River Styx Literary Magazine

Gemini Wahhaj’s story follows the rise and demise of brilliant scientist Mirza and the effects of his fortunate life on his Bangladeshi immigrant and expat community in the United States. The story is part of a collection titled Katy Family, forthcoming from Jackleg Press in January 2025.

The Patent Guy Mirza was a brilliant scientist. While pursuing his PhD in mechanical engineering at the University of Texas at Austin, he had made an important discovery in his field and published a paper with his supervisor that had been cited no less than fifteen thousand times and earned him a patent. Among his...

Thinking about self-publishing? Then Walter Skaake, an agent who only represents self-published authors, is the agent for you. In this short play, he'll tell you exactly why.

Walter Skaake A mostly empty greasy-spoon diner in Maspeth, Queens. WALTER SKAAKE, 60, sits in a booth. Bad suit. Bad hair. Big puffy parka he hasn’t taken off. He’s giving his unseen dining partner the hard sell. First of all, I want to thank you for taking this meeting with me. I’ll bet you’ve heard hor...

We’re open for our second online submissions reading period of 2024. Accepted work will be published in 2025. Submit here: https://www.riverstyx.org/pages/submissions

The River Styx Prize, our annual writing contest in fiction and poetry, is open for entries until September 30th. The winning works will be chosen by judges Christopher Castellani and Dg Okpik, and winners will receive $1000 cash prize plus publication online and in print. Winners announced January 1st. Enter here: https://www.riverstyx.org/pages/river-styx-prize-2025

"It is a joke, a curse, a / luxurious famine of want" Boyette instructs in five poems who walk us through an evil paradise. Listen: none of us should be surprised there's such rich music there.

Five Poems by Ellen Boyette SPRINT/TRIP A stabbing pain, refrain, my absfrom running thickets throughthe core, an apple, saccharine,in leaves like lamb’s ears, queeragain, to grab at lungs like lace. I set a pace, a dram, a fig.Dig a chase, a famine.Over a conscience riggedto fiddle with contaminatesI took some molly—fellc...

Read Spencer Short’s new poem, “Etiology,” now at RS.

Etiology That AME graveyard in Backwater, Md.inhabits an eighty-foot by eighty-footplot of blighted grass between the landscapedlots of three squat prefabs and a beveledtier of emerald soy. The graves are sparsely marked.A plastic cross. Bloodless ribbon,snapping in the breeze. Melancholy,Freud called it, wh...

In the latest RS/NF Q&A, Nonfiction Editor Claire Walla and Assistant Editor Matt Torralba Andrews speak with novelist, poet, and memoirist Darien Gee about compression, meandering as process, and family trees in her flash essay “Kin.”

https://www.riverstyx.org/pages/rs-nf

Are you a River Styx reader? If so, you've probably noticed that we provide free access to our online content, which is a rarity these days. We want to continue offering that unrestricted access, for our readers and our contributors. You can help ensure that we continue to stay paywall-free by donating to River Styx. We've made it easy. Choose a one-time donation amount or a monthly recurring giving subscription. You can give as little as $10, or $10 per month, and as much as $1000 annually. Grant funding supplies only a portion of the overall revenue required to keep River Styx alive. It's readers like you who make the real difference.

Donate A literary and visual arts magazine based in St. Louis, Missouri. River Styx enjoys a 48-year legacy of publishing new and established artists.

Due to the overwhelming number of submissions we received in April for our online edition, we will be closing that portal on Monday. (The print and contest portals will remain open.) Thank you for your enthusiasm and your patience while we read your work!

The inaugural episode of RS/NF, our new interview series hosted by Nonfiction Editor Claire Walla and Assistant Editor Matt Torralba Andrews, is now live! In this episode they interview RS contributor Jane Wong on the inspiration and construction of her collage essay, “A Slow Process,” nonlinear writing, and her nonfiction recommendations.

https://www.riverstyx.org/pages/rs-nf

Are you ready for Give STL Day? We hope you'll consider supporting River Styx Magazine as we plan and deliver a robust calendar of events and programming for the 2024-25 fiscal year. Over the next two weeks we will need your help in meeting our fundraising goal. If you can, please lend us your support, and share, share, share this link to raise awareness. Thank you from the many editors, volunteers, and board members on the River Styx team!

Support River Styx Magazine Programming Fundraiser on Give STL Day Our 2024 GiveSTL Day fundraising goal is $5000.

Using a tea kettle and a rotary phone, James Crews telegraphs different dimensions of the afterlife in his two poems, "Against Dust" and "Kaze No Denwa (Wind Phone)." Read them now for free on River Styx online.

Two Poems by James Crews Against Dust When I die, I will not be demotedto dust, just a flake of ash to flavor the airor float downriver into the sea.The me of me—whatever brightness that is—will be gathered up by a forcethat doesn't ask much of us exceptto worship the world as it's given—cracking plaster, busted baseb...

Our supporters spoke and we listened. Several of our readers have emailed us to see if we would offer a subscription-based giving program, and after a bit of work we’re excited to announce that we now have one—and it’s live! Choose from either a one-time donation or a monthly (or yearly!) giving subscription for as little as $9.95/mo. (Link in bio.)

From Our Mission:

“River Styx cultivates contemporary literary arts in St. Louis and beyond through its magazine and community programs. We are a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization. Whereas many literary magazines are affiliated with a university (and thus receives financial support from the university), River Styx is an independent publisher supported by small grants, in-kind donations, and sales of the print magazine.”

We thank you for your continued support.

Donate A literary and visual arts magazine based in St. Louis, Missouri. River Styx enjoys a 48-year legacy of publishing new and established artists.

Order your copy of River Styx 107 right now and get FREE SHIPPING with promo code "CHARON".

River Styx 107 River Styx Issue 107 is our first print edition in more than a year. A beautifully designed paperback with a handmade cover printed in black and metallic inks. Cover printed in Portland, Oregon. Book block printed in Illinois. Featuring poetry by Jake Fournier, James Crews, Mitchell Glazier, Katy Ch...

Author Kimberly Sheridan writes about a piece of performance art that evokes a sense of "divine boredom" to reflect on an intercontinental love that emerged in the distance and stillness of pandemic shutdowns.

Read it now for free on RS.

Feminine Nihilistic Gospel Song For the first six months of the pandemic, I embraced a monastic lifestyle. I walked daily through a five-acre nature preserve a few blocks from my house in Spokane, Washington and watched the scenery change. Ice turned to massive puddles, massive puddles to dry earth; different flowers bloomed and d...

This month's Riding the Music Wave playlist is by GOLDEN HEART PARADE author Joe Holt. "These days when I write, I’m in a cabin in Interior Alaska, burning incense, sipping coffee, looking out occasionally at the snowy field and spruce trees."

Find out what this Alaska-based writer is listening to on Spotify!

https://www.riverstyx.org/blogs/creative-nonfiction/riding-the-music-wave-with-joe-holt

"All is not lost, in my opinion."

Through a help desk representative and a mechanic, Adam Edelman leverages the ordinary in illustrating small moments of human struggle--and transcendence.

Two Poems by Adam Edelman Help Desk All is not lost, in my opinion.Something in the way of how anything can happen ends up meaning most anything doesn’t, and did you ever notice it never rains Wednesdays or at least significantly less in proportion to your Saturdays or Tuesdays. This is the help desk. Is there someone or s...

“That was the old game of the fathers. To construct infinity from an itch. Only God could see his own bald spot, and even He never saw it from above.”

Mark Mayer’s stories are from About, Above, Around: 50 Prepositions, a collection of short fictions, running from a few hundred to a few thousand words, each of which springs from an English preposition and considers how it might describe the movements of feeling.

We’re sharing four of the six stories from Mark’s collection online right now. The other two are available on our print edition, which you can preorder now on our website.

Four Prepositions These stories are from About, Above, Around: 50 Prepositions, a collection of short fictions, running from a few hundred to a few thousand words, each of which springs from an English preposition and considers how it might describe the movements of feeling. __ ABOVE When the bald spot formed, he sta...

River Styx Relaunch: Literary Journal Continues to Make Waves - Regional Arts Commission of St. Louis River Styx, St. Louis’ oldest literary and visual arts journal, has officially relaunched its publication. For over 48 years, they have inspired local and St. Louis literary journal River Styx has relaunched its publication and will continue to inspire audiences with moving poetry and visual piece...

Through frozen landscapes, Alicia Rebecca Myers evokes memory, God, and (our favorite part) Love is Blind season 4. Read now for free.

Four Poems by Alicia Rebecca Myers January I am too much in my body.Mornings spent wishing for optical science and invisibility cloaks.I dream of being pregnant again, even as I sweat through next-stageluster.The iced-over lake makes me miss something. Maybe the transparency of water, the surprise of it having shadow.My 84-year-old m...

Hi everyone. There seems to have been a mixup at the High Low and they accidentally double-booked us over another event. It happens! We're not upset. They offered us some alternate dates but we believe the best path forward is to reschedule the event for May or June. The event will still happen, it will just be a bit farther out.

For those who purchased tickets--thank you--they will be automatically refunded in the next few days.

We want to especially thank the many folks in the St. Louis area who have been so gracious in helping us organize this event. Each of you is contributing something very special in helping us honor Michael Castro's contributions to the literary world. We'll get there together. And when we do, it will be very special.

Thank you,
Bryan Castille

Howard Skrill's series of drawings depicts the "ghostly presences of extant public monuments principally in the remarkable moments of their removal." Check them out now on RS.

https://www.riverstyx.org/pages/monumental-follies

Thank you to Regional Arts Commission of St. Louis of St. Louis for your support and interest in the work we're doing over here at River Styx. Much appreciated!

River Styx Relaunch: Literary Journal Continues to Make Waves - Regional Arts Commission of St. Louis River Styx, St. Louis’ oldest literary and visual arts journal, has officially relaunched its publication. For over 48 years, they have inspired local and St. Louis literary journal River Styx has relaunched its publication and will continue to inspire audiences with moving poetry and visual piece...

Poet Maya Jewell Zeller's new essay puts our relationship to landscape into startlingly new perspective.

"In classics like The Odyssey, and Into the Wild, and other famous stories about men, a journey happens over several years, with violent catharses and character revelations, or a stranger comes and changes everything about the townspeople’s lives, creating a paradigm shift, or several. We expect s*x and/or love, and something that feels like a monumental arrival. In my story, a woman—raised unconventionally, now parenting two small children, married to a man who doesn’t understand her—drives to another town, lives a solitary life of work and thought, and comes back every week, and nothing visible to the world really changes all at once. Her story is in the quiet, in between. She just keeps going. But she’s different inside from the parts of her she’s heard and seen and laid out on the landscape, and the parts that are like an animal, killed and carved out and stuffed, and then bloomed back alive. She blooms them back. She knows this. No one else does. No one else even notices she died and kept driving. Kept making dinner."

https://www.riverstyx.org/blogs/creative-nonfiction/landscape-anxiety

We're excited to share an excerpt from Katya Apekina's new novel, Mother Doll, about a pregnant woman in LA who is contacted by a medium who's channeling the ghost of her great-grandmother, a Russian revolutionary. The "guest of honor" in this funny and imaginative depiction of Russian aristocratic society is Rasputin, who "stank like a goat...opened all of the birdcages in the other room, and now the little canaries were flying in desperate circles around the dining room."

You can order Katya's book now from your preferred bookseller.

Guest of Honor Katya Apekina's second novel, Mother Doll, from which this piece is excerpted, is available to order from Overlook Press. ____ Creating stresses in the social fabric was one of Fräulein Agata’s great joys, so when the general’s friend, a society lady, asked her to bring the school’s top stude...

To celebrate the posthumous publication of Gabriel Garcia Marquez's final novel, UNTIL AUGUST, we're sharing this gem from our archive: an excerpt of THE FRAGRANCE OF GUAVA (1982), a collection of conversations between Marquez and Plinio Apuleyo Mendoza and translated for River Styx 13: Visions and Forms (1982) by Guillermo Gomez.

Conversations with Gabriel Garcia Marquez Figure 1. Unknown photographer, "Gabriel García Márquez with Plinio Mendoza," 1974, black and white photograph, 10x8in. The University of Texas at Austin. © Unknown. [The following originally appeared in River Styx 13: Vision & Forms in 1982.] Gabriel Garcia Marquez: Conversations...