Why You Should Send Us Your Best Work
- Because we read submissions carefully and thoughtfully. Readers for all genres are faculty members in addition to MFA candidates enrolled in a publishing practicum under the guidance of Peter Oresick, who has spent 23 years in the publishing industry. Each submission to The Fourth River is read multiple times by at least two different readers, and editors regularly read stories from slush and rejection piles to ensure submissions aren’t overlooked.
Because writers published in The Fourth River are in good company. Our past or upcoming issues feature stories, poems and essays by Michael Byers, Ander Monson, W.E. Butts, Rick Campbell, and Lori Jakiela. Contributors to The Fourth River have received Pushcart Prizes, NEA Fellowships, and numerous other awards. Our contributors have published in Birmingham Poetry Review, Glimmer Train, Alaska Quarterly Review, Witness, and The Missouri Review; they have been anthologized in Best American Short Stories, The O. Henry Prize Stories, and Best American Travel Writing. We also encourage unpublished or emerging writers to submit—there is perhaps no greater badge of honor for an editor than to claim, “We first published ________ right before his/her career rocketed into the literary stratosphere.”
The Fourth River’s theme, an extension of Chatham University’s MFA Program, is writing that “explores the relationship between humans and their environments, both natural and built, urban, rural or wild.” This unique theme is a wide net that attracts a variety of different voices and viewpoints. Consider these three writers from Issue 6’s contributors’ notes: Astrid Cabral, “a leading poet and environmentalist from the Amazonian region of Brazil”; Derek G. Handley, who “served 10 years, 10 months, and 6 days in the United States Navy as an aviator and public affairs officer”; and Laila al-Atrash, “A TV producer and news editor, she writes a regular column for the Jordanian daily Al-Dustour…Al-Atrash holds degrees in Law and Arabic Literature.” Other writers featured in that issue include a soccer coach from New Jersey, a former merchant seaman, and a Brazilian songwriter.
Our staff consists of artists and professionals. Our editors have work published or forthcoming in The Kenyon Review, Bellevue Literary Review, The Gay & Lesbian Review, Literary Review, Connecticut Review and Iowa Review. The Fourth River’s editors have received fellowships from the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts, the Raymond Carver Short Story Award, and a Pushcart Prize nomination. Poetry editor Heather McNaugher and Editor-in-Chief Peter Oresick have published several chapbooks—at least eight between the two of them. Executive Editor Sheryl St. Germain has published six books of poetry and one book of lyric essays.
We’re a print journal. Which, of course, doesn’t make us better than online journals, but we like the fact that our contributors’ work appears in a pleasant eco-friendly book that, between readings, will grace perhaps thousands of bookshelves and coffee tables. Chatham’s MFA Program is rising, and with it, we know The Fourth River will continue to grow in prominence and circulation.
As editors, there is no greater thrill than discovering a piece that quickens the pulse, that challenges us, that changes the way we view our surroundings. Just like you, we work hard at this, and we look forward to reading your best work.
Submission Guidelines
The Fourth River accepts unpublished poetry, literary short fiction, and creative nonfiction. Please send up to seven poems or up to 7,000 words of prose.
- Reading Period: September 1 – February 15.
- Postal submissions only. Email submissions are deleted unread.
- Include a cover letter with contact info along with the title and genre of the submission. We accept simultaneous submissions if indicated on the cover letter; please let us know immediately if a piece is accepted elsewhere.
- All manuscripts must include a SASE (for response only). We recycle all manuscripts we receive; please do not send your only copy.
- We don’t publish writing for children or Young Adult audiences.
Submission Address
(Poetry, Fiction, Nonfiction) Editor
The Fourth River
Chatham University
Woodland Road
Pittsburgh, PA 15232Contact Us
For more information, contact us at 4thriver[at]gmail[dot]com.
Accepted authors receive two contributor's copies of the journal.