On Proxies
At the AWP conference in Los Angeles earlier this year, I was on a quest for writers with a different style and approach to craft than I’d been exposed to. I browsed the various presses in attendance and asked them… Continue Reading
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Making the Horses Drink
A few mass shootings ago—that is, a few months ago—I faced my freshman comp students and asked them why. Why was it, did they think, that gun violence was such a problem for the United States? A hand shot up.… Continue Reading
Hard Poems for Hard Times
In the last few weeks my emotions have been all over the place. At first I was sad. This story is not a new story. They have been killing us without consequence for hundreds of years. Then I began looking… Continue Reading
Dropping the Velvet Rope
I’ve heard more times than I’d like about how the call for diversification of submissions for literary magazines is making it harder for white, male, heterosexual (WMH) writers to find homes for their work. As the Nonfiction Editor of Blue… Continue Reading
Summertime Management
I had a dream last night. My soccer team––well, football, ‘cause we use our feet, and I’m in Spain––were playing in an international tournament in Tarragona. In the morning, much like Iceland, our team, the scrappy underdog, beat the favorite,… Continue Reading
4 Reasons You Should Submit to Literary Magazines
Some mornings I wake up channeling my favorite movie or book characters. This morning, I woke up feeling very Voila Davis’s character, Aibileen, from The Help. And when I allowed my imagination free reign, this is the message she gave… Continue Reading
Good Writing Days: On Being a New Father and a Poet
For me, a typical writing day looks like this: two hours of generative writing, an hour of revision, and an hour or so of reading. To wrap up a session, I save all the poems in their various stages to… Continue Reading
Issue No. 33 Letter from the Editor
Issue 33 marks the end of yet another school year at the University of New Mexico and my tenure as Editor-in-Chief of Blue Mesa Review. Like most literary magazines affiliated with a university, our staff rotates as students graduate.… Continue Reading
2016 Summer Contest Judges!
We are excited to announce the 2016 Blue Mesa Review Summer Contest judges! Send us your best work in Poetry, Fiction, and Nonfiction. Our Poetry judge is Ocean Vuong! Vuong is the author of Night Sky with Exit Wounds (Copper… Continue Reading
Literary Confessions
Let’s face it; if you’re reading the BMR blog, odds are you are a person with a literary bent. A writer. An editor. Someone who reads obscure, thought-provoking literature. Unless you are here by mistake, in which… Continue Reading