The Hollins Critic

A leading American literary journal, The Hollins Critic enters its 45th year in 2008 with essays on writers on writers like Milton Kessler by Liz Rosenberg, Sylvia Engdahl by Nicholas Birns, and Marie Howe by David Huddle.

The Hollins Critic, published five times a year, presents the first serious surveys of the whole bodies of contemporary writers’ work, with complete checklists. You’ll find essays on such writers as Irving Feldman (by David Slavitt), Rebecca Goldstein (by Emily Budick), Nancy Willard (by Jeanne Larsen), Carolyn Kizer (by Henry Taylor), Antler (by Howard Nelson), Russell Hoban (by Earl Rovit) and Ted Hughes (by Harriet Zinnes).

The Hollins Critic also offers brief reviews of books you want to know about and poetry by poets both new and established. And every issue has a cover portrait by Susan Avishai M.A. '02.

David Stacton December 2002 Critic	Mary Ward Brown October 2003 Critic	Leonard Nathan December 2003 Critic	Lee Smith February 2004 Critic

April 2008 Issue Excerpt

"That was Czgowchwz, her story, history:" The Fictions of James McCourt
By David Rollow

This essay discusses James McCourt’s six published works of fiction (a seventh will appear in the fall), using Queer Street, McCourt’s only directly autobiographical/nonfictional book, to provide further comment on the fiction, since it offers a kind of key.  

Mawrdew Czgowchwz

Mawrdew Czgowchwz comes to America after she escapes from behind the Iron Curtain, flying solo and crash-landing a prewar plane in the Place de la Concorde in Paris on Bastille Day. As one of the narrators of Now Voyagers later puts it, “There was a Cold War aura about her that made her story more interesting than rivalry at the opera.” Her grand entrance is the first of many (and grand exits, too) in the novel that bears her “unpronounceable” name. (Her fans, The Secret Seven, declare that it is pronounced “gorgeous,” so it is.) The Secret Seven teach her English. “Ignorant of her true origin, she seemed to be remembering, although in almost anguished reluctance. She spoke English in just three weeks. . . it was thought uncanny, but no more.” Here the major theme of the novel is introduced offhandedly.

The novel tracks the pattern of the star’s career: discovery, triumph, crisis, collapse, comeback, and apotheosis. In her debut at the Old Metropolitan Opera House Czgowchwz presents herself as an “oltrano,” capable of a humanly impossible vocal range and repertory of roles — a nonce-word that suggests variously alteration, alternate, altered alto, and other(ed). Her triumph intensifies a rivalry with the fading Morgana Neri, one of whose fans lays a voodoo-style curse on Czgowchwz by stealing a lock of her hair and putting it on a poppet-puppet that enacts a curse; during the Liebestod in Tristan und Isolde, mysteriously singing in Irish, she experiences what the old house doctor calls a “total nervous collapse.” She awakens fully amnesiac — she has “forgotten all her roles,” as well as her identity, and is able to speak only Irish, not among the languages she is known to speak. That is, she has ceased to be Mawrdew Czgowchwz, but is not yet herself. Moreover, the novel that invented her vanishes with her memory — it is part of what she leaves behind.

Cover portrait © Susan Avishai 2008

Writer's Guidelines

The Hollins Critic will not read poetry submissions again until September 1, 2008. Submissions received at other times will be returned unread.

Poetry submitted to The Hollins Critic should be typed or word processed. There are no rules about style or subject. One to five poems should be submitted to Cathryn Hankla, Poetry Editor, P.O. Box 9538, Hollins University, Roanoke, VA 24020. The Critic cannot reply without a self-addressed stamped envelope. We do not accept e-mail submissions.

The Critic pays $25.00 per poem, upon publication. All rights revert to the author following publication, but if the poem is reprinted elsewhere, the Critic should be credited.

Besides poetry, the Critic publishes an essay on a contemporary author in each issue, and book reviews as space permits. The Critic does not accept unsolicited essays. Rarely do we accept unsolicited book reviews. When a review is published, the author receives a copy of the issue, and two copies are sent to the book’s publisher.

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