Alaska Quarterly Review

03/26/2026

We note with great sadness the passing of Tracy Kidder, a Pulitzer Prize–winning writer (The Soul of a New Machine) whose work we have long held in the highest esteem. His deep belief in narrative enabled him to reveal the essence of human character, engaging, inspiring, and informing across a wide range of issues. At their core, as The New York Times wrote, were “deeply reported books that often focused on heroic goodness in people.” An excerpt from AQR’s interview with Tracy, “To Catch the Reflection of Human Character,” is reprinted here in his memory.

Be inspired by writers and poets. “It remains one of our best, and most imaginative, literary magazines.”-Michael Dirda, The New York Review of Books About the cover and photographer: A Great Gray Owl at Lake Hood in Anchorage, Alaska. © 2026 Erik Hill Current IssueVol. 42, No. 1 & 2Winter/Spri...

03/13/2026

AQR’s Winter & Spring 2026 edition brings together 10 short stories, 4 narrative essays, and poems by 19 poets. Be inspired by the work of our writers and poets. Now available at select local bookstores and at aqreview.org, where both print and digital editions are available. Cover photo by Erik Hill.

02/03/2026

We are saddened to share news of James Sallis’s passing. A prolific American writer and poet, his fiction and poems appeared widely, including in our pages. One poem, HOW ALL STORIES END, published twenty-five years ago in AQR, feels as compelling now as it did then. We post it here in his memory.

09/07/2025

AQR’s 2025 summer and fall edition features a brilliant novella by Gregory Blake Smith, 5 powerful short stories, 3 moving narrative essays, and a stunning collection of poems by 22 poets. Special thanks to photographer Erik Hill for his Alaska carrots! This exceptional issue is now available at select bookstore and directly from AQR [aqreview.org].

Be inspired by writers and poets. “It remains one of our best, and most imaginative, literary magazines.”-Michael Dirda, The New York Review of Books About the cover and photographer: A garden in Anchorage yielded carrots of many shapes. © 2025 Erik Hill Current IssueVol. 41, No. 3 & 4Summer/Fa...

05/13/2025

Be inspired by AQR's writers and poets: Winter & Spring issue 2025 -- A novella, 6 stories, 5 narrative essays, and a collection of poems by 26 poets. Check it out on our website [aqreview.org] or at your local bookstore.
Cover photo by Marion Owen.

02/02/2025

https://alaskapublic.org/programs/state-of-art/2025-01-31/looking-back-at-the-early-days-of-alaska-quarterly-review-state-of-art

With gratitude to Alaska Public Media for their appreciative attention to Alaska Quarterly Review and its editor. Click to listen to the feature.

The publication was co-founded by Ronald Spatz in 1980 and has become one of the nation's most highly regarded literary magazines.

10/26/2024

Ada Zhang reads her short story “Knowing” from her collection, The Sorrows of Others, on AQR's YouTube channel: https://youtu.be/vNFOM81SsmI

Ada Zhang is the author of the short story collection The Sorrows of Others published by A Public Space Books in 2023. The collection centers around themes of loss, loneliness, grief, and joy in characters from the Chinese-American immigrant experience. In its starred review of the collection, BOOKLIST wrote: "Writers with virtually perfect debuts are certainly rare; Zhang joins that short list with a magnificent ten-story collection filled with lost souls aching for connection on both sides of the world."

In addition to ALASKA QUARTERLY REVIEW, Ada’s short stories have appeared in A Public Space, McSweeney’s, American Short Fiction, and elsewhere. She is a 2023 National Book Foundation 5 Under 35 honoree and a 2024 Whiting Award recipient. In announcing its award, Whiting Foundation wrote that Ada’s “graceful, crystalline stories explore the paradox that historical silences and legacies of the past—in particular, the impact of the Cultural Revolution on Chinese Americans—can lead to new openings and new voices.”

10/14/2024

from POETRY DAIILY
Read Sara Eliza Johnson's poem "At the End, There is Always a House.

from Alaska Quarterly Review

10/12/2024

10.19.24 FREEDOM TO READ DAY OF ACTION
Books Unite, Bans Divide

10/11/2024

ERIN COUGHLIN HOLLOWELL Reads New Poems
Watch: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ExoMZV719ac

Erin Coughlin Hollowell is the author of the poetry collections Pause, Traveler (2013) and Every Atom (2018), both published by Boreal Books, and Corvus and Crater published by Salmon Poetry in 2023. Her work was featured in an exhibit at the Anchorage Museum entitled Water Stories: Visual Poetics and Collective Voices by artist Andrea Wollensak. In addition to Alaska QUARTERLY REVIEW she have appeared in Poetry Ireland Review, Orion Magazine, Terrain.org, Prairie Schooner, and featured on the Academy of American Poets Poem-A-Day website. Hollowell’s poetry has been recognized by awards from the Rasmuson Foundation, a Connie Boochever Award, and an Alaska Literary Award. She directs the Storyknife Writers Retreat and the Kachemak Bay Writers’ Conference. Of her poetry, Luis Alberto Urrea said this: “There comes a moment in every Erin Coughlin Hollowell poem when the heart threatens to burst open and spill light.”

Erin Coughlin Hollowell is the author of the poetry collections Pause, Traveler (2013) and Every Atom (2018), both published by Boreal Books, and Corvus and ...

09/16/2024

Kim Addonizio POETRY READING
Premiere on September 21, 2024
LINK WORKS ON AT 12AM and thereafter but not before.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nclT6RatwrI

Kim Addonizio is the author of over a dozen books of poetry and prose. Her memoir-in-essays, Bukowski in a Sundress, was published by Penguin. Exit Opera (poems) was published by W.W. Norton in 2024. Her work has been honored with fellowships from the NEA and Guggenheim Foundation, and her work has been translated into several languages. Her poetry collection Tell Me was a finalist for the National Book Award. She lives in Oakland, CA and teaches poetry workshops on Zoom. https://www.kimaddonizio.com/