Barely South Review began as The Dominion Review, an annual student literary journal housed at Old Dominion University in 1983. Following the creation of ODU’s graduate program in Creative Writing in 1994, The Dominion Review became a national journal of literature and the arts that throughout its illustrious run published writers such as Sue William Silverman, Diane Williams, Mark Cox, David Kirby, Carolyn Kreiter-Foronda, Vivian Shipley, Kelly Cherry, Bryan D. Dietrich, and Billy Collins, among others. In 2008, the journal relaunched under the name Barely South Review as an online biannual publication staffed by students of the MFA program with issues every Fall and Spring, as well as a Winter craft-themed interviews issue. Today, BSR continues to featuring innovative new voices alongside well-established writers, and recent writing from the journal has been included in the Best American Series.

2016-2017 Reading and Editorial Collective:

Managing Editor: Emily Howell

Fiction Editors: Tyler Beckett, Dexter Gore, Christina Marable

Fiction Readers:  Ethan Ross, Jackie Mohan, Mac Adams, Will Yarbrough, Emmy Moore

Poetry Editors: Amanda Hyunh, Amanda Gomez, Greg Chandler

Poetry Readers:  Sarah McCall,  Joshua McGarry, Abigail Brunt, Nishat Ahmed

Nonfiction Editors: Emily Howell, Lin Kaatz Chary

Nonfiction Readers: Greg Larson, Tarin Kovalik

Editorial Advisory Board: Luisa A. Igloria, John McManus, Michael Pearson, Janet Peery, Sheri Reynolds, Tim Seibles

Barely South Review Logo: Josephine A. Carino

Managing Editor

Emily Howell is a writer, photographer, traveller and sushi connoisseur. She has a BA in Photography from Columbia College Chicago and is currently an MFA candidate in Creative Nonfiction at Old Dominion University.

Poetry Editors 

Amanda Huynh is a native Houstonian living in Virginia. She was a finalist for the 2015 Gloria Anzaldúa Poetry Prize. Her work is published or forthcoming in the following journals: Huizache, The Healing Muse, Tinderbox Poetry Journal, The Acentos Review, and As/Us: Women of the World.

Amanda Gomez is an MFA candidate in poetry at Old Dominion University. Recently, she received Honorable Mention for ODU’s 2016 Graduate Poetry Prize for her poem, “Mastectomy.” Some of her works have been published or are forthcoming in the following publications: Eunoia Review, Ekphrastic Review, Manchester Review, Expound Magazine, San Pedro River Review, and Avalon Literary Review.

Gregory Chandler is a second year MFA student at Old Dominion University with a concentration in poetry. He has previously worked on The Rappahannock Review, a national literary journal run by the English department at The University of Mary Washington.

Fiction Editors

Tyler Beckett is a guy from Georgia trying to unpack what all that means. He has work at Guernica and fiction forthcoming at Dogzplot and Matchbook.

Dexter Benjamin Gore is a native to Aynor, South Carolina, but has spent the past two years working on his MFA in Creative Writing at Old Dominion University in Norfolk, Virginia. His work has been published in Deep South Magazine, Inklette, Lavender Bluegrass: LGBT Writers on the South, The Dead Mule School of Southern Literature, Archarios, and Tempo. When he’s not reading or writing, he plays League of Legends and Dark Souls with his partner under the screen name TheRavenMocker.

Christina Marable is a second year fiction candidate at ODU’s Creative Writing program. She lives in Virginia.

Nonfiction Editor

Lin Kaatz Chary was a Perry Morgan Fellow in the Creative Writing Program at ODU in Creative Non-Fiction and she also writes poetry. She is the winner of the 2016 ODU College Ruhi Dayanim Poetry Prize. Her work has been published online at Briller Magazine and she writes regularly for the The Body Is Not an Apology. Lin is a non-fiction editor for FourTies Literary Journal.

Poetry Readers

Sarah McCall is a poet and teacher and native of Norfolk, VA, where she lives with her husband and their two dogs. Recently she organized Writers Resist in Norfolk, part of a national movement to promote social awareness and “re-inaugurate” democracy through art. Her writing has been featured in Fields Magazine, Whurk, HEArt Online, and many other journals. She will complete her MFA at Old Dominion University this year.

Joshua McGarry hails from Wetzlar, Germany, and now lives in Norfolk where he studies poetry and collects music. He has most recently been published in the Ekphrastic Review.

Abby Brunt is an MFA candidate in Poetry at Old Dominion University in Norfolk, Virginia.   Her favorite poetry often incorporates lyrical and formal stylistic elements, but she can also appreciate zany thought provoking experimentalism.  She has a deep love of art and ekphrasis.  She works as a certified massage therapist and has been practicing for seven years.  When not writing and reading, Abby enjoys cooking, spending time at the ocean and traveling to places she’s never been before.  In everything, she is motivated by her desire to experience the world broadly and to question it deeply.

Nishat Ahmed is currently a first year MFA Poetry Candidate at Old Dominion University and the author of the poetry collection “Ghosts In Bloom.” When he’s not listening to music of the pop punk persuasion and consuming copious amounts of Chipotle, he enjoys biking through town meeting new people to give him inspiration, and also to make fun of.

Fiction Readers

Ethan Forrest Ross grew up in Michigan and now lives in Virginia.

Jackie Mohan is a South Carolina native who graduated from the University of South Carolina before coming to ODU.  One of the literary journals she most admires is Glimmer Train.

James Adams is a second-year Graduate student of ODU’s Creative Writing Program, hailing from Florida with a focus on Fiction.

Will Yarbrough is a native Southerner who grew up to be a Yankee. His short fiction has appeared in Smokelong Quarterly, Literary Orphans, and other journals. He lives in Virginia.

Emmy Moore prefers lime to lemon, comedy to tragedy, whiskey to gin*, and imagination to reality. Her short stories have been published in Deep South Magazine and Inklight Journal. She is currently working towards an MFA in Creative Writing in Norfolk, VA.

*Gin tickles her nose, but she’ll drink it if you buy it for her.

Nonfiction Readers

Greg Larson is a third-year MFA candidate in Nonfiction at ODU. He is an avid baseball fan and he prefers taking the stairs to the elevator. His work has appeared in Belle Reve Literary Journal, BlazeVOX, Moonsick Magazine, On the Veranda Literary Journal, Page & Spine, Proximity Magazine, Ruminate Magazine, Switchback, and others.

Tarin Kovalik is an MFA candidate at Old Dominion University. Her writing has appeared on her mother’s Facebook page and in her sister’s spam folder. She is passionate about coffee, fried chicken, and beer, in that order. Tarin is testing the waters of adulthood and finding that she is not yet ready to swim, and a proper biography will come when this bitch is ready to be proper.