The Little Patuxent Review

The Little Patuxent Review Little Patuxent Review is a biannual print journal and associated blog featuring writers and artists

What’s the best book you read this week?
08/30/2026

What’s the best book you read this week?

Writers on Writing: “Art is not an escape, but a way of finding order in chaos, a way of confronting life.” Robert Hayde...
08/29/2026

Writers on Writing: “Art is not an escape, but a way of finding order in chaos, a way of confronting life.” Robert Hayden

LPR’s Poem of the Week: “Not Really”By Claire Rubin My mother was crazyembarrassed to bring friends homeher grimy hair, ...
08/28/2026

LPR’s Poem of the Week: “Not Really”
By Claire Rubin

My mother was crazy
embarrassed to bring friends home
her grimy hair, her stockings crumpled
around her ankles, as though
they had given up

Correction:
my mother had bipolar disorder
with wild mood swings
trapped between euphoria and despair
before the era of lithium and Seroquel

My mother was crazy
comatose in bed with empty bottles
and untouched coffee
us kids with wrinkled uniforms
walked alone to school

Correction:
my mother drank to blur
haunting memories of
bruises hidden under sweaters
despite summer’s scorch

Let me try again:
my mother was both brilliant
and broken
she painted her pain

On huge canvasses of
howling reds and oranges
cries of colored grief
I couldn’t hear

COMING UPSeptember 26Patapsco Literary Festival at Backwater Books in Ellicott City, The Author Next Door - We’ll be tal...
08/27/2026

COMING UP

September 26
Patapsco Literary Festival at Backwater Books in Ellicott City, The Author Next Door - We’ll be talking about the writer’s life with LPR’s fiction editor Lisa Lynn Biggar and poet Joseph Ross.

October 6
More Authors Next Door at the Hickory Ridge Village Center in Columbia – We’ll be talking with local writers: poet Alan King, romance novelist Rebecca Coleman, and biographer Jeffrey Boutwell.

October 15
Submission deadline for poetry, fiction, and creative nonfiction for our winter issue.

December 8
Still More Authors Next Door at the Hickory Ridge Village Center in Columbia – The usual Q&A format, local authors to be determined.

January 31, 2027.
LPR’s winter issue launch reading at the Carriage House in Columbia.

Writers on writing: “The act of writing is a kind of guerilla warfare; there is no vacation, no leave, no relief. In act...
08/27/2026

Writers on writing: “The act of writing is a kind of guerilla warfare; there is no vacation, no leave, no relief. In actuality there is very little chance of victory. You are, you fear, like that homeless man, likely to be defeated by your fondest dreams. But then the next day comes, and the words are waiting. You pick up where you left off, in the cool and shifting mists of morning.” Walter Mosley.

“My boots were the wrong kind. They were soft and crumpled at the ankle. Besides that, they had no heel and were awful s...
08/25/2026

“My boots were the wrong kind. They were soft and crumpled at the ankle. Besides that, they had no heel and were awful slippery on linoleum floors. I had picked them out for a dance at church. I remember, I slipped five times in the course of that hour—but I could spin better than anybody else. Five times around, my father counted.” From “Roll of Pennies,” a short story by Sophie Braxton in the 2026 summer edition of LPR.

If you support freedom of art and independence of thought, subscribe! Use this link to purchase the Little Patuxent Revi...
08/24/2026

If you support freedom of art and independence of thought, subscribe! Use this link to purchase the Little Patuxent Review 2026 winter issue: https://littlepatuxentreview.org/

What is at the top of your reading list?
08/23/2026

What is at the top of your reading list?

Writers on Writing: “I didn’t choose poetry; poetry chose me.” Philip Larkin
08/22/2026

Writers on Writing: “I didn’t choose poetry; poetry chose me.” Philip Larkin

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