What people are saying.

  • "The impact of Alaska Quarterly Review extends far from its origin in my home State and is worthy of celebration by this body and all Americans who recognize the power of the literary arts to shape our thoughts, our ideals, and our country. I commend Alaska Quarterly Review and its editor, Ronald Spatz, its contributors, and its supporters for 35 years of excellence."

    — Senator Lisa Murkowski, U.S Senate, Tribute to AQR on its 35th Anniversary

  • “Fresh treasure.”

    — The New York Times Book Review

  • “It remains one of our best, and most imaginative, literary magazines.”

    — Michael Dirda, The New York Review of Books

  • "That one of the nation's best literary magazines comes out of Alaska may seem surprising, but so it is."

    — The Washington Post Book World

  • "How large the scope of this exceptional journal is. AQR has always sought not only work of aesthetic strength and power but also work that includes a rigorous questioning of larger societal issues."New List Item

    — Jane Hirshfield, Contributing Editor

  • "Highly recommended and deserves applause."

    — Bill Katz, Library Journal

  • "Among the top literary journals in America... Alaska Quarterly Review is holding its creative course and staying true to its original vision of promoting new writers and giving a home to fresh voices on the writing scene. ...This is storytelling at its finest."

    — Phoebe Kate Foster, PopMatters Associate Books Editor

  • "Alaska Quarterly Review is one of the top ten literary magazines in the country."

    — Sherman Alexie

  • "I have been mightily impressed, paging through the submissions and the final selections, by the staunch way in which publications like Missouri Review, Wilson Quarterly, American Scholar, Alaska Quarterly Review, and Oregon Humanities continue to trust authors to write at length, and readers to take the trouble to repay that trust."

    — Christopher Hitchens, Guest Editor The Best American Essays 2010

  • "AQR is an impressive publication, comprising as diverse and rewarding an aggregation of work as a reader is likely to find in any literary journal."

    — Patrick Parks, Literary Magazine Review

  • "A national presence."

    — Patricia Hampl , Contributing Editor

  • "On Liberty & Justice (for All): "If you look at these amazing photographs and you read the narratives you just opened the world for yourself."

    — Martha Raddatz, Senior Foreign Affairs Correspondent, ABC NEWS

  • "Congratulations for publishing one of the best among the literary magazines!"

    — Carol Houck Smith, Editor, W.W. Norton

  • "Alaska Quarterly Review is playing an impressive part in our national literature. Congratulations on publishing such wonderful stories."

    — Laura Furman, Series Editor, O. Henry Prize Stories

  • "When all is said and done, Ronald Spatz and his crack team of editors put together one hell of a magazine. Read it cover to cover; put it on your coffee table; impress your friends. This magazine's so hot, it makes any number of editors in the lower-48 look like they're living in the ice age."

    — John McNally, Literary Magazine

  • "..all of America is far richer artistically because of the review's presence...a worthy stage for the serious works of all writers. I commend it and its contributors for its many achievements, and I know members of the U.S. Senate join me in wishing it continued literary success."

    — Senator Frank Murkowski, U.S. Senate, Tribute to Alaska Quarterly Review

  • "The magazine has a wonderful sense of place about it, and it conveys Alaska without being parochial. It's not pushing a particular agenda. There's no coterie of writers made up of the editor's friends. The work is original and fresh."

    — Stuart Dybek, Contributing Editor

  • "Adding to the poetry, fiction, and essays that the Alaska Quarterly Review has been publishing for twenty-three years, at the University of Alaska, Anchorage, the Fall/Winter issue of the journal, edited by Ronald Spatz, includes an eighty-page photo essay (eighty pages!) that is unique in both content and scope. In “Chechnya: A Decade of War,” photojournalist Heidi Bradner documents the Chechen Republic's decade-long battle for independence from Russia. An image of Russian soldiers searching a mass grave in Grozny is balanced by the image of a family returning to the shattered remains of their home in a Chechen village. The feature includes photographs from both sides of what Brander calls “Europe's longest-running but least visible war."

    — Kevin Larimer, Senior Editor Poets & Writers Magazine

  • "Good fiction shows us the inside of things--a community, a job, a relationship, the human heart. Great fiction can sometimes show all of these things working together; it lifts us briefly above the event horizon of our own day-to-day existences and gives us a dreamlike (and godlike) sense of understanding what life itself is about. Cary Holladay's "Merry-Go-Sorry" is one of those rare and always welcome stories."

    — Stephen King, Prize Jury, O. Henry Prize Stories On AQR award-winning short story, "Merry-Go-Sorry" by Cary Hollada

Alaska Quarterly Review is one of America’s premier literary magazines and a source of powerful new voices. Works originally from AQR have appeared in the following prize story awards collections:

The O. Henry Awards * The Best American Poetry * The Best American Short Stories
The Pushcart Prize: The Best of the Small Presses * The Best American Essays
The Best American Nonrequired Reading * The Best American Mystery Stories
The Beacon Best: Creative Writing by Women and Men of All Colors

Kudos Online.