Showcasing work that is risk-taking or overlooked

For more than fifty years, the MFA Writing Program at UNC Greensboro has published The Greensboro Review. The journal began in 1966, when students in the first years of the MFA wanted a place to publish their creative work. With $500 from the Chancellor—“an amount that hardly covered the cost of printing 500 copies,” according to Robert Watson, poet and co-founder of the MFA program—students and faculty used the campus duplicating shop to print the debut issue, then collated it by hand. Greensboro painter Betty Watson designed the logo that is still in use today.

The mission of the journal quickly shifted from “a house organ for our MFA students,” and the Review began to publish writers like Ezra Pound and Joyce Carol Oates. But as longtime editor Jim Clark described, “the GR has always taken the most joy in publishing work by new writers at the beginning of their careers, and we are proud to include in this group such writers as Lewis Nordan, Yusef Komunyakaa, William Matthews, Alan Shapiro, Charles Simic, and Dave Smith.” In 1984, the GR established its Literary Awards thanks to an anonymous donor, and these prizes led to a more global following. Works from the journal are consistently included in the Pushcart Prize anthologies, Best American Short Stories, the O. Henry Awards, New Stories from the South, and other collections honoring the finest writing by both established and emerging voices.

Today, the GR continues to be faculty- and student-run, and our editors regularly showcase writers whose work may be risk-taking or overlooked.

As of 2019, the journal is proud to partner with the University of North Carolina Press for publishing and distribution.

“The pages of the Review have been filled with some of the most outrageous barnstormers, chicken killers, schoolyard psychics, and circus performers. We publish stories about finding Eden and the fabled fruit of knowledge, about men transporting truckloads of penguins, about evil spirits entering living people and causing mental illness…stories like these exemplify both the kinds of writing we look for and the editorial eye that can spot the talent others might miss.”

From Jim Clark’s final Editor’s Note

Read all of Jim Clark’s 50th Anniversary Note and final Editor’s Note, “THIS IS IT”

Publishing the best fiction and poetry—regardless of theme, subject, or style

We work closely with authors and believe that their writing is what makes the journal. The Review staff takes great pride in the personal side of literary magazine publishing, from that first acceptance phone call to the many careful hours spent on each manuscript. With each new issue, our editors focus their time and energy on the stories and poems within the covers, all the while following a “plain and dignified” design that reaches back to the 1966 inaugural Greensboro Review.

Recent contributors include Julianna Baggott, Jacob M. Appel, Stephen Dobyns, Kelly Cherry, Linda Gregg, Kristen Arnett, Rodney Jones, Jesse Lee Kercheval, Thomas Lux, Jill McCorkle, Dale Ray Phillips, Leslie Pietrzyk, George Singleton, and Natasha Trethewey. The Greensboro Review encourages writers at all stages of their careers to submit work, and offers an annual $1,000 Literary Prize in both poetry and fiction, with winning manuscripts appearing in the spring issue.

See a full list of our contributors

Editor

Terry L. Kennedy is the author of the poetry collection New River Breakdown. His work appears in a variety of literary journals and magazines as well as Gracious: Poems for the 21st Century South, Hard Lines: Rough South Poetry, Southern Poetry Anthology, VII: North Carolina, and You are the River: Literature Inspired by the North Carolina Museum of Art . He currently serves as Director of the MFA Writing Program at UNC Greensboro and Editor of the online journal storySouth.

Associate Editor

Jessie Van Rheenen is the Assistant Director of the MFA Writing Program at Greensboro. In addition to coordinating the visiting writers series, she teaches the undergraduate fiction writing sequence and courses on contemporary publishing, editing, and workplace writing.

Fiction Editor

Brianna Summey is an Appalachian writer from Madisonville, Tennessee. She has a Bachelor’s in English with a minor in Creative Writing from Berea College. Currently, she is a second-year MFA student in fiction at UNCG, where she serves as a Fiction Editor for The Greensboro Review.

Fiction Editor

Jenna Dorn comes from the land of showbiz, where she earned her Bachelor’s in American Literature at UCLA. Jenna’s work has appeared in Episodes and The New York Times. She is a second-year MFA student in fiction at UNCG and currently serves as a Fiction Editor for The Greensboro Review.

Poetry Editor

Elizabeth Rose Bruce (she/they) is a poet and creative nonfiction writer from Chattanooga, Tennessee. Liz’s work has been published or is forthcoming in Arkana, Susurrus, Global Poemic, The Sequoya Review, and the anthology Objects in This Mirror, out from Press 53 in 2025. She is currently a second-year MFA candidate at UNCG, where she serves as Poetry Editor for The Greensboro Review.

Poetry Editor

Nick Powell is a second-year poetry student who holds a Bachelor’s and Master’s from Coastal Carolina University. His work discusses trauma, spirituality, and US imperialism. His poems have recently appeared in Cider Press Review, Split Rock Review, and Bluestem Magazine.

Editorial Assistant

Louise Scoville is from Ann Arbor, Michigan. She is currently pursuing a MFA in Fiction at UNCG. She is a former summer-camp director and receptionist. Her work is forthcoming in Door is a Jar.

Editorial Board

Xhenet Aliu, Stuart Dischell, Holly Goddard Jones, Derek Palacio, Emilia Phillips

Consulting Senior Editors

Julie Funderburk, Lee Zacharias