The 2018 Sierra Nevada Review is now open for submissions! We welcome your unconventional, surprising, and risky poetry, literary nonfiction, and fiction from September 15th to February 15th. Visit https://sierranevadareview.submittable.com/submit and become a part of our 29th volume. Visit http://blog.sierranevada.edu/sierranevadareview for submission guidelines.
Writing Scared
by Brandon Dudley
Something I learned very early in the Sierra Nevada College MFA program, thanks to my mentor Alan Heathcock, was how helpful fear can be in the writing process. According to Al, he knows he’s doing something right when he’s nervous hitting the submit button on the work. That’s something I’ve tried to remember every time I send out a story.
Fear, at its best, means the writer is tackling something close to their core. They’re tapping into something important and meaningful and harboring genuine emotion. They’re exposing something true about themselves.
Hello From the Other Side: Some Editorial Observations
by Brandon Dudley
As a writer, the submissions process feels a lot like feeding a picky toddler. You offer them the best meal you could possibly make, a meal that includes so much of what they love that there’s no way the child could turn down.
But they just spit it right back at you.
And you don’t know why.
Continue reading “Hello From the Other Side: Some Editorial Observations”