Listen, my beloveds—go outside, lift your chin, raise your chest. You won’t melt. You aren’t made of sugar.
—Marnie Galloway, “Star Projector”

“Late Bloomer,” 2023. Handwoven cotton, wool, acrylic (21 parts total). 90 x 138.5 inches, Paolo Arao. (Photo: Cary Whittier)

From the Current Issue

We are all experts in risk assessment now

The Graybeal-Gowen Prize for Virginia Poets by Erika Meitner

silent glittery bursts peaking / above runway fences and then, / from the air, dotting the darkness


A Poet Asks a Visual Artist: Paolo Arao

Conversation by Paolo Arao and Sarah Audsley

I am reminded of the piano every time I sit to weave at my loom. I love the similarities between the piano and the loom. Both devices are creative instruments that rely on the touch of the hand and movement of the body to function. There is a somatic and embodied rhythm in the process of weaving - the repetition is like breathing.

Old Men Playing Golf With Their Wives
Inside Them

Fiction by Cal Massey

Their story: does not have a plot because old men’s lives do not have plots, just one colon after another with frequent asides.

Terms and Conditions of Being Indigenous™

Nonfiction by Jessi Farfan

You agree that any deviation from the public’s expectation of “Indian” may result in interrogation, fetishization, erasure, death, or all of the above.

We Built This City: A Broken Hyangga1

Guest Edited Poetry by Joan Kwon Glass

it was love for my sons that killed me

About Shenandoah

Reading through the perspective of another person, persona, or character is one of the ways we practice empathy, expand our understanding of the world, and experience new levels of awareness.

Recent Blog posts from the Peak

Kicking and Screaming

Blog Editor Chase Isbell interviews Shenandoah contributor Hannah Grieco about her book First Kicking, Then Not, a collection of short and flash fiction about motherhood and its discontents.

The Poetics of Craquelure: Behind the Poem "青 / Qing Ghazitsu"

Nicole W. Lee introduces her readers to the ghazitsu, an invented form derived from the ghazal, the zuihitsu, and the Chinese language.

Books: The Bronze Arms by Richie Hofmann

Blog Editor Chase Isbell interviews Richie Hofmann about The Bronze Arms, a poetry collection about erotic desire and classical beauty.