[GREENVILLE, NC]
The North Carolina Literary Review is proud to announce the publication of its thirty-fifth print issue. Our 2026 issue features “Military Writing in North Carolina,” focusing on literature that discusses war, veterans, refugees, and more. This feature is for both civilian readers as well as military ones. Froula says in her interview with Michael Ramos, “In Veteran to Scholar, I’m trying to place my veterans in a space where they understand they’re not alone across history. . . . Everything they understand, everything they experience is the universal emotions of war rather than something that’s unique to them.”
Critically-acclaimed authors Leah Hampton and Paul Crenshew and former NC state poet laureate Joseph Bathanti contributed essays to our feature section. Prize-winning content by and about military writing is by Jessica Cory (Ehle Prize), Laura Cruser (Betts Fiction Prize), and Morrow Dowdle (Barrax/Bayes Poetry Prize), as well as honoree Elisabeth Lewis Corley (Applewhite Poetry Prize). These written works are complemented by art created by North Carolina military veterans, including Michael White, who contributed both a poem and the artwork to go with it.
Military writers talking about writing also factors prominently in the feature section. Tracy Crow, MilSpeak CEO and creative nonfiction author, was interviewed by former NCLR intern Alyssa Froemel. Guest feature editor Anna Froula conducted two interviews: one with The After: A Veteran’s Notes on Coming Home author Michael Ramos and a panel discussion with LeJuane “El’Ja” Bowens, Mariah Smith, and Russell Worth Parker. Kimberly Towers-Kubrick pens an essay about how writing a short story was how she processed her father’s untold war stories: ““The Gift” was my first attempt at writing fiction, and I was on shaky ground, unsure if I could do it justice. The problem was, I had no choice.”
In the Flashbacks section, the content revisits “some of our most popular past feature themes: Appalachian (2010), Environmental (2011), African American (2019), Expatriate North Carolina Writers (2020), and LGBTQ+ (2025) Literature of North Carolina,” writes Editor Margaret Bauer in her introduction. With 35 features and counting, this section sees more and more entries every issue. NC authors in this section are Brenda C. Wilson (Jacobs/Jones African American Literary Prize), Karen Sherk Chio (James Applewhite Poetry Prize), Julian Anderson, Theresa Dowell Blackinton, Wayne Caldwell, Wilma Dykeman, John Ehle, Ben Fountain, Roxanne Henderson, Robert Morgan, and Terry Roberts.
“Our mission, as readers familiar with NCLR know, is to preserve and promote the state’s rich literary history, including its history in the making like the debut novels of North Carolina writers Mimi Herman and Sharon Kurtzman,” writes Editor Bauer to open our NC Miscellany section. Bauer conducted the interview with Herman, focusing on her novel The Kudzu Queen. Herman details the decades it took to get her book published, and the strenuous process of working on it until “a miracle happened.” Four-time interviewer Sheryl Cornett introduces Sharon Kurtzman in the second interview, in which the two explore Kurtzman’s novel The Lost Baker of Vienna, a narrative focused on her own family’s World War II and Holocaust stories.
Subscribers and members of the NC Literary & Historical Association will automatically receive this issue this summer. Subscription prices will increase next year, so subscribe for two years at this year’s price to receive both our 35th issue as well as our 36th in 2027. Individual issues are currently only $20.
Produced since 1992 at East Carolina University, North Carolina Literary Review has the mission to preserve and promote North Carolina’s rich literary culture. NCLR introduces new and emerging writers; reintroduces forgotten authors; showcases work in literary criticism, interviews, book reviews, fiction, creative nonfiction, and poetry; and reports on the state’s literary news. The featured artwork is by exclusively North Carolina artists. NCLR’s award-winning journal is published by the University of North Carolina Press and is supported by ECU, North Carolina Arts Council, the North Carolina Literary & Historical Association, and the Friends of NCLR.
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