About this journal

Edited by faculty, students, and staff from the renowned writing and literature programs at the University of Iowa, The Iowa Review, (ISSN: 0021-065X (Print); ISSN 2330-0361 (Online); ISSN-L 0021-065X), takes advantage of this rich environment for literary collaboration to create a worldwide conversation among those who read and write contemporary literature.

The journal publishes a wide range of fiction, poetry, creative nonfiction, translations, photography, and work in emerging forms by both established and emerging writers. Work from their pages has been consistently selected to appear in the anthologies Best American Essays, Best American Short Stories, Best American Poetry, The Pushcart Prize: Best of the Small Presses, and The PEN/O. Henry Prize Stories.

The Iowa Review is published three times per year, in spring, fall, and winter by the Department of English and the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences at The University of Iowa. It was published quarterly through 1982 by the School of Letters and the Graduate College of The University of Iowa. The online version has a full three year moving wall, but then becomes freely accessible.

The current site includes selected current content and writers’ guidelines. More information about subscriptions, and single issue purchases can also be found on the magazine’s site.

Editor History

Merle E. Brown: Volume 1, Issue 1 (Winter 1970)–volume 5, Issue 3 (Summer 1974)
Thomas Whitaker: Volume 5 Issue 4 (Winter 1974)–volume 8, Issue 4 (Fall 1977)
David Hamilton: Volume 9, Issue 1 (Winter 1978)–volume 39, Issue 3 (Winter 2009)

With Fredrick Woodard: Volume 9, Issue 3 (Summer 1978)–volume 11, Issue 4 (Fall 1980), and Volume 16, Issue 1 (Winter 1986): The Writers' Workshop: A Fiftieth Anniversary Celebration
With Mary Hussmann: Volume 27, Issue 1 (Spring 1997)- volume 29, Issue 2 (Fall 1999)

Russell Scott Valentino: Volume 40, Issue 1 (Spring 2010)–volume 43, Issue 2 (Fall 2013)
Harilaos Stecopoulos: Volume 43, Issue 3 (Winter 2013/2014)–volume 50, Issue 1 (Spring 2020)
Lynne Nugent Volume 50, Issue 2 (Fall 2020)–

Indexing Information

The Iowa Review is indexed in Annual Bibliography of English Language and Literature, Humanities International Complete, Index of American Periodical Verse, and MLA International Bibliography. Back content is also indexed and available from JSTOR.

Complete metadata for all articles in The Iowa Review archive, including DOIs, is available via OAI. See our policy regarding use and reuse of our metadata.

Open Access Policy

This is an open access journal which means that all content is freely available without charge to the user or their institution. The journal allows readers to read, download, print, search, or link to the full texts of its articles, without asking prior permission from the publisher or the author. Requests for permission to reuse the articles should be sent to the author(s).

Copyright and Licenses

Authors retain copyright but grant exclusive first publication rights and a non-exclusive license to have the work reproduced in other ways, including in electronic databases and on-line. Once an author's work has been published in The Iowa Review, the author is free to use it in any way they wish, so long as that use is consistent with the license given to The Iowa Review to continue to use the work for the duration of its copyright in all languages, throughout the world, in all media. The journal does require that authors acknowledge in subsequent works the publication of earlier versions in The Iowa Review.

The author may include the officially published version of the article (version of record) in an institutional or disciplinary repository, provided the posting includes a prominent statement of the full bibliographical details, and a link to the online edition of the journal.

Author Charges

There are no article submission charges nor article processing charges (APC) to publish.

Usage Information

Download counts are displayed for each article. COUNTER usage statistics are not available.

Preservation Status

The Iowa Review archive is preserved in Portico and the Internet Archive.

Prior to September 2021, this title was previously hosted in Digital Commons software. That site is available in the Internet Archive.

Other Policies

See our general Libraries' policies page for additional information, such as our privacy policy and our notice and take-down procedure.