Issues

Volume 20, Fall 2023

Volume 20 is another fruitful harvest of images, prose, and verse. We gathered up: Mario dell’Arco, Karineh Arutyunova, Carol Barrett, Tara Deal, Mario Garcia, Deborah H. Doolittle, Martin Dyar, Sara Eddy, Richard Hedderman, Kathleen Hellen, Vanessa Couto Johnson, Susanna Lang, Naomi Bess Leimsider, Paul Martinez-Pompa, Crescenzo del Monte, Jennie Neighbors, Thomas Piekarski, George Ryan, Pattabi Seshadri, Rimas Uzgiris, Jean Wolff, James Wyshynski, and Yan An. We are grateful to this issue's translators: Marc Alan Di Martino, Chen Du & Xisheng Chen, and Lena Mandel.


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Volume 19, Spring 2023 (Online)

Volume 19 is brings you another troubled, beautiful spring via the images, prose, and verse by: Nidhi Agrawal, Yuan Changming, Adam Day, Lux Eterna, Zebulon Huset, Zuzanna Ginczanka, Grace Glass, John Martino, Julian Mithra, Jeff Mock, Alexander Perez, Nadya Pittendrigh, Carson Pytell, Bui Minh Quoc, Jelena Savić, and John Walser. All hail this issue's translators: Alex Braslavsky and J. R. Forman.

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Volume 18, Fall 2022 (Online)

Volume 18 proudly presents: fiction by Robert Granader and Ricardo Guerra de la Peña, art by Richard Hanus, Nataša Knežević, and Bill Wolak, and poetry by Morgan Boyer, Garin Cycholl, Deborah H. Doolittle, Leisha Douglas, Robert Evory, Mary Warren Foulk, Kelly Houle, Josef Krebs, Al Maginnes, DS Maolalai, Pete Miller, Joshua Ruffin, Cliff Saunders, Brendan Todt, John Tustin, and Dana Tenille Weekes. Special thanks to translator Tyler Gebauer!

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Volume 17, Spring 2022 (Online)

In Volume 17, we give you poetry by Ron L. Dowell, Nicolas Garcia, David Groulx, Elizabeth Knight, Laurie Lessen Reiche, Barbara Ryder-Levinson, Elise Swanson Ochoa, and Hannah Jane Weber, as well as prose by Anjali Arulpragasam Ashley, Jill Dalton, Jean Duffy, Sally Naylor, Eric Sommer, Regina Thomas, and Kim Venkataraman. Special thanks to our editor-at-large Ivica Žabić for designing the cover featuring art by Andrea Worthey, whose work we feature in this issue.

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Volume 16, Fall 2021 (Online)

In Volume 16, we feature our cover artist Caroline Morrell along with prose by Susan Taylor Chehak, Cris Mazza, J. Adams Oaks, and Rochelle Williams, and poetry by Leroy D. Bean, Doris Ferleger, Alec Hershman, Alison Hicks, Zebulon Huset, A. Loudermilk, Jim Klein, Andrew Kozma, Brandy McKenzie, Pitambar Naik, Rachel Tramonte, and John Walser. Special thanks to our editor-at-large Ivica Žabić for designing the cover.

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Volume 15, Spring 2021 (Online)

Volume 15 is a generous helping of: prose by Brandon Hansen and Ángela McEwan-Alvarado; art by Richard Hanus, Gretchen Hasse, and David Dodd Lee; and poetry by Emily Bornstein, Sam Cherubin, Holly Day, Vincent Green, Heikki Huotari, Nicholas Karavatos, Sean Lause, Beth McDermott, Daniel Neff, Martina Reisz Newberry, Suzanne O’Connell, Nick Rattner, Robin Ray, and Rochelle Jewel Shapiro. Special thanks to translator Erin Riddle.

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Volume 14, Fall 2020 (Online)

Volume 14 features another gathering of unique voices and visions: fiction by Ewa Mazierska and Suhasini Yeeda; photography by Donna Kosiba and William C. Crawford; and poetry by Wojciech Boros, Clay Cantrell, Lisa Caloro, Gabriella Garofalo, Mike Jurkovic, Brandon Krieg, Alexander Kushner, Lori Lamothe, Emmanuel Merle, Nikolai Morshen, and Jenene Ravesloot. Special thanks to translators Daniel Bourne, Vladimir Golstein, and Jill Pearlman.

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Volume 13, Spring 2020 (Online)

In Volume 13, you'll contemplate poems by Packingtown newcomers Jan Ball, Paul Bamberger, Daisy Bassen, Jose Alberto Ocampo Barrera, Libby Copa, Keith Dunlap, John Grey, Thomas R. Keith, and Anum Sattar, as well as previous residents Mark Jackley, M. Nasorri Pavone, and John Sibley Williams. Prose by Joe Baumann, Jane Hawley, and Allison M. Palmer will engross you. Art by Christina Jane Tise and Jean Wolff (the latter also a Packingtown regular) will intrigue you. Shout out to student editors Easton Cluck and Golda Grais who helped code this issue!

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Volume 12, Fall 2019 (Online)

In Volume 12, you'll find poems by Asma Abdi, Rob Cook, Natasha Deonarain, George Freek, Glenn Ingersoll, Scott Laudati, Osip Mandel'shtam, Sarah Jane Pazen, and John Zedolik. Nestled among them is fiction by Ranjan Adiga, Mike Hilbig, and Slobodan Tišma, and art by Joseph Heathcott, Gene Tanta, and Brett Stout.

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Volume 11, Spring 2019 (Online)

In Volume 11, we present another motley international crew: fiction writers Megan Fahey, Jeff Frawley, and Jay Shearer; poets Akpa Arinzechukwu, Karin Wraley Barbee, Gene Barry, Lana Bella, Michelle Brooks, Holly Day, Alexandra Feliciano, Cal Freeman, Carlos Hiraldo, James Croal Jackson, Kristin LaTour, Elias Sepulveda, Sanjeev Sethi, and Preeti Vangani; and visual artists Fabrice Poussin and John Timothy Robinson.

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Volume 10, Spring 2018 (Online)

In Volume 10, we gather our past contributors together for our very first reunion issue, just in time for our ten-year anniversary. Present at the reunion: poets, essayists, and hybridists Elizabeth J. Colen, James Grinwis, Chad Heltzel, A. Loudermilk, Matt McBride, Urayoán Noel, Inga Lea Schmidt, Paul Smith, Rosmarie Waldrop, John Walser, Florence Weinberger, and John Sibley Williams; fiction writers George Bishop, Jr., Peter Grimes, and Jessica Young; and visual artists Michelle Graves & Frederick Nitsch, Roberto Harrison, Gretchen Hasse, Dragana Jurišić, and Jean Wolff.

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Volume 9, Fall 2017 (Online)

In Volume 9, we feature our cover artist Jean Wolff, photographs by Mark Wyatt, and prose by Renata Jambrešić Kirin. And then there's a motherload of poets: Daniel Aristi, Morgan Bazilian, Alan Chazaro, Lana Derkač, Drago Glamuzina, Henry Goldkamp, Lou Graves, Savannah McLeod, Jennifer Newhouse, Nofel, Maureen Passmore, Donna Pucianni, Inga Lea Schmidt, Damir Šodan, James Wyshynski, Bill Yarrow, and Nina Živančević. Special thanks to translators Boris Gregorić and Majda Šodan, and to friend of the journal Darija Žilić!

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Volume 8, Winter 2016/2017 (Online)

Volume 8 is once again a gathering place for debut authors and experienced hands. We feature our cover artist Ernest Williamson, as well as: poetry by Ricky Garni, Gabriella Garofalo, Allison Grayhurst, Lillian Rose King, Katie Lewington, Micah Ling, Kate Peterson, Bing Selfish, and Ashley Warren; fiction by Paul Smith and Evan Steuber, and nonfiction by A. Loudermilk. Rounding out this issue is art by Alison Stadig and Daniel Weinberg.

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Volume 7, Winter 2015/2016 (Online)

Volume 7 is full of fresh and familiar names from the US and Europe: art by Roberto Harrison, Duša Isijanov, Taylor Mazer, and Alexandra Rozenman; comics by Cathy Hannah; fiction by Kim O'Niel; poetry by Ana Croegaert, Mary Crow, Caroline Kenworthy, Robert Krut, Urayoán Noel, Simon Perchik, Daniel Plate, Maggie Queeney, Edwin Torres, Robert Tremmel, Amanda Tumminaro, and Luis Humberto Valadez; Katie Bodendorfer Garner reviews Dimitris Lyacos translated by Shorsha Sullivan.

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Volume 6, Winter 2014/2015 (Online)

Volume 6 is a beast of an issue. You can read new poetry by Deborah DeNicola, Heather Dubrow, Alexis Ivy, Mark Jackley, Elizabeth Johnson, M. Nasorri Pavone, David P. Rogers, Benjamin Schmitt, Chris Waters, John Walser, Florence Weinberger, and John Sibley Williams, and listen to experiments with music and poetry by Marko Paunovic and Omar Pérez. We also bring you prose by David L. Amadio, Elie Axelroth, Patty Houston, and Lyndee Yamshon, art by Michelle Graves, Doug Grosjean, and Dragana Jurisic, and a video by Diane Busuttil. While you are savoring Volume 6, new Packingtown plans are being drawn. As always, the future is now.

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Volume 5, Fall 2013 (Online)

Volume 5 is here. You can read new poetry by David Starkey, Mercedes Lawry, Lauren Russell, Susan H. Maurer, Elisabeth Arlen, Robert Nazarene, Paul Smith, Spencer Smith, and our former poetry editor Chad Heltzel, and hear Jenene Ravesloot and Tom Roby front the poetry-music project Omniphonic. We also bring you prose by Jessica Young (with Young reading her story out loud), J.A. Bernstein, Sherard Harrington, George Bishop Jr., and B.J. Hollars, and art by Dan Ivec, Tricia Rumbolz, and our former art editor Jennie Berner. Read, listen, and view the issue in the sequence we propose, or jump around. Either way, this issue will last you longer and delight you more consistently than spring in Chicago.

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Volume 4, Spring 2013 (Online)

We're back, this time as an online journal! This issue features "Bronzed" by Nick Kocz, the winner of the Packingtown Review Flash Fiction Contest, and the runner-up Susan Phillips's "If Mama Had'a Raised Eminem," selected by our contest judge Kathleen Rooney. We're also proud to present art by Larry O. Dean, Gretchen Hasse, and Verica Patrnogic, poetry by Sara E. Lamers, Paul Martinez Pompa, Anthony Madrid, R.D. Morgan, Ksenija Simic-Muller, and Diane Solis, and critical prose by JoAnne Ruvoli and J.A. Bernstein.

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The "Lost" Volume 3, 2011-2018 (raw PDF)

The third issue of our print journal was scheduled to appear in March 2012. Although the issue was completely edited, laid out and proofread by late 2011, virtually all of the sources of financial support for Packingtown Review ran dry by the time the issue was turned over to the University of Illinois Press. For years, the press was holding the issue's content and the list of subscribers as collateral, but we're fianlly able to share a raw PDF with all the content that was supposed to appear in the issue!

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Volume 2, 2010 (Print + PDF)

Our second issue includes drama by Janet Burroway, John Greiner, and Dayana Stetco, poetry by Julie Carr, Norman Dubie, Michelle Glazer, Matt Hart, Karen An-Hwei Lee, and Joshua Marie Wilkinson, prose by Johanna Drucker, Daniel Nester, and Effie Yiannopoulou, art by Victoria Bischtok, and more.

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Volume 1, 2009 (Print + PDF)

Our inaugural issue includes: prose by William Ayers, Ricardo Cortez Cruz, Noah Eli Gordon, Davis Schneiderman, and Curtis White, poetry by Brenda Hillman, Paul Hoover, Tung-Hui Hu, Claudia Keelan, Alessandra Lynch, Sheila E. Murphy, Dennis Phillips, Sun Yung Shin, and Rosmarie Waldrop, drama by Phillip Dawkins and Paula B. Stanic, art by Wayne Leal, and more. It also features the winner of the Packingtown Review Prize for Critical Response, Deborah DeNicola's essay "Hoover's Eternal Moments."

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About

Beginnings 2007-2013

Packingtown Review was founded in 2007 at the University of Illinois at Chicago by Ph.D. students in the English department, went on a hiatus in 2010, and made a comeback in 2013. U of I Chicago has receded from Packingtown's rearview mirror. Since 2013, the journal has been run by members of academic lumpenproleteriat. We still publish new and established authors hailing from around the world, with new issues appearing twice a year.

Manifesto 2013-?

Comrades, sisters, brothers, and members of the human family, we have long joined the struggle to destroy the imperialist white supremacist capitalist heteropatriarchy. We resist sentimental urges of the national and canonical. We refuse joyless institutional programs. Non-affiliated and promiscuous, we embrace translation, adaptation, outsider art, and experimentation. We offer radical solidarity with the subaltern. Skeptical, paradoxical, and always with a sense of humor, we believe that another world is possible.

Editorial Board
Tasha Fouts
Nicolas Garcia
Cheryl Hitosis
Paul Martínez Pompa
Dawn Tefft
Snežana Žabić
Founding Editors
Cynthia Cravens
Todd Marren
Roxanne Pilat
Editors At Large
Heather Brown
KC Carter
Una Delic
Dubravka Juraga
Katie Garner
Kris Summerson
Ivica Žabić

Submit

Please e-mail your work as an attachment to packingtownreview@gmail.com.

General

  • Please include a cover letter in the body of your e-mail.
  • Simultaneous submissions? Yes, but we ask that you indicate in your cover letter that the manuscript has been submitted elsewhere and that you notify us ASAP if it is accepted by another publication.
  • Feedback? Although we would love to comment on all manuscripts, the volume we receive precludes us from doing so. But please know that each submission is read carefully and given thoughtful consideration.
  • Previously published material is not accepted.
  • Response time? Approximately three months. If you have not received a response after three months, feel free to send an e-mail query.
Poetry
Send three to five poems along with a 60-word bio in third person. Do not exceed ten pages of single-spaced verse.
Fiction, Criticism, and Creative Nonfiction
Send up to 4,000 words of double-spaced prose along with a 60-word bio in third person. Please list name and page number on each page of the submission. For scholarly work, please submit your work in accordance with The Chicago Manual of Style.
Drama
Send up to 15 pages of play-writing or screenwriting (excerpts or completed scripts) along with a 60-word bio in third person. Please list name and page number on each page of the submission.
Translations
Please provide the original text with your English translation along with 60-word bios in third person for the author of the original and yourself. Also procure publication rights from the original author or author's estate. See above for genre guidelines.
Artwork
Please include 3-5 pieces as jpeg or png file attachments, and list the titles of your submitted pieces and the years when the pieces were completed. Please also list media used, and (for physical objects) dimensions. Your cover letter should also include a brief artist statement (for examples of such statements, see our current issue) along with a 60-word bio in third person.
Audio and Video
Please include one to five short pieces. Audio should be in MP3 or WAV format, and video should be submitted as Vimeo or YouTube links. An individual piece should not exceed about 15 minutes in duration. Your cover letter should include a note that gives credit to your collaborators, such as sound engineers, musicians, videographers, video/audio editors, and the like. Please also include a 60-word bio in third person. If your video is a part of an art project, please also include a 1-paragraph artist statement.

Packingtown Review: The Podcast

To hear editors read some of their favorite pieces published in Packingtown Review since 2009, listen and subscribe to our podcast, which was created and launched on May 25, 2021.

Social Media

The editors of Packingtown Review blog at packingtownreview.wordpress.com. We can also be found on Twitter and Facebook.

Adventures in Television

We also had a short-lived but beloved podcast Adventures in Television. In addition to the episodes on SoundCloud, here are the first two episodes available here exclusively:

"Episode 1: Chef's Table"

"Episode 2: Crazy Ex-Girlfriend"