The Massachusetts Review

We're officially one week out from #GivingTuesday2025! Please consider joining us in our mission of platforming writers whose perspectives are desperately needed in these times with a gift!

So excited to receive my contributor copies of the Fall 2025 issue of the Massachusetts Review (@themassreview.bsky.social)! It includes my story "Anna Kavan's Cats"—a love letter to British novelist Anna Kavan (and cats) and a parody of academic scholarship.

One of our fiction readers Corinne Demas has just published a new novel: DAUGHTERS.

Join us at the launch party tomorrow, November 20th at 7pm, at Amherst Books (8 Main St, Amherst, MA) to celebrate!!

10 Questions for Jennifer Jang - The Massachusetts Review MISS TANG was a plump woman in her thirties and our seventh-grade homeroom teacher. She had a kind, matronly smile but sprung into tantrums over trifles. Her punishment of choice was meditation. After...

"I love the idea of America, as often described through my mother’s nostalgia-laden lens... Thus, all my life, I pined for that miraculous birthland of which I have no memory."

Jennifer Jang on her inspiration from imagined places, for #10Questions: massreview.org/2025/11/19/1...

A Review of Katharina Volckmer's Calls May Be Recorded - The Massachusetts Review Katharina Volckmer’s second novel, Calls May Be Recorded (Two Dollar Radio, 9/16/25) is a fierce workplace satire that is bold in its exacting focus on those pushed to the margins of this century’s ra...

"Perhaps, by hemming her protagonist in so tightly, Volckmer invites the reader to experience, on some level, a taste of Vanilla Travels Ltd.’s exhausting monotony."

Christopher Santantasio, on CALLS MAY BE RECORDED, for #MassReviews: massreview.org/2025/11/18/a...

We're pleased to announce we will be hosting a virtual #reading with the guest editors of our forthcoming special issue, Incarceration & Families, along with contributors and their families on Dec. 10th at 7:30 pm est! Register here: www.eventbrite.com/e/incarcerat...

10 Questions for Elizabeth Bradfield - The Massachusetts Review I have touched those cold seedswaiting to sprout, to reach toward whatis sun. North & South did taste different. But I don’t trust my memory. —from Elizabeth Bradfield’s “#73” (Volume 66 Issue 3) What...

"I’m hoping and trusting that, as I turn toward that prose, poems will sneak in. They are always invited."

Elizabeth Bradfield for our #10Questions, out now: massreview.org/2025/11/17/1...

Join us for an evening of Palestinian music and storytelling with award-winning novelist, Sahar Mustafah, 📚and a performance by Layaali Arabic Music Ensemble 🎶. Refreshments and light snacks will be served. Free and open to the public!

Date: Friday, Dec 5, 7:00pm
Location: UMass, Amherst

10 Questions for Jan Clausen - The Massachusetts Review HE IS A MAN of stories, and of music. He would scoff to hear me say he has an artistic bent; his verdict on himself is that he lacks imagination. In other matters, too, he has the habit of self-efface...

"I don’t remember wanting to 'be.' I wanted to know."

Jan Clausen for our #10Questions. Read the full interview here: massreview.org/2025/11/12/1...

Wishing a restful #VeteransDay to those who served, and those who continue to "revere the end of the greatest carnage powerful elites had ever visited upon ordinary human beings."

10 Questions for Meg Favreau - The Massachusetts Review Photo credit: Rebekkah Drake “Help!” I yell, because I am clearly not qualified to deal with an unresponsive Tony Robbins. I am qualified to bring in hummus and in a couple, maybe three, years to teac...

"I am a big believer in maintaining corners of hope and joy in difficult times. Otherwise, what’s the point of living in this beautiful and chaotic world?"

Meg Favreau for our #10Questions: massreview.org/2025/11/10/1...

Armistice Day vs. Veterans Day - The Massachusetts Review I’ve never paid much attention to Veterans Day. None at all, really. The day I’ve always noted, at least in passing, is November 10th, which is the birthday of the US Marine Corps. I have a very curio...

"That people should honor and revere the end of the greatest carnage powerful elites had ever visited upon ordinary human beings was a great idea. It still is."

Ex-Marine W. D. Ehrhart writes on Armistice (and Veterans) Day: massreview.org/2025/11/07/a...

10 Questions for Margaree Little - The Massachusetts Review ***My goldfinch, I’ll throw back my head—let’s look at the world together:A winter’s day, prickly as chaff,isn’t it hard on your eyes? —from The Voronezh Notebooks by Osip Mandelstam, translated by Ma...

"When I was young, I didn’t know that one could “be” a writer in the sense of a career. I wrote and read because I needed to, and because it kept me alive in very difficult circumstances."

Translator Margaree Little for our #10Questions : massreview.org/2025/11/05/1...

#WesternMass friends! The Massachusetts Review published Sarah Ihmoud and Devin Atallah's searing A World Without Palestinians in February 2024. Sarah Ihmoud is giving a talk at Smith College on Tuesday November 11th titled "Hunger and the Palestinian Womb"

#WesternMass friends! Come hear MR contributors Christian G. Appy, Amy Dryansky, Uzma Aslam Khan, and @htreseler.bsky.social at @MassBook's 25 year anniversary celebration. RSVP here: www.eventbrite.com/e/a-night-of...

10 Questions for Brian Russell - The Massachusetts Review some dusks I linger long enoughto watch bats stream from the eaves of my neighbor’s houselike blood starved ofoxygen I could cut my ownumbilical cord to the world to watch theindigo sky leak out and b...

"My kids periodically ask me if I became what I wanted to be, which always makes me laugh so hard I cry and can’t breathe."

Brian Russell talks Route 66, acrostic poems, and time management as a father for our #10Questions: massreview.org/2025/10/29/1...

World Building - The Massachusetts Review A Review of Reasons and Feelings by Sarah Mesle (University of Chicago Press) Sarah Mesle’s Reasons and Feelings: Writing for the Humanities Now is a new contribution to the University of Chicago Pres...

"This section defines REASONS AND FEELINGS itself quite brilliantly: it’s a book working to avail itself of a different style of the “guide to writing” genre to attempt to know the world differently."

Jon Hoel on Sarah Mesle, for #MassReviews: massreview.org/2025/10/28/w...

Writing into Silence: A MemoryWorks Workshop for Asian Pacific Diasporic Writers — Q.M. Zhang | MemoryWorks November 7, 14, 21 & December 5, 12, 2025 4:00-7:00 PM EST This five-week remote workshop is for writers, story-tellers, and truth-tellers who are trying to trace elusive family histories with...

Check out MemoryWorks' Writing into Silence Workshop!

This five-week remote workshop is for writers, story-tellers, and truth-tellers trying to trace elusive family histories within and across the Pacific.

Registration closes November 1: www.qmzhang.com/writing-into...

The National Book Award Interviews: Gabriela Cabezón Cámara and Robin Myers - Words Without Borders Gabriela Cabezón Cámara and Robin Myers on "We Are Green and Trembling," shortlisted for the 2025 National Book Award for Translated Literature.

Author Gabriela Cabezón Cámara and translator Robin Myers discuss WE ARE GREEN AND TREMBLING @ndbooks.bsky.social , shortlisted for the 2025 National Book Award for Translated Literature. Read here:

Scattered Graves - The Massachusetts Review My name is Sarah Mahmoud. I was born twenty-eight years ago in Jabalia, northern Gaza. My father was a teacher, and my mother a devoted homemaker, who held our family together with love and patience. ...

"Our family was torn apart not only in life but even in death. Some graves are in the north, others in the south. And we do not know if the graves in the north still exist, or if they were bulldozed by the occupation."

Sarah Mahmoud, from northern Gaza: massreview.org/2025/10/24/s...

Pages That Sing - The Massachusetts Review What is poetry? What is voice? These are the questions that editors Philip Brady and Shanta Lee ask in Sign and Breath: Voice and the Literary Tradition, a wide-ranging new poetic anthology published ...

"All the poets in SIGN & BREATH create entanglements in which voices can be made more fully heard, visible, animated, complicated, and thus more grieveable... the very thing that makes us addressable."

Melissa Parrish, reviewing SIGN & BREATH: massreview.org/2025/10/23/p...

#MassReviews

Shocked and humbled for this essay to be listed as notable in the 2025 Best American Essays. Thank you, again, @themassreview.bsky.social for publishing this piece, and for your editors on the back-and-forth to make this essay the best possible version of itself.

10 Questions for Arno Bohlmeijer - The Massachusetts Review and know: the clouds don’t know about the rain,and the water doesn’t know about the leavesfrom which it beats the music, rhythms, language —from Arno Bohlmeijer’s translation of “Become,” by Esther Ja...

"All sorts of ideas and contents come up of their own accord, in the shower, kitchen, train, on my bike. Outdoors is the best, where it’s not even ‘work’ at all."

Arno Bohlmeijer shares insights (and two new poems!) for our #10Questions: massreview.org/2025/10/22/1...

Belgian White Delights - The Massachusetts Review Where it’s fall not winter spring not summer cool not cold –Chris Thile As we turn from the warmth to the cool-ness of autumnal days, from our Köl-sches and pilsners and lightIPAs, try this flightOf w...

"As we turn from the warmth to the cool-/ness of autumnal days, from our Köl-/sches and pilsners and light/IPAs, try this flight/Of white Belgians."

Marsha Bryant shares some Oktoberfest #BrewReviews on the MR blog: massreview.org/2025/10/21/b...

#Amherst friends! The brilliant Jericho Brown will be reading at Amherst College next wednesday the 29th. Be sure to mark your calendars: www.amherst.edu/news/events/...

10 Questions for J. Nevada - The Massachusetts Review Gimena recognized two things. One: her neighbors meant no real harm, that they were merely bored, and an element of drama, no matter how false, was too juicy to deny; and two: she would turn into an u...

"My stories don’t take place in our exact reality, but rather in skewed-mirror worlds. Especially so, when it comes to writing about places that I love but where I am still very much a visitor."

J. Nevada, for our #10Questions:
massreview.org/2025/10/20/1...

MR Contributor George Abraham (@intifadabatata.bsky.social) and Board Director Sony Coráñez Bolton will be at Amherst college Oct. 22 for a reading in the CHI Think Tank: www.amherst.edu/academiclife...

10 Questions for Sunnie Chae - The Massachusetts Review Happy scenes made me perfectly bitter that autumn. The season dragged on instead of running its course, looping back in a closed curve. Instead of moving from spring to summer to autumn, it was autumn...

"I have to stop feigning and reach for some kind of truth, whether I succeed or not. As a way of coaxing my terrified self onto the page, I embrace inevitable failure—as long as I fail as honestly as I can."

Sunnie Chae on fear as ritual for writing: massreview.org/2025/10/15/1...

10 Questions for S. Shreyas - The Massachusetts Review This essay was first prepared as a talk on caste, class, and race for the third annual Association of Postcolonial Thought symposium at UMass Amherst. As an ethnographer, I planned to draw on the work...

"In America, students are often taught to delink writing from matters of the stomach. I believe this breeds new forms of hunger, new forms of illiteracy, and new false freedoms."

Our #10Questions with S. Shreyas is out now: massreview.org/2025/10/13/1...

10 Questions for janan alexandra - The Massachusetts Review On Saturday two men came to slaughter the palm, whose exuberant pinnate leaves I had made a habit of watching each morning from my post inside the bedroom, head cocked on the pillow. My Observation of...

"I think that imagined place is the place of dreaming, the way that we write toward our precise and (im)possible utopias, another way of saying, toward a place that can hold all of us."

janan alexandra for our #10Questions: massreview.org/2025/10/08/1...