Editor Interview: Potomac Review

Prose and Poetry

The Hudson Review, The Georgia Review, Image, Ecotone

Amy Clampitt, Naguib Mahfouz, Cormac McCarthy, Peter Balakian, Richard Powers

We come out of a community college.

Do what you do; trust in your own voice; find the world in your writing. We may take some time to get back to you, but know that we read with attention and care.

Poetry and prose that are not editorials but attend deeply to the world, capturing the human spirit that we all share,

There's not much to get wrong! Just submit your work through Submittable, and we promise we will read it. It does take us some time, but we read everything! Like the community college that sponsors us, we like to think that excellence is not inconsistent with open admissions and complete welcome.

While cover letters are welcome, we attend to the work itself.

We believe that a literary piece must be experienced in its entirety.

Unfortunately, we cannot accept every piece that we admire. However, in our meetings, we do try to articulate what counts as evidence for the rightness of our editorial decisions so that they are not the result of a dictatorship of mere personal interests.

Our editorial team is part of a community college, and we try to engage ourselves fully each day with its mission of diversity, equity, inclusion, and
academic excellence.

We usually select pieces that are already in excellent shape. We do share galleys with our authors but do not allow major edits that late into production.

Yes! We are proud of our contributors, and share their work widely. In fact, we have received eight Best American Essay citations in the last four years.