Articles

The Raymond Carver Review seeks thought-provoking essays that advance Carver studies through innovative scholarly study. While articles on Carver’s fiction and poetry are anticipated, the journal would also be interested in studies of Carver’s nonfiction, as well as essays about film or dramatic adaptations of Carver’s work. Book reviews on works related to Carver or to relevant aspects of Carver studies are also welcome.

Of particular interest to The Raymond Carver Review are critical approaches to Carver that discuss his work in relation to class, gender, culture, politics, spirituality, place, milieu, and theory, both nationally and internationally. Also of interest are studies of Carver’s writing and editing processes, influences, collaboration, craft, technique, fictional or poetic theory, and newly emerging areas of scholarly studies as they apply to Carver’s work. Current Carver scholarship is looking closely at Carver’s work pre-Gordon Lish and post-Lish, as well as work that appears under editorial influence. With that in mind, the journal is interested in essays on writers or work connected to Carver in convincing and meaningful ways (e.g. Haruki Murakami, Tess Gallagher, Richard Ford, Tobias Wolff, etc.). Interviews, podcasts, digital videos and art connections or expressions relating to Carver studies will also be considered, but please contact the editors prior to submission.

The Raymond Carver Review, with its turn to becoming an annual journal, now reads on a rolling basis via Submittable. Accepted material grants The Raymond Carver Review First Time North American Serial Rights; following publication, all rights return to the author or contributor.

Please send article submissions through the Submittable button below.

The Forum

The Forum will offer a place on the website where members of the advisory and editorial boards, as well as other invited contributors, will contribute to discussions of a selected topic for each issue. Contributions may be written, filmed, or presented as digital recordings. Rather than a roundtable discussion, the contributions will create a tableau of commentary, responses, posed questions, or suggestions for new directions in Carver scholarship. Text length may vary from a note to a comment to a brief essay (academic or creative nonfiction); films or digital recordings should brief enough to be effective when posted through digital media. Each forum topic will be moderated and edited by a selected moderator. 

Forum Topic for Issue 8:

Raymond Carver’s rise as a writer was during the period of 1980s Reaganomics, during which many marginally employed or unemployed working class members found themselves working “crap jobs,” only to be trapped in a cycle of being ongoingly the “working poor.” Carver’s own life and the lives of many of his characters represent this stage of economic inequality. But Carver treated his characters at best empathetically and at worse merely objectively. Swing voters in the 2016 election made it clear that they also felt ignored, diminished, and disrespected. Given the continually expanding economic global inequality, what value do Carver’s stories and poems have to offer today’s working class – whether they are teachers, students, scholars, politicians, community activists, writers, millennials, minorities, or even common readers? In short: what continues to make Carver’s body of work relevant, if not important, today?

Please send forum submissions through the Submittable button below.