Esteemed Readers:
The Wordgathering team continues to receive many requests for book reviews. Consequently, we decided to create our second “book reviews and review essays special supplement.” Designated Volume 18, Issue 2s (“s” for “supplement”), aka Issue 68b, the Spring 2025 supplement includes 11 book reviews (two of which feature more than one text).
The Spring 2025 supplement’s book reviews were written by Amanda Apgar, Kate Champlin, Dennis Relojo-Howell, Rachael Zubal-Ruggieri, and yours truly. The Summer 2025 issue (Volume 19, Issue 1) will also include a wide range of book reviews, as will our Winter 2025-2026 issue (Volume 19, Issue 2). We have such a robust book reviews queue and requests list, we have already scheduled book reviews for Summer 2026 (Volume 20, Issue 1) and Winter 2026-2027 (Volume 20, Issue 2). Moreover, plans are underway for a third book reviews and review essays special supplement, likely to occur in the springtime of next year (the third supplement will be designated Volume 19, Issue 2s).
If you would like to join our book reviewers team, please write to me at wordgathering@syr.edu. Unfortunately, at the present time, we do not have funds to compensate any of our contributors—including reviewers. (As I like to quip, we can offer you modest fame.)
Please also read and visit our most recent, complete issue (Winter 2024-2025). We encourage you to read our Spring 2024 special supplement, as well.
Our Spring 2025 supplement is dedicated—with love, gratitude, and sadness—to the memory of Maxwell “Max” E. Guttman (also known as J. Peters). Many of Max’s / J.’s writings were published in Wordgathering over the years. In the current supplement, you can read Dennis Relojo-Howell‘s compelling review of Consenting to Infection: HEP C and the Pandemic by J. Peters. From 2018 until his untimely death on April 19, 2025, Max was proudly affiliated with PsychReg. You can read a tribute to Max on PsychReg.
Max: I miss you.
—Diane R. Wiener, Editor-in-Chief
The Spring 2025 supplement includes the following book reviews, focused on a plethora of exemplary works in poetry, fiction, essays, nonfiction, and more:
- Khairani Barokka, amuk
- Phil Barnett, Birds Knit My Ribs Together
- Sheila Black, Medea in the Night Sky and For the Loneliness of Walking Out
- Nicola Griffith, Menewood
- Matt Lee, The Backwards Hand: A Memoir
- Celeste Lipkes, Radium Girl
- Raymond Luczak, Chlorophyll: Poems about Michigan’s Upper Peninsula; Lunafly; and Far from Atlantis
- Amy Mackin, Henry’s Classroom: A Special Education in American Motherhood
- J. Peters, Consenting to Infection: HEP C and the Pandemic
- Nick Walker and Mike Jung (eds.), Spoon Knife 7: Transitions
- Alice Wong (ed.), Disability Intimacy: Essays on Love, Care, and Desire
As Wordgathering has grown, the number of requests that we receive for book reviews has likewise grown. Writers who would like to review books for or have books reviewed by Wordgathering should send queries to wordgathering@syr.edu. Please refer to our Submission Guidelines for more information.
If you would like to become a potentially “frequent flyer” book reviewer for Wordgathering, thereby joining our (of course, accessible) reviewers’ “pool,” please reach out to us at wordgathering@syr.edu with a short summary of your areas of interest and expertise, a short statement of how you understand yourself and your writing to be in alignment with the journal’s goals, and a short third-person bio, and we will be in touch with you as soon as possible. Thank you in advance for your interest and commitment.
Underlined content throughout Wordgathering is hyperlinked (each underlined element is a clickable link), leading to further aspects of the content shared. Any questions about accessibility can be addressed by emailing us at: wordgathering@syr.edu.
Please note that the opinions and perspectives shared by our contributors (in their published work or elsewhere) do not necessarily align with or reflect the opinions and perspectives held by the members of the journal’s editorial and administrative team.