Santa Monica Review Spring 2024 Issue Launches

Author Readings Celebrate
Release of Spring 2024 Santa Monica Review

SANTA MONICA, CA — Santa Monica College (SMC) is pleased to announce the release of its spring 2024 edition of Santa Monica Review (SMR), SMC’s esteemed national literary arts journal. Published twice yearly, the Review showcases the work of established authors alongside emerging writers, with a focus on narratives of the West Coast. The journal is the only nationally distributed literary magazine published by a U.S. community college.

To celebrate the spring 2024 edition, an issue launch party featuring Review author readings will be held at Santa Monica College. The party — “Santa Monica Review Presents...A Celebration of the Spring 2024 Issue with Readings by Recent Contributors” — will be held from 5 p.m. to 7 p.m. on Sunday, April 7, in The Edye at the SMC Performing Arts Center, 1310 11th Street (at Santa Monica Boulevard), Santa Monica.

Tickets for the launch party — available at smc.edu/tickets — cost $10. Refreshments will be served. Beyond Baroque Literary Arts Center will have a variety of author titles available for purchase at the party. Abundant free parking available on premises. Seating is on a first-arrival basis.

The celebration, to be introduced by Review editor and Emcee Andrew Tonkovich, features a special welcome by acclaimed novelist Claire Vaye Watkins (Gold Fame Citrus) and readings by authors Tinna Flores, Janice Shapiro, Kareem Tayyar, and Charles Hood.

The spring 2024 issue — edited by Tonkovich, also host of the weekly show Bibliocracy Radio on KPFK (90.7 FM) — features cover art by renowned Mexican printmaking artist Artemio Rodriguez. The issue includes 19 original short stories and essays, most by West Coast writers.

“Geography sort of just happened,” says editor Tonkovich, “with strong representation from California including Los Angeles, Long Beach, Bay Area, Inland Empire, and Orange County.” The issue proudly celebrates the life and writing of late short story master Dwight Yates (Bring Everybody) with publication of his final short story, a revisionist family history explored through letters. The issue also includes fiction and memoir from Orange County writers Denise McEvoy, Kareem Tayyar (The Prince of Orange County), and steampunk legend James P. Blaylock (The Last Coin).

Comprised of new, returning, and one debut writer, the journal represents diversity and enduring relationships. “It's gratifying to present a first-time-in-print writer,” says Tonkovich, “celebrating new voices alongside familiar names. Tinna Flores, Bryan D. Price, and Matthew Lawrence Garcia all make their first SMR appearances with gorgeous short stories. Novelist Karen Moulding (The Naked Shopper), also a first-time contributor, constructs a comically complicated, if sincere pandemic-era story.

Charles Hood (Nocturnalia: Nature in the Western Night) remembers poet Wanda Coleman, an iconic L.A. cultural figure and friend, and Barry Gifford (Roy’s World) shares another in his ongoing series, to be published soon in the collection Ghost Years.

The issue features frequent and beloved SMR contributors Jeffrey Stephen Markowitz, Ben Jahn, Shane Castle, and Michael Mattes, all of whom write beyond ordinary prose expectations, with fantastical, political, dreamy, and insightful short stories.

“I landed work from a bunch of SMR favorites,” says Tonkovich, “whose style readers will recognize. I'm pleased that the magazine has boostered them over the years.” Returning are James Warner (All Her Father’s Guns), Geoff Wyss (How), Michael Cadnum (Earthquake Murder), and Janice Shapiro (Bummer), with an autobiographical reflection. Shapiro is a short story writer, screenwriter, and comics artist whose fiction appeared in the very first SMR, in fall 1998.

“This issue” says Tonkovich, “includes so much stylistically diverse and elegantly offered storytelling. There’s short-short work that reads like prose poetry or flash fiction, and longer, realistic coming-of-age and historical and autobiographically influenced elaborations. But it’s all surprising in its voice, perspective, and reimagining of the familiar or quotidian.”

Additional events celebrating the new issue include:

• Beyond Baroque Literary Arts Foundation, Venice's landmark community literary arts center, welcomes Review editor Tonkovich and author readings by current issue contributors Denise Heyl McEvoy, Brian D. Price, Karen Moulding, and James Warner, on Saturday, March 30, at 2 p.m. at Beyond Baroque Literary Arts Foundation (681 Venice Boulevard, Venice). Free admission.
• Santa Monica College and the Review will host a booth April 20-21 at this year’s Los Angeles Times Festival of Books, offering complimentary copies of the magazine to visitors at Booth #72 at the USC campus, as well as distributing information on SMC’s abundant academic and cultural opportunities.

Santa Monica Review was founded by editor, acclaimed novelist, and beloved SMC creative writing instructor Jim Krusoe (Parsifal, The Sleep Garden) to showcase established authors and emerging writers. Over the past 35 years, the Review has achieved a solid reputation as one of the West Coast's leading literary arts journals, and has presented experimental, thoughtful, and funny original writing — including essays and short stories by Michelle Latiolais, Lisa Teasley, Gary Amdahl, Keenan Norris, and Gary Soto. Recent stand-out work from the Review appears in the annual Pushcart Prize, Best American Short Stories, and PEN/O. Henry anthologies.

Santa Monica Review is sold online at the Review website (smc.edu/sm_review), and in print editions at the SMC Campus Store, at Beyond Baroque and Small World Books in Venice, and at other area booksellers. Copies may also be ordered by mail and by subscription. Details are available at smc.edu/sm_review.

The publication costs $7 per issue or $12 for the two issues each year.

More information is available at the Santa Monica Review website (smc.edu/sm_review) or by calling 949-235-8193. All events subject to change or cancellation without notice.

Santa Monica Review is a project of Santa Monica College, and part of its mission to promote literacy and engagement with the literary arts in Southern California. Santa Monica College is a California Community College accredited by the Accrediting Commission for Community and Junior Colleges (ACCJC).

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