THANK YOU FOR 50 YEARS!

From October 1-November 11, BWR is running a crowdfunding campaign with the aim of reaching $5000. Learn more about our project and follow us @blackwarriorrev for more information!

Black Warrior Review – as you might know, is the oldest literary publication continually operated by graduate students in the United States.

. This year is our 50^th Anniversary as a literary magazine! Since 1974, BWR has published two print issues a year, and in 2018, we added our annual online issue, Boyfriend Village. Our pages contain fiction, nonfiction, poetry, comics, and art. Our contributors have won Pulitzers, Pushcarts, National Book Awards, features in anthologies, and countless other accolades – many with BWR at or near the beginning of their journey. As stewards of this journal and everything it has meant over the years, we want this platform to continue serving the literary community for another half-century, and as someone who has enriched our pages, we imagine you do, too.

Named for the river that borders the campus of The University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa, Black Warrior Review centers and supports human beings and aesthetics historically marginalized in literary publishing. We believe BWR’s legacy of platforming risk-taking, underrepresented, and international writers, as well as publishing both emerging and established writers alongside each other, is particularly important as an institution based in the South.

At BWR, we publish our two annual issues in print. We find it imperative to continue publishing our magazine in print, and we think of this tangible magazine as an art-object, a snapshot of the sociopolitical and artistic consciousness of our contributors, year by year, issue by issue. From featured artists to fiction, poetry, and nonfiction, to comics, these issues capture a cultural heartbeat in your hands. With the addition of our Boyfriend Village online issues, named in honor of former Editor Zach Doss, we have increased accessibility to our publishing and continued to carry the voices of BWR to the internet. Offering both of these forms of publication is core to the magazine we want to be, and we’re exploring new options to make more of our archive available online. Being a non-profit magazine run by graduate students for almost fifty years without an endowment means some of our initiatives are threatened by the financial constraints of publication; print costs are only increasing. Still, we are committed to producing issues worth keeping long after their debut year has gone, just as your contribution to our pages remains preserved in our archive.

In honor of Zach’s bold vision and legacy, Boyfriend Village seeks to be a fully accessible space for unusual, boundary-pushing literary content, especially work from the margins, work that makes exciting use of digital platforms, and work that other well-established journals might overlook. We hope that with the increased online presence Boyfriend Village allows, we might provide a larger platform for underrepresented aesthetics and writing communities. Every issue of Boyfriend Village has a new Online Editor, who selects a new theme and keeps the village refreshed and moving forward, even as it honors a vital part of BWR history. Past issues include Secret Boyfriend, Ugly Boyfriend, Double Negative Boyfriend, Short Boyfriend, and more. As BWR continues to evolve, we continue to invest in both our online and print platforms. By donating to BWR, you ensure that Boyfriend Village continues far into the future, constantly evolving as a means of bringing BWR to more readers.

To that end, we are asking for your support. To celebrate our 50^th Anniversary milestone and support these initiatives, we are running a crowdfunding campaign to reach our goal of $5000. Of course donations are welcome, but that isn’t the only way to help. Follow our socials @BlackWarriorRev. Purchase our issues, tell your friends. Read features, interviews, and Boyfriend Village. We’re proud of you, our contributors, and we want your work seen!  If you are interested in donating, any gifts of $50 or more entitle you to a full year’s subscription (already a $25 value) and your name as a Friend or Guarantor in the fiftieth-anniversary 50.2 issue of BWR. 

The Editors