WEBER—THE CONTEMPORARY WEST

 

AN INTERNATIONAL, PEER-REVIEWED JOURNAL SPOTLIGHTING PERSONAL NARRATIVE, COMMENTARY, FICTION, NONFICTION, AND POETRY THAT SPEAKS TO THE ENVIRONMENT AND CULTURE OF THE AMERICAN WEST AND BEYOND.

 

       


CURRENT ISSUE

VOL. 40, NO. 2 

(Spring/Summer 2024)

CONTENTS

Conversation
Charlie Vasquez, Laura Stott, and Sunni Brown Wilkinson, with Louise Glück; Álvaro La Parra-Pérez with Ran Abramitzky; Bailey Quinn and Abraham Smith with Sandra Simonds; Doug Fabrizio with Nikole Hannah-Jones; Heather Root with Nalini Nadkarni; Kathryn Lindquist with Jeremy Farner and Julie Rich; Venessa Castagnoli with Tamara Kostianovsky

Art by William Grill

Essay

Melora Wolff, Michelle Effle, C.R. Beideman, Kevin Maier, David Tippetts

Fiction
Terry Sanville, Michael McGuire

Poetry
Lex Runciman, Doug Barrett, William Snyder, Jim Tilley

                                                   

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“What obsession means is that the thing won’t relinquish you—an idea, a kind of language, oftentimes it’s a tone. And if it does relinquish you, then you can prop it up. You’ve gotten what you can from it. If you keep brooding about it, thinking about it, playing with it, toying with it, then it is doing the work for you. All you’re doing is succumbing. And when I say succumbing, you succumb with a certain kind of savvy as you write for many years. You will know when you have a fish on the line, but every fish is finite, the obsessions end.”

—Louise Glück, Weber—The Contemporary West, 2024


FEATURED

COMMENTARY:

READING THE WEST Spring/Summer 2024

One of the most invasive plant species in Utah is Phragmites australis. It has taken over much of the wetlands along the Wasatch Front. Phragmites was introduced from Europe over a century ago and is now found in all fifty states and on every continent except Antarctica.
 

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CONVERSATION:

Venessa Castagnoli with Tamara Kostianovsky

"In the winter of 2023, Ogden Contemporary Arts presented an exhibit by globally recognized textile artist Tamara Kostianovsky. Mesmerizing Flesh centered around a kinetic installation featuring the artist’s life-size animal carcass sculptures. 

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EDITORIAL BOARD

Phyllis Barber, author
Katharine Coles, University of Utah
Diana Joseph, Minnesota State University
Nancy Kline, author & translator
Delia Konzett, University of New Hampshire
Kathryn Lindquist, Weber State University
Fred Marchant, Suffolk University
Madonne Miner, Weber State University
Felicia Mitchell, Emory & Henry College
Julie Nichols, Utah Valley University
Tara Powell, University of South Carolina
Bill Ransom, Evergreen State College
Walter L. Reed, Emory University
Scott P. Sanders, University of New Mexico
Kerstin Schmidt, Universität Eichstätt-Ingolstadt
Daniel R. Schwarz, Cornell University
Andreas Ströhl, Goethe-Institut Johannesburg, South Africa
James Thomas, author
Robert Hodgson Van Wagoner, author
Melora Wolff, Skidmore College

EDITOR

Michael Wutz / mwutz@weber.edu

MANAGING EDITOR

Kristin Jackson / kristinjackson@weber.edu

 


An international, peer-reviewed journal spotlighting

personal narrative, commentary, fiction, nonfiction, and poetry

that speaks to the environment and culture of the American West and beyond.