his wife, Anda, who died fairly young of cancer. I was a finalist, and Henry flew Erynn and I to NYC on Valentine's Day, put us up in a Central Park Hotel, and gave us $500. This was during the nor'easter that dumped 27 inches of snow in one night. We met the actress Jane Seymour who stood next to me and read my poem on television (apparently, national). Then we got a carriage ride through Central Park. Not only that, but we realized we were the grand prize winners, and thus Henry flew my wife and I to Europe and put us up for 5 nights in Monte Carlo, on a hotel on the Mediterranean, plus $1000. We asked if he could fly us into London and out of Madrid, and hence we had our honeymoon. We still have quite a time considering our luck."

Table 728 in Chicago

Come visit the Blood Orange Review table at AWP in Chicago, February 11 - 14. All the editors will be there.

Stop by and say "hi" and pick up our snazzy new postcards to send to a friend. The new issue will be out by the end of the month, so keep your eyes peeled!