Twice a year, I have the wonderful privilege of announcing the publication of the latest issue of The Whirlwind Review. For those of you who may not have seen or heard of the review, it is an online literary journal focusing on the relationships between writing and spirituality. Published twice yearly–in February and August–we have just begun our third year.
Each issue of The Whirlwind Review is an adventure for me. Every day brings luminous poetry and powerful prose into my inbox as submissions to the journal. I am in awe of the talent of the writers who entrust me with their work. Each year, I turn down hundreds of superb writers simply because of the need to keep the review to its traditional small size.
The review was begun with the idea of highlighting poetry, fiction, and creative nonfiction about writing and its connection to the Sacred. It was to focus on such topics as inspiration, the writing process, the challenges and bliss of the writing life, the power of poetry, and the many ways writing and spirituality intersect. Although earlier issues strayed somewhat from that original vision, I’ve moved the review back toward it. We publish work by authors who follow traditional religious paths, those whose paths are nontraditional, those who practice a loosely defined spirituality, those who are searching, and those who have accepted not-knowing as the Way.
“I pause before these words, / wondering what will come” writes poet Bruce Allen Chamberlin. Jean Colonomos writes, “The poem crouches / at the top of the stairs / jumps into my lap.” And John Davis writes about “Words the language wants to take back / in its arms.” Anna Cotton‘s “Note to Charlotte from Dear Reader” is a thank you letter to one of the world’s most renowned authors. Justine Johnston Hemmestad‘s “Writing as My Sacred Path” traces her recovery from a devastating brain injury and examines the healing role of writing in that journey, while Lyn Lifshin offers five poems about the courage of Malala Yousafzai, the Pakistani teenager who was shot by the Taliban for insisting on attending school.
These are just a handful of the remarkable works to be found in the new issue of The Whirlwind Review. If you love fine writing, if you want to support writers, if writing is your spiritual path, give it a look!