Winter 2019
Volume 95, Number 4
Our Winter issue features an extraordinary photography project by Monika Bulaj, whose work explores how communities hold together, whether as a faith diaspora or minorities in their own country. Traces of this theme—of dissonance and distance—are found elsewhere in the issue: on Kafka’s disorienting artistic frustration while touring Europe; in a memoir framed within the Puerto Rican traditions of New York’s Washington Heights; in fiction that imagines the inner life of a classic poem’s narrator; and in poetry that depicts a southern city’s past and imagines its future.
Fall 2019
Bedtime Stories
Volume 95, Number 3
The Fall issue celebrates children’s literature, with tales for kids and grown-ups alike. In addition to a portfolio of picture-book short stories, the issue includes essays on how reading shapes the bond between a father and daughter, on rebellion, on navigating touchy subjects, and the complicated legacies of the genre’s giants.
Summer 2019
Volume 95, Number 2
The summer issue explores variations on the idea of freedom. Resisting the hand of an oppressive political regime, finding a sense of normalcy under surveillance, strengthening community through reunion, and even the stifling effects of too much freedom: These stories provoke questions about how we exercise our autonomy, about its limits, and the constraints upon it.
Spring 2019
Volume 95, Number 1
Our spring issue asks the question of how we fight, as individuals, communities, and nations: for survival, for radical change, for a sense of belonging, for a better world.
Winter 2018
Volume 94, Number 4
In our winter issue, we grapple with questions of community: why kinship doesn’t necessarily translate to citizenship, what it means to be healthy or at-risk among neighbors, and how we take care of one another in a world of inequality.
Fall 2018
Volume 94, Number 3
The fall issue wrestles with ideas of survival in America. From communal grief that follows school shootings to the fight for asylum, to lived experiences at the intersection of race and class, how do we navigate life after trauma, across borders, and within systems?
Summer 2018
Summer Fiction
Volume 94, Number 2
Spring 2018
Volume 94, Number 1
The spring issue showcases the idea of resilience, and what we invest in others: a young mother’s unwavering optimism as she seeks asylum in the US; a medical examiner turned deacon, whose answer to the opioid crisis is to minister to at-risk youth; artist Chris Russell’s detailed, democratic figure drawings of his fellow commuters on New York’s subways; and Leslie Jamison’s tour of Zagreb’s Museum of Broken Relationships.
Fall 2017
Volume 93, Number 4
The fall issue looks at ways of justice—the shape it takes, how people seek it out, and its shifting definitions: from blood feuds reaching back generations to the US Border Patrol’s alarmingly broad jurisdiction; from portraits of criminal-justice systems around the world to a dissection of originalism. At the heart of the issue are fundamental questions about what justice means to those on either side of it.
Summer 2017
Competitive Edges
Volume 93, Number 3
From the steroid-saturated Mr. Olympia competition in Las Vegas to the world’s most violent polo match in Kazakhstan, from the fraternity of a Brooklyn arcade to the politics of roller derby in Egypt, the summer issue of VQR looks at ways in which competition transcends just winning or losing—whether it’s through solidarity, equality, or a sense of who we are.
Spring 2017
Paths to Refuge
Volume 93, Number 2
A special project on Europe’s migration crisis, on both the perilous journey and life inside the destination. A story of assimilation, of the bureaucratic limbo, of strangers in a strange land settling into something more awkwardly, unexpectedly permanent.
Winter 2017
Ideas of North
Volume 93, Number 1
Variations on a theme—from the subarctic up to the heavens, across borders and off the grid. We begin in the north we expect and drift confidently elsewhere, exploring not just the idea of knowing where you are, or where you aren’t, but who else notices.
Fall 2016
Street Life
Volume 92, Number 4
For this issue, we assembled pieces that glean from the built environment, be it a capital or backwater, a suburb or pop-up village. The backdrops range from Los Angeles to Buenos Aires, from Miami to Colorado Springs. What links them are variations on the theme of civic engagement, as well as the idea that the public sphere contains its own imaginative force, born of agitation and a sense of order, imagination and goodwill. Altogether, the takeaway is as much about models for governing as where to find the sublime.
Summer 2016
Animals Real & Imagined
Volume 92, Number 3
Our summer issue explores a big, almost unwieldy question: How do we better understand ourselves through the animals around us? The question is a layered one, invested with themes of stewardship, responsibility, imagination, devotion, even citizenship.
This summer, on a weekly basis, we’ll be rolling out new content from a variety of genres—from reporting to poetry, fiction to photography. To keep up, we encourage you to sign up for VQR’s e-mail newsletter. Of course, if you prefer to dive into the entire issue at once, we’d love for you to subscribe.
Spring 2016
Volume 92, Number 2
- Abby Rabinowitz on the business of surrogacy in India
- Douglas Fox on charting the unseen waters of Antarctica
- Bronwen Dickey on pit bulls, devotion, and winning the Schutzhund
- Pia Z. Ehrhardt on moving Mother out of the house
- Juan Herrero on Rwanda’s opportunity culture
- Justin Nobel on pteropods, sentinels of the sea
- Emily Maloney on a health-care worker’s crushing medical debt
- Garrard Conley on surviving conversion therapy
- Karen Palmer on a manual for monsters
- Fiction by Pamela Erens, Kelli Jo Ford, Jon Hickey, and Stephen King
- Poetry by Natalie Bakopoulos, Paula Brancato, Cally Conan-Davies, Suji Kwock Kim,
- Yahia Lababidi, Michael Lind, Dave Lucas, Jennie Malboeuf, Yehoshua November
- Criticism by Michelle Orange, Lisa Russ Spaar, and Allison Wright
- Amateur Hour by Joshua Foer
- #VQRTrueStory by Rachel Cohen, Lili Loofbourow, Danica Novgorodoff, and Jeff Sharlet
- Notes to Self by Hannah Tinti
- Fine Distinctions by Gregory McNamee
Winter 2016
Volume 92, Number 1
- Jen Choi on a lifetime erased by fire
- Tracy O’Neill on single adoptive fathers
- Jason Florio on rescuing refugees at sea
- Elisabeth Donnelly on the evolving state of synchronized swimming
- Scott Korb on what’s good for you
- Suzanne Koven on medical memoirs
- Robert S. Brunk on shape-note singing
- Rowan Moore Gerety on comics as insurrection
- Claire Schwartz interviews Rita Dove
- Fiction by Rachel Farrell, Sara Majka, Chris Offutt, and Jamie Quatro
- Poetry by Susan Eisenberg, Dana Gioia, David Mason, Christina Olson, Chelsea Rathburn, Brian Turner, and Kevin Young
- Criticism by Josh Cook, Debra Nystrom, and Michelle Orange
- #VQRTrueStory by Lauren Markham and Meera Subramanian
- Amateur Hour by Jack Hitt
- Notes to Self by John Wray
- Fine Distinctions by Gregory McNamee
Fall 2015
Volume 91, Number 4
- Howard Axelrod on a transformative injury
- Gaurav Raj Telhan on medical school’s most gruesome rite of passage
- Amanda Giracca on falconry in America
- Jenna Krajeski on the political idealism of Syria’s Kurds
- Fiction Suite: Happy Families Are All Alike
- Works by Taylor Antrim, Richard Bausch, Ann Beattie, Elliott Holt, and Praveen Krishna
- Julia Cooke on art and activism at Havana’s Twelfth Biennial
- Dawn Whitmore photographs female bodybuilders
- Nadia Shira Cohen and Paulo Siqueira photograph Brazil’s endangered professions
- Poetry by David Lehman, Michael Shewmaker, and A. E. Stallings
- Criticism by Robert H. Brinkmeyer Jr., Pamela Erens, John Lingan, and S. Kirk Walsh
- Amateur Hour by Joshua Foer
- Talisman by Dani Shapiro
- Fine Distinctions by Gregory McNamee
Summer 2015
California and the Imagination
Volume 91, Number 3
- David L. Ulin on finding inspiration in the Golden State
- Peter Trachtenberg on the most famous tiger in Hollywood
- Gabriel Thompson on the new Joads
- Lili Loofbourow on the legacy of Chileans in California
- Duncan Murrell on one of the world’s biggest fireworks competitions
- Rosamond Purcell and Dennis Purcell on Pacific Coast Highway iPhonography
- Matt Black on the geography of poverty
- Tabitha Soren on baseball and Manifest Destiny
- Jon Christensen on artist Lauren Bon
- Ryan Bradley on radio host Art Laboe
- Carolyn Kellogg on political activist Jodie Evans
- Porochista Khakpour on the perils of New Age cures
- Camille T. Dungy on the returns of working motherhood
- Lawrence Ferlinghetti on traveling in the US and Mexico
- Theodore Gioia on San Franciscans’ gastronomic piety
- Matthew Dischinger talks with Percival Everett
- Fiction by Val Brelinski, Alex Espinoza, Todd James Pierce, Karolina Waclawiak, and Claire Vaye Watkins
- Poetry by Victoria Chang, Brendan Constantine, Dana Gioia, Douglas Kearney, Shirley Geok-lin Lim, Luis J. Rodriguez, Kay Ryan, and Tess Taylor
- Criticism by Robert H. Brinkmeyer Jr., Michelle Nijhuis, Debra Nystrom, and Rebecca Onion
- Amateur Hour by Jack Hitt
- Talisman by MariNaomi
- Mapping by Jenny Odell
- Fine Distinctions by Gregory McNamee
Spring 2015
Food In Our Time
Volume 91, Number 2
- Erik Vance on the perils of the shark trade
- Sierra Crane-Murdoch on working the sugar-beet harvest
- Colleen Kinder on Iceland’s rancid culinary celebration
- Jason Motlagh on Cuba’s ice-cream craze
- James Conaway on Napa Valley and the Jeffersonian ideal
- Lauren Markham on how chefs claim their creative turf on Instagram
- Jessica B. Harris on what historical postcards teach us about foodways
- Kevin Young on an unlikely civil-rights hero
- Bill McCullough on the American wedding
- Pamela Erens on eating and the pleasure of denial
- Siva Vaidhyanathan on authentic South Indian food
- Fiction by Sarah Frisch, Ross McMeekin, Andrew Malan Milward, and Deborah Willis
- Poetry by Michael Bazzett, F. Douglas Brown, Ansel Elkins, Brooks Haxton, Linda Pastan, Todd Portnowitz, Maggie Smith, and Crystal Williams
- Criticism by Scott Korb and James McWilliams
- Amateur Hour by Jack Hitt
- Talisman by Amy Bloom
- Mapping by Megan Suau
- Fine Distinctions by Gregory McNamee
Winter 2015
The Cold War, Center Stage
Volume 91, Number 1
- Alison Stine on a forgotten folk-music genius
- Dimiter Kenarov and Boryana Katsarova on a Russian-language theater in occupied Crimea
- Kwame Dawes and Andre Lambertson on confronting HIV/AIDS and shame in Jamaica
- Ricardo Nuila on health care for undocumented immigrants
- Preston Lauterbach on Beale Street’s influence on Faulkner’s Sanctuary
- Liesl Schillinger on her midwestern Soviet childhood
- Thomas Chatterton Williams on race and modern identity
- Ishion Hutchinson talks with Nobel Laureate Derek Walcott
- Fiction by Charles Baxter, Tiffany Briere, Aaron Gwyn, and Amanda Korman
- Poetry by Mark Conway, Alexa Mergen, David Petruzelli, Kim Roberts, Nicholas Samaras, and Lisa Russ Spaar
- Criticism by John Domini and William Giraldi
- Amateur Hour by Joshua Foer
- Talisman by Andre Dubus III
- Mapping by Haisam Hussein
- Fine Distinctions by Gregory McNamee
Fall 2014
Breaking Through
Volume 90, Number 4
- New Voices in Fiction
- Five Photographers to Watch
- Mark Edmundson on his paint-factory education
- Stephen Goodwin on a promising young writer’s rise and fall
- Philip Kennicott on the depiction of gay males in twentieth-century literature
- Dax-Devlon Ross on the role of race in jury selection in North Carolina
- Joshua Hersh on Syria’s forsaken refugee camp
- Roxane Gay on the price of black ambition
- Poetry by David Baker, F. Douglas Brown, Jehanne Dubrow, Jacques J. Rancourt, and Maggie Smith
- Criticism by Rebecca Onion, Cynthia Shearer, and Lisa Russ Spaar
Summer 2014
Volume 90, Number 3
- Chris Berdik on the future of Cambodia’s most vital waterway
- Lisa M. Hamilton on the Open Source Seed Initiative’s radical plan
- Esther Kaplan on a bitter truth about American manufacturing
- Rachel Kaadzi Ghansah on tangled multigenerational secrets
- Jesse Dukes on Civil War reenactors and Southern identity
- Fiction by Richard Bausch, Adam Boucher, and Josh Weil
- Poetry by Jill Bialosky, Chanda Feldman, John Freeman, T J Jarrett, and Brian Sneeden
Spring 2014
Volume 90, Number 2
- Jason Motlagh on the worst accident in the history of the garment industry, plus Atish Saha’s photographs of a Bangladesh factory disaster
- Leslie Jamison on female pain
- Lawrence Weschler on how artist Fred Tomaselli finds visual poetry in the news
- Carlene Bauer on the intersection of faith and fiction
- Gina LeVay on female matadors
- Fiction by Elizabeth Eshelman, Elizabeth McCracken, and Thomas Pierce
- Poetry by Rita Dove, Celia Dropkin, Kip Knott, Paul Legault, Amit Majmudar, and Joseph Voth
Winter 2014
Volume 90, Number 1
- The art and life of Gabriel Orozco, by Julia Cooke
- Poetry as a cultural force, by Natasha Tretheway
- A voice for women in India, by Meera Subramanian
- A troubling holiday tradition in the Netherlands, by Emily Raboteau
- Fiction by Steven Amsterdam, Chris Offutt, Lara Vapnyar and Paula Whyman
- Poetry by Peter Balakian, Stephen Burt, Katie Ford, Nathaniel Perry, Hayden Saunier, and Wendy Videlock
Fall 2013
Iconoclasts
Volume 89, Number 4
- Jeff Sharlet on Harry Belafonte’s unfinished fight
- Garret Keizer on the enduring power of Motown’s music
- Lawrence Weschler on David Hockney’s art in the shadow of mortality
- William Ferris and Eudora Welty on her life and writing
- Fiction by Lisa Cupolo, Colin Fleming, Allan Gurganus, Bret Anthony Johnston, and Maya Lang
- Poetry by Greg Alan Brownderville, David Caplan, Danielle Chapman, Rachel Hadas, Linda Pastan, and Kevin Young
Summer 2013
People & Place
Volume 89, Number 3
- Garret Keizer on loving his father-in-law
- Tess Taylor on being a Jefferson descendant
- Benjamin Rachlin on an iconoclastic beekeeper
- Audrey Niffenegger on becoming an artist
- Fiction by Ann Beattie, Brendan Mathews, Joyce Carol Oates, and Tyler Stiem
- Poetry by Sandra Beasley, Dexter L. Booth, Kevin Hart, Hailey Leithauser, and Tess Taylor
Spring 2013
The Business of Literature
Volume 89, Number 2
- Richard Nash on the publishing industry, technology, and future of the book
- A VQR roundtable with industry innovators on how writers can flourish in the digital age
- Kevin Young on the damaging impact of fake memoirs
- Julia Cooke on the fine line between friendship and journalism in Havana
Winter 2013
Classic Hollywood
Volume 89, Number 1
- Jesse Dukes on filmmaking in Tunisia from Star Wars through the Arab Spring
- Chip Hayes on his education on the set of Satan’s School for Girls
- Photo essays on the Hindi film industry, the architecture of John Lautner, and the lives of stunt doubles
- New fiction by Vsevolod Benigsen (translated by Reed Johnson), Manuel Gonzales, and N. M. Kelby
Fall 2012
The Female Conscience
Volume 88, Number 4
What does it mean to have a female conscience? Although it’s hard to put a finger on it, we recognize it in the people around us, and in the women featured in this issue.
- Marie Arana reports on a girl’s education in a mining town in the Peruvian Andes
- Judith Warner explores whether too much mothering is bad for us
- Sylvia A. Earle explores the world’s oceans and sea life
Summer 2012
Burma Exhales
Volume 88, Number 3
Aung San Suu Kyi and democracy may have pushed Burma from an isolated nation to a potential partner to the rest of the world. Original reporting and photojournalism offer insight into pro-democracy activists, rebel camps, and ruling generals.
Spring 2012
American Poetry
Volume 88, Number 2
Our special issue on American poetry, featuring:
- Walt Whitman in Washington, commemorating America’s poet during the Civil War, with essays by David Baker, Linda Gregerson, Stanley Plumly, and Ann Townsend—plus an unpublished letter by Walt Whitman
- The State of American Poetry: an examination of our splintered traditions
- William Logan on Elizabeth Bishop at summer camp
- David Caplan on hip-hop and the art of the rhymed insult
Winter 2012
The Horn's Dilemma
Volume 88, Number 1
The Horn’s Dilemma: Mogadishu, Hargeisa, Dadaab, Nairobi, & Arusha
- Jason Florio on facing Mogadishu
- Tom Sleigh on Somalian refugees in Nairobi
- Major Jackson’s poems on the Dadaab Refugee Camp
- Tyler Stiem on Somalia’s struggle toward a democratic future
- Elliott D. Woods on the Egyptian revolution
- Anthony Ham on the Libyan revolution
- Fiction by Daniel Alarcón and Ru Freeman
Fall 2011
The Soviet Ghost: Twenty Years After the Collapse
Volume 87, Number 4
- Maria P. Vassileva on Chernobyl’s resurrection
- Steve Featherstone on loose nukes in Ukraine
- Jason Motlagh on the Soviet hangover in Belarus
- Dimiter Kenarov on getting arrested by the KGB
- Fiction by Alan Heathcock, Kseniya Melnik, and Maggie Shipstead
Summer 2011
Troubled Waters
Volume 87, Number 3
Our Threatened Fisheries
- Donovan Webster on Iceland cod fishing
- Jesse Dukes on lobster fishing in Maine
- Bart DiFiore on the Atlantic bluefin tuna
- Ruxandra Guidi on rising sea levels
- Annie Murphy on the salmon farms of Patagonia
- Lawrence Weschler on Margaret Wertheim’s crocheted coral reefs
Spring 2011
Ruin & Rebirth
Volume 87, Number 2
• Elliott D. Woods on Cairo’s trash pickers
• Meera Subramanian on the collapse of India’s vulture population
• J. Malcolm Garcia on the aftereffects of the Balad burn pit
• Paul Reyes on Miami’s condo market
• Poetry by Kwame Dawes and Erika Meitner
• Fiction by Fabrizio Mejía Madrid and Benjamin Percy
Winter 2011
Emerging Photographers
Volume 87, Number 1
Featuring Christopher Capozziello, Maisie Crow, Kevin German, Andrea Gjestvang, Tim Hussin, Ian Nichols, Thomas P. Peschak, Joe Riis, Gabriele Stabile, Susan Worsham
Fall 2010
The Price of Paperless
Volume 86, Number 4
- Matthew Power on the lithium mines of Bolivia
- Delphine Schrank on an open-pit tin mine in the Congo
- Louie Palu on the hard rock mines of Canada
- J. Malcolm Garcia on the effects of lead mining in Kosovo
- Nathaniel Miller on the Berkeley Pit in Montana
- Fiction by Jennifer Haigh and Samanta Schweblin
- Poetry by Amy Beeder, Patrick Phillips, and Qin Xiaoyu
Summer 2010
Inside Iran
Volume 86, Number 3
• A Special Portfolio of Iranian Writers
• Anthony Ham on the town disappearing into the Sahara
• Kelly Hearn on Peru’s Tiananmen
• Matt Donovan on the Trinity nuclear bomb test
• Fiction by William Malatinsky
• Poetry by Adrienne Rich, William Kloefkorn, and Temple Cone
Spring 2010
Obama's Afghanistan
Volume 86, Number 2
• J. Malcolm Garcia on the Afghan elections
• Neil Shea on the war in winter
• Joe Sacco on North African refugees in Malta
• Chris Hondros on the earthquake in Haiti
• Dimiter Kenarov on Camp Bondsteel in Kosovo
• Fiction by Paul Theroux
• Poetry by Albert Goldbarth, C.K. Williams, and Ricardo Pau-Llosa
Winter 2010
Special Issue: North Africa
Volume 86, Number 1
• Joe Sacco on North African refugees in Malta
• Anthony Ham on the vanishing elephants of Mali
• Jori Lewis on attempts to save Senegal’s threatened fisheries
• Eric Calderwood on the blind plumber of Tetouan in Morocco
• Dana Romanoff on the wives of God in Ghana
• Nicholas Schmidle on Somali suicide bombers from Minneapolis
• Fiction by Leila Aboulela, Helon Habila, and Nadifa Mohamed