Bear Review | About

About

Bear Review is a reader’s stash of literary magazines in a hollow trunk in the woods.

Or, Bear Review is a journal in which readers wake to strange yet welcoming animal sounds outside their vestibules.

Or, Bear Review is a journal in which readers tend a seed bed for books.

And, Bear Review keeps a reader’s quiet fires stoked throughout the coldest nights.

Join us.

Read about us on Newpages and The Review Review.

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Co-founding Co-editors

Marcus Myers, originally from Hot Springs, Arkansas, lives in Kansas City, Missouri and works as an educator. A finalist in the 2019, 92nd Street Y’s Discovery Poetry Contest, his poems have appeared in or are forthcoming from The Common, The Cortland Review, The Florida Review, Hunger Mountain, Just Place, The Laurel Review, Mid-American Review, The National Poetry Review, RHINO, Salt Hill, Sink Review, Tar River Poetry, TYPO, Yes Poetry, Windfall Room and other journals. He has a chapbook Cloud Sanctum [A letter to my daughter] (Bottlecap Press, 2022) and is working on a full-length manuscript.

Brian Clifton is the author of the chapbooks MOT and Agape (from Osmanthus Press). They have work in: Pleiades, The Account, Cincinnati Review, Salt Hill, Colorado Review, The Journal, Beloit Poetry Journal, and other magazines. They are an avid record collector and curator of curiosities.

Co-Editors

Andrew Reeves currently lives and writes in Kansas City, Mo. His work can be found in Four Chambers Press, Pleiades, The Ilanot Review and elsewhere.

Nikki Ummel is a queer writer, editor, and educator in New Orleans. Nikki has been published or has work forthcoming in Painted Bride Quarterly, The Adroit Journal, The Georgia Review, and others. She is the 2022 winner of the Leslie McGrath Poetry Prize. She has two chapbooks, Hush (Belle Point Press, 2022) and Bayou Sonata (NOLA DNA, 2023). You can find her on the web at www.nikkiummel.com.

Mason Wray's poetry has appeared in Ploughshares, New Ohio Review, Hayden's Ferry Review, Diode, and elsewhere. A recipient of support from Bread Loaf and the Ruth Stone House, he holds an MFA in poetry from Ole Miss and lives in Atlanta, Georgia.

Anthony Procopio Ross writes, breathes, and teaches in Kansas City, Missouri. Anthony's poems appear in The Inflectionist Review, The McNeese Review, Laurel Review, and others. An MVICW Poetry Fellow in 2021 and an Andreas Creative Writing Fellow 2021-22, he graduated with his MFA in poetry at MNSU, Mankato. He has led creative writing workshops for adults with developmental disabilities, high school creative writing students, and people in coffee shops.

Co-Editor, Web Editor

Mason D. Arnold serves as the lead designer for Laurel Review in Maryville, Missouri, where he also attends college at Northwest Missouri State University as a graduate student. He has had work published in Medium Weight Forks and Sagebrush Review.

Board of Directors

Brian Clifton (Director), Andrew Johnson (Assistant Director), Marcus Myers (Treasurer),

John Raux (Arts Advisor), Jordan Stempleman (Arts & Poetry Advisor), Jose Faus (Arts & Poetry Advisor), Hadara Bar-Nadav (Poetry Advisor)

Former Editors & Readers

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Callie Smith, also Bear Review’s art editor, is a doctoral candidate in English at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette. She received her MFA from the University of Central Arkansas. Her work has appeared in Blue Earth Review, Sugar House Review, Santa Clara Review, among others. Some of Callie's joys include snuggling with her three rescue cats Moxie, Lux, and Lemur and volunteering with the Acadiana Native Plant Project.

Former Web Editor (2018-2021) Haines Eason's poems have appeared in numerous journals including Boston Review, New England Review, Pleiades, and elsewhere. A Ruth Lilly Fellowship finalist, he was a Chapbook Fellow with the Poetry Society of America. His winning chapbook is A History of Waves. He is also the winner of the Cream City Review Beau Boudreaux Prize for poetry. Originally from Charlottesville, Virginia, he now lives with his wife Joni Lee and their sons Jack and Oliver in Lawrence, Kansas.

Former Poetry Editor Ruth Williams is the author of Flatlands (Black Lawrence Press, forthcoming 2018) and Conveyance (Dancing Girl Press, 2012). Her poetry has appeared in Michigan Quarterly Review, jubilat, Pleiades and Third Coast among others. Currently, she is an Assistant Professor of English at William Jewell College.

Barbara Varanka's work has appeared in Booth, Moon City Review, Jet Fuel Review and elsewhere. She lives and works in Kansas City.

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