The New Mexico Review

The New Mexico Review
Title	The New Mexico Review
Editor	[See section]
Discipline	Literary magazine
Language	English
Publisher	[Independent press]
Country	United States
Frequency	Biannual
Firstdate	1980s
Issn	[varies]

The New Mexico Review is a regional literary magazine based in New Mexico that publishes fiction, poetry, essays, and reviews. Founded in the late 20th century, it has served as a venue for emerging and established writers drawn to the cultural landscapes of Albuquerque, Santa Fe, Las Cruces, and Taos. The magazine has connections to university programs, independent presses, and arts organizations across the American Southwest and has featured contributors associated with national institutions and awards.

History

The magazine emerged in the 1980s amid a flowering of regional journals linked to institutions like the University of New Mexico, New Mexico State University, and arts organizations such as the Santa Fe Opera and the National Endowment for the Arts. Early issues showcased work by writers connected to the American Southwest Writers Conference, the New Mexico Book Awards, and critics from publications like The New Yorker, The Paris Review, and The Atlantic. Editorial boards over time included faculty and affiliates of Navajo Nation, Pueblo peoples, and scholars from centers such as the Center for Southwest Research and the Institute of American Indian Arts. The Review's archive reflects dialogues with figures associated with the Pulitzer Prize, National Book Award, MacArthur Fellows Program, and regional prizes like the Willa Cather Prize. Organizational changes paralleled shifts at presses including University of Arizona Press, University of New Mexico Press, and independent houses like Graywolf Press and Copper Canyon Press.

Editorial Mission and Content

The editorial mission emphasizes literary craft and regional resonance while engaging national and international conversations evident in journals such as Granta, Poetry, and Tin House. Content spans contributions from poets with ties to the Academy of American Poets, novelists connected to the Pen/Faulkner Foundation, essayists who have written for Harper's Magazine and The New York Times Book Review, and translators familiar with presses like Farrar, Straus and Giroux and Norton. The Review commissions reviews of works published by imprints including Penguin Random House, Simon & Schuster, and university presses, and it has run themed issues reflecting topics associated with events such as the Santa Fe Indian Market, the Albuquerque International Balloon Fiesta, and debates around land related to the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo. Editorial standards align with guidelines from organizations such as the Council of Literary Magazines and Presses and the Modern Language Association.

Notable Contributors and Works

Notable contributors have included writers associated with the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, National Book Critics Circle, Man Booker Prize, and the Nobel Prize in Literature. The Review has published work by authors whose careers intersect with figures like Sandra Cisneros, Louise Erdrich, Tony Hillerman, Joy Harjo, Leslie Marmon Silko, Robert Frost, W.S. Merwin, Seamus Heaney, Toni Morrison, Salman Rushdie, Alice Walker, Annie Proulx, Cormac McCarthy, Stephen King, Raymond Carver, John Updike, Philip Levine, Diane Wakoski, Lucille Clifton, Elizabeth Bishop, Wallace Stevens, E. L. Doctorow, Don DeLillo, George Saunders, Jhumpa Lahiri, Kazuo Ishiguro, Joyce Carol Oates, Richard Blanco, Ada Limón, Natasha Trethewey, Rita Dove, Billy Collins, Margaret Atwood, Gabriel García Márquez, Roberto Bolaño, Octavio Paz, Chinua Achebe, Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o, Isabel Allende, Rudolfo Anaya, Leslie Silko, Sherman Alexie, Luis Alberto Urrea, Luis Valdez, Ana Castillo, Julia Alvarez, Sandra Scofield, Brad Watson, Barbara Kingsolver, Linda Hogan, N. Scott Momaday — among others. The journal has also run early or exclusive pieces later anthologized in collections tied to the Best American Short Stories and Best American Poetry series as well as selections reprinted by presses including Vintage Books and FSG Originals.

Awards and Recognition

The magazine and its contributors have been recognized through nominations and awards linked to the Pushcart Prize, the O. Henry Award, the PEN/Hemingway Award, the Whiting Awards, and the Jefferson Lecture milieu. Editors and contributors have received fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation, the National Endowment for the Humanities, the MacArthur Foundation, and residencies at institutions like the MacDowell Colony, Yaddo, and the Blue Mountain Center. Individual pieces previously published in the Review have been shortlisted for the Pulitzer Prize, cited in the Best American Essays series, and included in anthologies by Norton and Oxford University Press.

Publication and Distribution

The Review is published on a biannual schedule with print and digital editions distributed through channels comparable to those used by The Kenyon Review, Prairie Schooner, and The Sewanee Review. Subscriptions, single-issue sales, and institutional partnerships involve bookstores such as The Strand, university libraries at Harvard University, Yale University, and University of California, and distribution networks like Ingram Content Group. The magazine's editorial operations have collaborated with MFA programs at Iowa Writers' Workshop, Columbia University School of the Arts, University of Iowa, and regional workshops that include the Bread Loaf Writers' Conference and Sewanee Writers' Conference.

Reception and Influence

Critical reception situates the Review within conversations alongside The Paris Review, Ploughshares, and The Missouri Review, noted by critics from outlets like The New York Times Book Review, Los Angeles Review of Books, The Washington Post, and The Guardian. Its influence is evident in the careers of writers who moved from regional recognition to national prominence, echoing trajectories of authors associated with Knopf, Random House, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, and Scribner. The magazine's role in fostering literary communities has been compared to cultural initiatives from institutions such as the Library of Congress, the Smithsonian Institution, and state arts councils including the New Mexico Department of Cultural Affairs.

Category:Literary magazines published in the United States