Talk amongst yourselves, or, Here's the newest issue of the Quarterly Conversation!

{Photo by rocketlass.}

Just in time for me to duck out for a couple of days to BookExpo, the 16th issue of the Quarterly Conversation has just been published. This is my first issue as poetry editor, and there's plenty there to distract you while I'm gone.

I think you'll enjoy the writers I've brought into the fold for this issue: Patrick Kurp, who writes on an anthology compiled by Robert Pinsky; Michael Elliott, who covers Campbell McGrath's new book inspired by Lewis and Clark; Andrew Wessels, who writes about I've Been Reading Lately favorite Dan Beachy-Quick; and Ron Slate, who assesses Marie Étienne's King of a Hundred Horsemen. I'm in there, too, of course, reviewing a new collection of translations of Kazuko Shiraishi's recent poems.

And that's just the poetry section! There's also fiction reviews, a couple of impressive essays, and the editorial, "On the Proliferation of Posthumous Publications," which offers publishers who want to do right by posthumous works this priceless piece of advice:

The Original of Laura should be available as a little stack of notecards secured with a handy steel ring. The Pale King should come packaged in numerous filing cabinets and some twine. Bolaño’s remaining manuscripts should come in spiral binders bearing the musty smell of moldy paper.

After reading that, can you possibly resist clicking through?