Shenandoah

ABOUT

Founded in 1950 at Washington and Lee University, Shenandoah is one of the longest-running American literary magazines, historically associated with editors including Tom Carter, James Boatwright, and Lamar York before its shift to a fully online format in 2011 under R.T. Smith, who edited the magazine for over two decades. It publishes poetry, fiction, nonfiction, comics, and visual art, and has built a reputation for pairing strong regional Appalachian and Southern roots with a broadly national and international contributor list. The magazine also administers several named prizes, including the Graybeal-Gowen Prize for Virginia Poets, and regularly features guest-edited folios and artist interviews alongside its standard content.

Submissions are handled through the magazine's own online portal (linked from the site's Submissions page) and the magazine reads during set windows rather than year-round; poets should check the current call before sending work. Shenandoah pays contributors, with a standing rate of $100 per poem reported historically, though the current site does not restate exact figures, so writers should confirm rates at submission time. Issues now appear twice yearly online (the site currently features 'Volume 75, Number 2'), each built around a mix of solicited and open-submission work, guest-edited special sections, and an active companion blog, 'The Peak,' that runs interviews and craft essays between issues.