The first copy of Northwest Review came out in 1957. In its pages was Ken Kesey’s first published work, a short story titled “The First Sunday in September.”
Over the next 70 years the Review published the works of well-known artists such as Ursula K. LeGuin, Louise Erdrich, Raymond Carver, Barry Lopez, William Stafford, James Dickey, Charles Bukowski and Joyce Carol Oates.
However, in 2011, it closed, only to be relaunched in Portland from 2020 to 2023. Now it’s back again, and it’s back in Eugene.
Northwest Review is an independent nonprofit digital magazine produced in partnership with the University of Oregon’s Editing and Publishing Program. “We are looking out upon the world from the Northwest,” says Brian Trapp, editor-in-chief and fiction editor for the Northwest Review. Trapp is also the director of Disability Studies at UO.
“When I came to Eugene and learned that it was gone, I was sad,” Trapp says of the Review. The program has been restored through collaborations and an $18,000 grant from the Williams Foundation for innovative undergraduate programs.
The Review published its first Eugene comeback issue on June 1 with six fiction/nonfiction works and 14 poems.
The Review focuses on literary stories. Trapp says literary stories pay close attention to the language and have art to them. “It wakes you up,” he says.
“It takes a labor of love to do a literary magazine,” Trapp says. He has trained editors, including students at the UO, to learn how to edit and work with the stories.
The review received about 1,500 submissions for the comeback issue, so the students and partners took time to review, discuss and “argue,” as Trapp says, to prepare for publication. Anyone is encouraged to submit, whether they are a well-known writer or a brand-new poet, though current UO students cannot submit, to avoid conflicts of interest.
The first issue featured work of established writers such as Nathan Harris, a New York Times Bestselling novelist, and well-known memoirist Ira Sukrungruang, alongside new artists.
“This helps us discover emerging writers,” Trapp says of the opportunity that the Review can uncover new talents.
He says he recently discovered that under the editorship of John Witte, the magazine published Lidia Yuknavitch’s first publication, “The Chronology of Water,” which became a memoir and now a major motion picture directed by Kristen Stewart. Witte, a senior instructor emeritus at the UO, edited the magazine from 1979 to 2008.
The Review plans to become a 501(c) (3) nonprofit this summer, independent of UO funding.
You can read the published issue on the Northwest Review’s website. To support the Review, visit the UO Foundation. GiveCampus to donate.
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