40th Anniversary Feature: THE SHADOW ROOM
By B.J. HOLLARS BWR Genre Editor, Nonfiction, 2008-2009 From the interior of The Shadow Room, I watch his shadow fade. Though not yet two, Henry understand the intricate process: how we tuck ourselves into the darkened room in the children’s museum, slap a...
40th Anniversary Feature: KING OF HEARTS, QUEEN OF SPADES — an excerpt from Hex
By SARAH BLACKMAN BWR Genre Editor, Fiction, 2005-2006 My father stared at me. You can imagine: his hands on either side of his plate, his chop growing gray as it leaked into the peas. We sat that way. Then my father lifted his fork and knife and cut a bite out...
40th Anniversary Feature: ROTHKO
By LOUIE SKIPPER BWR Guest Poetry Editor, 1978 I flew into San Francisco on the Monday night before 9/11, the unthinkable becoming that point where beginning has no choice but going on. Planes grounded, I spent days in front of Rothko, his great canvas...
Bankhead Reading This Thursday with Cole Swensen and Eric LeMay!
This Thursday, October 10th, the Bankhead Reading Series, presented by the University of Alabama English Department and Black Warrior Review, will kick off with Cole Swensen and Eric LeMay! This event will be in Smith Hall 205, not far from that giant basilosaurus...
40th Anniversary Feature: WE’LL BE ALIVE FOR MARS
By KATE LORENZ BWR Editor 2009-2010 Carla is on a dinner date, sitting across from a man her work friend has set her up with. This is an unusual scenario, since these days a person usually consults the internet to find a potential match. The internet algorithms...
40th Anniversary Feature: BLOOD
By LUCAS SOUTHWORTH BWR Genre Editor, Fiction, 2007-2008 In the weeks after the murder, the world is silent, motionless. Blood or the possibility of blood covers everything. It marks the white shirts hanging in the closet. It sinks into cracks on wood floors....
40th Anniversary Feature: SCARECROW, BLACK TULIP, THYME
By ARIANA-SOPHIA KARTSONI BWR Genre Editor, Fiction, 1997-1998 I have loved you as time searched for its wristwatch and several hours rushed over the hill or was it years while the loss cost us all. I meant to say the lost (or was it lust) cut us all. In any...
40th Anniversary Feature: Ligertown, VII. Case files: photograph of dog 5A in busted Toyota truck
By SUSAN GOSLEE BWR Genre Editor, Poetry, 1999-2000 As if for a military portrait, in profile, a perfect right triangle of a sit, the wolf-hybrid stares toward the back of the truck’s camper. His long, full tail wraps his side and snaps into place at his...
40th Anniversary Feature: NOT WATSON
By MICHAEL PETTIT BWR Editor 1981-1982 What is not Watson? Who? Isn't he you, imagining yourself Watson? Watson, Alexander Graham Bell said, come here, I want you. So the telephone was born, and telemarketers calling strangers at what they no doubt know is...
40th Anniversary Feature: THIS IS THE STORY OF HIS LIFE
By TJ BEITELMAN BWR Editor 2000-2001 This is the story of his life he drew up around himself: what catches his interest will not hold his interest. That part is a given. One man’s sneeze. Another man’s bow tie.——I just talked to Ellen I just talked to Ellen I...