Bryant Literary Review
Introduction
Since our first issue in 2000, we have actively sought to expand our audience. We expect readers of the Bryant Literary Review to be sophisticated, educated, and familiar with the conventions of contemporary literature. We see our purpose to be the cultivation of an active and growing connection between our community and the larger literary culture. Our production values are of the highest caliber, and our roster of published authors includes major award and fellowship winners. The BLR provides a respected venue for creative writing of every kind from around the world. Our only standard is quality.
Bryant Literary Review is an international magazine of poetry and fiction published annually in May. For more information, contact blr@bryant.edu. To submit work, please review the submission guidelines.
Editor's Note
Thank you for taking the opportunity to open this issue of the Bryant Literary Review.. This collection is a testament to the power that writing and the liberal arts can have on the wholeness of an individual. Each year the BLR receives thousands of submissions from dozens of countries and all across America. This poses a great challenge to the editorial staff, since we can only publish a small percentage of what we are sent. I am confident that you will enjoy reading each piece included in this year's issue.
Bryant University prides itself on providing students with skills in both business and liberal arts, a strategy that makes us unique. In our efforts to promote the liberal arts, the Bryant Literary Review extends the opportunity ...
Editor's Note
Our nation and the world as we know it are changing. We live in a time when jobs are diminishing while the pursuit of wealth remains out of control. Our days are darkened by the perils of global warming and the threat of terrorism, alive and lingering in the minds of every citizen.
But despite these challenges and hardships, the world pushes on. There is still a light that shines through in the importance of creativity and the imagination. We see this in the thousands of submissions we receive each year to the Bryant Literary Review...
Editor's Note
A literary journal mimics an infant in the Dark Ages in that it has a short life expectancy and is likely poor. In spite of this standard, many periodicals are fortunate enough to grow up. With this in mind, the Bryant Literary Review celebrates its tenth anniversary.
In ten years, we have published many poems and stories, but perhaps the most notable submissions were those not published We have received poems on graph paper and post cards, as well as a laminated, pocket-sized poem. Other notables include a "bonus poem" included as part of a cover letter which explained the absence of a self addressed stamped envelope, pictures of a squirrel...
Editor's Note
The rules of an affluent modern society often dictate the daily affairs of individuals. Regularly, one is required to work from dawn to dusk, returning home only to sleep for the next day’s work. Each day, millions follow this routine in a systematic fashion, going through the motions of their everyday lives, while forgetting to live them. In the back of their minds dwell thoughts of the following day’s work, questions of politics, finance and, of course, the future. There is often no time to enjoy any aspect of life the way it was intended to be enjoyed. Romantic ideas of boating on vacation or traveling the world are out of the question.
Perhaps it is the dreary undertones of the world today, accompanied by long work hours and tension in the home, that stifle the innate creativity that exists within us...
Editor's Note
English writer Graham Greene claimed, “Writing is a form of therapy. Sometimes I wonder how all those who do not write, compose or paint can manage to escape the madness, the melancholia, the panic fear which is inherent in the human situation.” When life is fragile, complicated, and ever-changing, literature provides that means of escape. It also provides hope—the hope that when society seems to value activities that dull the mind, there remain those intellectual and inspiring visionaries who provide friction on the slippery slope.
Working as student editor of the Bryant Literary Review has given me the opportunity to explore the creativity of others. As Cyril Connolly said, “While thought exists, words are alive and literature becomes an escape, not from, but into living.” We respond to creativity...
