Blood Orange Review 6.1 is here!

We’re pleased to announce the new issue of Blood Orange Review, featuring poetry by Siobhan Casey, Brittany Perham, Roger Bernard Smith, Jeffrey Taylor with a recorded poem by Jacqueline Lyons. Also in this issue, read fiction by Kelley E. Shinn and Scott R. Tucker. The photography of Sheila Smart creates the visual centerpiece for this new issue.

From the Editor's Notes by Bryan Fry:

Here we are readers, at our unusual meeting ground, the editor’s notes, which means we editors have completed yet another issue of our journal and have officially entered our sixth year of publication. Welcome!

I would like to celebrate by congratulating our interns who have dedicated a part of their busy lives over the last year to help us sift through hundreds of submissions. We could not be more happy with their professionalism and their enthusiasm for our journal. [Continue]

Blood Orange Review 5.3 is here!

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

Featuring poetry by Candace Black, John McKernan, James Tyner with audio poetry by Amy Ash and Mandy Malloy. Also in this issue, read fiction by Lindsay Merbaum, Paige Riehl, and Gregory J. Wolos and nonfiction by Emily Adler and Tom Molanphy. The photography of Marius G. Sipa creates the visual centerpiece for this new issue.

From the Editor’s Notes
H.K. Hummel

The sky looks like it portends snow, and the maples are bare of all the brilliant fall colors they had just weeks ago. This morning, a woodpecker was busily drilling the tree in our yard, and like the woodpecker, I feel the urgent need to tidy up the winter supplies.

As I’ve been reviewing the proofs for this issue and doing the last bits of tidying work before we publish, I’ve been moved by the stories found in these pages, and the authentic glimpses of humanity that they reveal. When such pieces as each of these come across our editorial desks, we set down our coffee, rub our bleary eyes, and happily nod in turns. [read more]

See below for our nominations for the Pushcart Prize!

Blood Orange Review 5.2 is here!

The 21st online issue of Blood Orange Review has arrived!
The Summer 2010 issue of Blood Orange Review (5.2) includes fresh writing by Mark Beaver, Shimmy Boyle, Scot Erin Briggs, Whitney Dibo, John D. Fry, Aseem Kaul, Jacqueline Lyons, and Jonathan Starke with audio poetry by Arlene Ang and Brently Johnson. Illustrator Scott Gray creates the visual centerpiece for this new issue. Take a look!

Blood Orange Review 5.1 is here!

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

Featuring the multimedia art installations of Karri A. Dieken, audio poetry by Kimberly Burwick, and fresh writing from Amy Ash, Ilse Bendorf, Rosalyn Cowart, Jeannie Galeazzi, Allan Peterson, Tania Pryputniewicz, and Marcia Trahan.

Blood Orange Review 4.4 is here!

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

Featuring artwork by Craig Billow, the Western Australian showcase with audio poetry, and an announcement of our 2010 nominees for the Pushcart Prize.

This issue includes work by:

Seth Borgen
Bridget Hardy
Mandy Malloy
Diane Seuss
David Susman
Eric Vithalani

Editor’s Note
Blood Orange Review 4.4

This issue came together in a quietly spectacular way. As we put together the proofs, frost was icing the lawns of Salem, Oregon. Men were climbing ladders and hanging Christmas lights from the rooftops. As we edited the issue, we listened to the recordings of the Western Australian poems and communicated with the poets through email. Their voices and work radiated warmth in the chilly Pacific Northwest day. [continued]

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]

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.

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]

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

Blood Orange Review 3.4 is here

Editor’s Note--Stung
Blood Orange Review 3.4

In a story from this new issue, “Once the Queen Is Gone” by Jeremy Griffin, one character chooses to study biochemistry, specifically the pheromones of honeybees, after being attacked by a hive that results in a week’s stay in the hospital. In the same story, the main character arrives on the doorstep of a former lover to “tell her things about love and fulfillment and mistakes and forgiveness,” or, on second thought, maybe just to see what might happen. Drawn to what has stung them, both characters find themselves pinned between what they separately want and fear.

The poems of Jeff Hanson reveal a person seeking to remake himself, and in one instance, getting what he wants only to find he can’t handle it. In “The Artist’s Father” by Brently Johnson, a father watches his son and weighs, self-consciously, whether it’s the moment itself or the preservation of that moment through language that matters more. “Avalanche” by Gregory Lawless offers a speaker tumbling through life after life hoping eventually to get it right. Poem after poem, story after story, the voices in this issue waver then begin, ever so slightly, to tip.

Jim Fagiolo’s unnervingly beautiful landscapes appear as monumental still lifes. Look at “Ruby Lake” or “Portage Glacier” which serves as the doorway to our new issue; so clear and reflective, the water seems to point to the impossibility of it staying that way. If you found yourself on a dock like the one in “Blue Lake,” how could you not throw a stone out and ruin all that stillness?

I’m drawn to the way the work here pulls the reader into that frozen moment through words or images. We’re along for the ride as the subjects, for better or worse, try to make something happen. It feels right that they don’t always know what they want or where they’re going or why they do the things they do. Rattled or wounded, the subjects take us out of our own uncertainty and give us the uncertainty of someone else to ponder for a while. Thank you, literature and art; it’s exactly what we need right now.

Stephanie Lenox, editor
Blood Orange Review

PS – In this issue, the editors have selected several works to be nominated for a Pushcart Prize. We’re thankful for the work in this issue and in all the ones we’ve published, which after stinging us once, continues to draw us toward it.

September Issue of Blood Orange Review

Editor’s Note -- Soft Light
Blood Orange Review 3.3

I used to live a couple of blocks from Raymond Carver’s former home. In the evenings, I’d walk past on the dark street and peer in through the warm light of the undressed windows to see walls of bookshelves in an empty living room. I always half expected to glance in and see him sitting in a worn chair, reading in the soft light. Somehow, it was comforting to think that at one point, he sat right there, in a little house at the intersection of two anonymous streets. He and I shared the same view of the sometimes turbulent and sometimes pacific Strait of Juan de Fuca .

When the cacophony of human life becomes hushed and I am granted the chance to observe discreetly, I become mesmerized with the tender, tragic theater before me. When I stride anonymously along the unlit sidewalks and look into windows at the sheeted birdcages and abandoned dining rooms, I can imagine the lives of the people that had just slipped invisibly out of sight. I love them, the ghosts that haunt my nighttime meanderings. This is the way literature blends in with my day and blurs at the edges. It is the way I carry other writers and their creations with me.

The writing and artwork in the current issue of Blood Orange Review has captivated me in much the same way. Douglas Bruton’s short piece, “A Pebble from the River for Annie” shows a character during a crisis moment that will re-shape the very essence of her being for the rest of her life; the young girl will haunt me as much as Dickens’ Miss Havisham. Laura Ring’s poem, “Grimes Grave” is one that must be read out loud to feel the muscle and grist and hear the scrape of metal on stone.

The issue is compact and powerful, but it isn’t all seriousness or tragedy; Brandon R. Schrand and Calvin Mills offer two humorous contemplations on the ways two writers confront failure. And Jane Linders’ photography (Mike Ross’ Big Rig Jig is show above) is quirky and marvelous.

The September 2008 issue of Blood Orange Review has come together in the midst of intense political, economic, and social anxiety, and I think that it is palpable in the issue. It feels like a strong vibration in the air, perhaps something like oboe music drifting in from the neighbor’s backyard.

Heather K. Hummel, editor
Blood Orange Review

Happy Two Years, Blood Orange Review!

Blood Orange Review celebrates year two with the arrival of its 12th volume of poetry, prose, and artwork. Check it out: http://www.bloodorangereview.com/.

Don't just read for the literature; read for the bios. Here you will find real writers talking about what keeps them going. Check out what Rebekah Judson, one of our newest contributors, has to say about her work:

“I write because I’m addicted to the idea of translation. I’m fascinated by this cycle that occurs when I translate images or concepts into words, only for these words to be translated back into the mental imagery of the reader. I’m constantly trying to better understand this process, to become more intimately aware of the nuances, the gradations, the shades of meaning that become magnified within this sequence of transformation.”