New Ohio Review

I played “Losing My Religion” on repeat. I voted.  / I went to bed each night with yesterday’s cold  / coffee ringing the coffee table.--"Self-Portrait at Thirty-Three" by S.J. Stover.

Featured art by Rachel Hall.

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A PRAYER By S.J. Stover Daily bread’s gone blueas a tulip.   Kitchen’s a bust—wizened potatoes  stacked like luckrocks,  beans, knobblyas prayer beads,   an onion&#…

"One cannot not live / by bread alone you say.  / Okay, so / I will live by  / sentences, tenuous, / precious, line by line, / one rhyme / at a time."--"A Prayer" by S.J. Stover, Winter Online Exclusive.

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“Being passed over isn’t a judgment of you as a writer. ...This perhaps just wasn’t the right time to submit your piece about large, white birds.” Damien Cowger, managing editor of New Ohio Review, offers an editor’s perspective on rejection: at.pw.org/AERCowger

"They’d agreed to staying with each other to the end, and their ashes were to be buried together."--"The Canyon of Unknown Water" by Kent Nelson, Winter Online Exclusive

Artwork by Alex Brice.

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We're here!

Fly on the Wall By Wes Civilz The threadbare jacket that I wear is made of Woven catastrophe. The car I drive  Is powered by a liquid I’m afraid of (Fluid Apocalypse). There is a sound I’ve&nbs…

The threadbare jacket that I wear is made of / Woven catastrophe.-- from "Fly on the Wall" by Wes Civilz, Winter Online Exclusive.

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Today will be a paradise if I  / Can manage to control the many hells / I’m made of.--"Difficulties" by Wes Civilz, Winter Online Exclusive.

Featured Art by Rachel Hall

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Addicted to Plastic By Victor McConnell When I relocated from Los Angeles to Denver, some of my physician competitors thought I was foolish. I opened my new clinic in Cherry Creek, fitting out the office with clouded …

Plastic surgeons aren’t held in particularly high regard—by the public or our fellow physicians.--"Addicted to Plastic" by Victor McConnell, Winter Online Exclusive.

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I wonder if she says a prayer before /
she bustles into the room, all smiles and sweet / accented English, tongue a rolling horse / in a field of Russian consonants.--"The Church of the Dermatologist" by Amy Miller, Winter Online Exclusive.

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Naturism By Michele Lombardo My fourteen-year-old daughter lounges atop the Queen-sized bed wearing pink nylon hiking shorts, woolen socks, and nothing else. Torso, out. Boobs, out. I’d been in the bathroom…

"I’d always meant to tell Emma about the violence in the world. Instead, we jointly binged a stream of true crime, horror, and noir. I let the shows do the work."--"Naturism" by Michelle Lombardo, Winter Online Exclusive.

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Vernonox By Rick Andrews <BEGIN AT MARK 1>                                    Thank you. I appreciate it. Thank you. You’re too kind.                  Thanks so much, everyone. <GESTURE TO CRO…

"People weren’t meant to work behind a desk. People weren’t meant to be cogs in a machine."--"Vernonox" by Rick Andrews, Winter Online Exclusive.

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"This year we’re kicking underwire to the curb. / This year we’re breaking up with cup spillage. "--"The Algorithm Sells Me a New Bra" by @emilyabanks.bsky.social, Winter Online Exclusive

Featured art: "Embrace" by Rachel Hall.

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Riddle By Emily Banks It was everything I didn’t haveand all I wanted.  If I could have itI knew I would have allI didn’t have and everythingI wanted.  It was a key to the cityof dreams, a hacke…

"I can make anyone / tell me everything /
I want to hear / for a night."--"Riddle" by @emilyabanks.bsky.social

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"They had barely finished the introductions when he asked about the war. The endgame, the likely victor, things no Ukrainian cared to discuss with strangers"--"Mask 13" by Annemarie Neary , Winter Online Exclusive.

Featured art by Rachel Hall.

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Nativity By Theo Jasper This morning in January, the men on the street were  wheeling one of the Wise Men into a truck, on a dolly,  just like that.  And I remember two weeks ago, C…

"This morning in January, the men on the street were  / wheeling one of the Wise Men into a truck, on a dolly,  / just like that."--"Nativity" by Theo Jasper.

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Duplex (Gray-blue Staircase) By Theo Jasper I feel small at the bottom of the gray-blue staircase, the one where she didn’t die, even when I visit it in my memory. Even when I visit it in my memory, the duplex where …

"I feel small at the bottom of the gray-blue staircase, /
the one where she didn’t die, even when I visit it in my memory."--"Duplex (Gray-blue Staircase)" by Theo Jasper, Winter Online Exclusive.

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Essay: Pride By R.M. Harper I smoothed the dress across my chest as the Pride Parade smiled, danced, and sang its way past San Francisco City Hall. It was the kind of summer day the world paints the Bay: sevent…

"I smoothed the dress across my chest as the Pride Parade smiled, danced, and sang its way past San Francisco City Hall."--"Pride" by R.M. Harper, Winter Online Exclusive.

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"I am her only eating disorder patient—a peculiar case in a weight loss clinic that masquerades as a wellness program."--"Original Sin" by Anna Davis Abel.

Featured Art: “Self-Portrait” by Rachel Hall

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A Space Unfilled By Theresa Burns There is no great beauty without some strangeness in the proportion.   —Edgar Allen Poe  I heard this the first time from my high school boyfriend, who became my college …

". . . he told me the gap in my front teeth, though strange, / had an element of beauty."--"A Space Unfilled" by Theresa Burns, Winter Online Exclusive.

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"Outside, the moon is a wooden button through its slit of Gaelic wool."--"Irish Nocturne" by Derek Jon Dickinson, Winter Online Exclusive.

Featured Art: “Grass Pathway” by Madelyn Bartolone.

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"The world will work to twirl girls into witches, or they will twirl themselves into witches, or they will twirl and turn away from the witch they could be . . ."--"Angling" by Matt Miller.

Art by Alex Brice

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"One night twenty years later, among cardboard boxes fuzzy with dust in the basement of my mom’s final house, I find a tennis racket. I’m puzzled."--"Trick of the Light" by Jessica Jo Staricka, Winter Online Exclusive.

Artwork by Alex Brice.

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Basketball By Christopher Shipman Mark was two years younger.He was 10 to my 12. But Mark had a hoopwith a chain net, the postplanted right in his backyard, its slick metalgleaming among his mother’s azaleasa…

"But Mark had a hoop / with a chain net, the post
planted right in his backyard, its slick metal / gleaming among his mother’s azaleas / and lilyturfs."--"Basketball" by Christopher Shipman, Winter Online Exclusive.

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"If she wasn’t so afraid, it would have been funny, spying on this creature demolishing their yard as if it were an inconsiderate neighbor."--"Animal Control" by @annasheffer.bsky.social, Winter Online Exclusive.

Featured Art: "The Bride" by Alex Brice.

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A Toast to My Son’s Last Drink By Rodd Whelpley His mom and I are slow to form attachments. (We have met your kind before—juniper  on pulse points, malt-conditioned hair.) But if  you are his last last d…

"If you swear you are / his last last drink, then I will pay a cantor / and a priest. Father you, as I have failed / to father him."--"A Toast to My Son's Last Drink" by @roddwhelpley.bsky.social, Winter Online Exclusive.

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The Uncertainty Principle By Rodd Whelpley You can only know a particle’s speed or its location—never both at once.  But Saturday Night Fever isn’t science, and mom and dad were “Stayin’ Alive”&nb…

"There are questions—  / painful—for which no one seeks an answer,  / only theories"--"The Uncertainty Principle" by Rodd Whelpley, Winter Online Exclusive.

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2025-26 Visiting Writer Series: Kimberly Johnson

NOR contributor Kimberly Johnson is reading on the campus of Ohio University tonight at 7:30p in Galbreath Chapel!

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It is a Wednesday when I ask for help in the kitchen, a Tuesday night for my mother.--"Far From a Mother" by Madeline Simms, Winter Online Exclusive

Featured art: “Eye of Horus” by Ryan Davis

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The News from North Korea By Jim Marino We’re three bites into not-quite-Christmas pie when my mother breaks into the epic tale of Dad leaving her for another woman. Sometimes it’s a blonde, sometimes a spurious redhead, de…

"We’re three bites into not-quite-Christmas pie when my mother breaks into the epic tale of Dad leaving her for another woman."--"The News from North Korea" by @jamesjmarino.bsky.social, Winter Online Exclusive.

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