About Us
Roanoke Review was co-founded in 1967 by Roanoke College student Edward A. Tedeschi and teacher Henry Taylor, who went on to win the Pulitzer Prize in poetry for The Flying Change in 1986. Poet James Boatwright and novelist George Garrett served as advisory editors, and the first issue included work by William Stafford, Lee Smith, Kelly Cherry, William Jay Smith, and Malcom Cowley, among others.
Tedeschi and Taylor were ultimately replaced by Robert Walter, who edited the journal for the next thirty years. The Review was taken over in 2001 by Paul Hanstedt, who served as editor for the next fifteen years with the occasional interim leadership of Melanie Almeder and Mary Crockett Hill, who took on the role of editor in 2016.
For over half a century, the Review has established itself as a home for new and established authors writing in both traditional and experimental forms.
Dear Reader,
On September 23rd, 2023, our beloved editor Mary Crockett Hill passed away surrounded by loved ones. We will forever remember her as a kind, bright, and incredible soul. She loved being a teacher and a mentor, and she was incredibly passionate about Roanoke Review being a safe space for writers to share their talents.
In her honor, we are leaving her spot and biography as Editor on this page indefinitely, but please do not try to email her. If you need to contact an editor directly, please email Laura Garrison (Acting Editor) or Sydney Wagner (Assistant/Managing Editor) at review@roanoke.edu.
We are dedicated to keeping Roanoke Review a literary magazine that she would be proud of. Thank you for reading and sharing in her legacy.
Sydney Wagner
Assistant Editor
2023-2024 STAFF
Mary Crockett Hill is the author of A Theory of Everything (selected by Naomi Shihab Nye for the Autumn House Prize) and If You Return Home with Food (winner of the Bluestem Poetry Award), and coauthor of the history of A Town by the Name of Salem. Her work has been featured on such sites as Poetry Daily and Best of the Net, and in such anthologies as American Poetry: The Next Generation. She is a multiple nominee for the Pushcart Prize and the Virginia Book of the Year. In her other life as a children's book writer, she is author of How She Died, How I Lived, from Little, Brown Books for Young Readers, and coauthor of the young adult novel Dream Boy. She tweets nonsense @Marylovesbooks.
We miss her very dearly and send well wishes to her family.
Laura Garrison gets lost easily. Fortunately, she enjoys unexpected adventures. She appreciates all forms and genres of literature but has a particular affection for speculative flash and haiku. You can also find her at Jersey Devil Press.
Sydney Wagner loves being busy. When she isn’t working one of her three jobs or doing schoolwork (which is most of the time), she enjoys playing board games with friends, watching TV shows with her dad, or playing Dungeons and Dragons with her group. Despite being the managing editor of a literary magazine, her only published work is research in the Journal of Organizational Psychology (which she is very proud of)!
Cameron MacKenzie's work has appeared in Able Muse, The Rumpus, SubStance and The Michigan Quarterly Review, among other journals. His essays have been collected in The Waste Land at 90: A Retrospective and Edward P. Jones: New Essays. His novel The Beginning of His Excellent and Eventful Career is currently out with Madhat Press. He teaches English at Ferrum College.
READing staff
Matteo Biggs, Em Caloia, Taís Didio, Alexander Fritze, Brandon Hernandez, Madeline Higgins, Emma Holley, Zoe Jones, Veronica Kuzdzal, Kaitlyn Richardson, Adriana Rose, Irene Salvo.
(Not Pictured: Em Caloia)