Dear Readers,
Welcome to Issue 12: Spring 2026 of the Philly Chapbook Review! With the addition of original short fiction and (soon) prose chapbooks, we have officially dropped “poetry” from our name. In addition to the new poet every other week and featured poem excerpts, we will be publishing up to three pieces of fiction per issue and, hopefully, fiction excerpts from new or forthcoming collections. Beginning with Issue 13, we will also begin weekly New Fiction Books for literary fiction.
Our Substack continues to grow, now with with over 800 followers, as do our social media followings, and the website continues to receive over 5,000 unique page views per month, according to Google Analytics. For the Spring issue, we received submissions of 758 poems from 187 poets in 24 countries. We accepted 24 poems from 8 poets, maintaining our acceptance rate at around 3%.
New Staff
I was pleased with the dozens of applications we received for staff positions in February and March, and I’ve hired PCR‘s first section editors. Heather Hoover has joined as our first dedicated Poetry Editor and Chelsea Cobb is Fiction Editor. Danielle McMahon has taken on the role of Interviews Editor and D.W. Baker is now a Contributing Editor-at-Large, but both will continue to read poetry submissions. Micah Marrapodi will round out PCR‘s editorial team as our first dedicated Reviews Editor.
Grace Sandall, Jeannine Dudzinski, Mariana Filaretou, and Amanda Simonson have also joined the team as Fiction Readers, while Herb Kitson and Lynn Wagner will continue as Poetry Readers, and Emily Lichius will continue as a Production Assistant.
I just want to express my gratitude toward these people for volunteering their time and energy to support PCR. To find out more information about the staff, you can check out our Masthead page.
Original Fiction & Poetry Wanted
From May 1 to June 15, Philly Chapbook Review is accepting submissions of short and flash fiction along with our usual poetry call. Flash fiction should be from 500 to 1,000 words and short fiction from 1,000 to 6,000 words. You can find full details about what we’re looking for and the links to submission forms at the link below:
Call for Summer Poetry & Fiction Submissions
Prose Chapbooks & Full-length Fiction Wanted
With our expansion into fiction, we are looking for submissions of all prose chapbooks, both fiction or nonfiction, for listing in our monthly round-ups, and for review, interview, or excerpt feature consideration. We’re also now accepting submissions of full-length fiction books for our weekly list and suggestions for featured story/section excerpts.
If you have a prose chapbook or a full-length fiction title that is forthcoming or published within the past 12 months, they can be submitted for consideration using the forms below.
Prose Chapbook Submissions: Click for submission form
Full-length Fiction Submissions: Click for submission form
Thanks for reading and supporting us. If you have the means and the will, you can donate to our Contributor’s Fund through our Donate page. A big thank you to Larry Flood who became our first Patron through his generous contribution!
Warm regards,
Aiden Hunt
Managing Editor & Creator
Contents
Chapbook Poem: Slow Burn by Evan Wang
“The concept of personifying a slow burn deeply resonated with who I thought myself to be—a slow burn, love flickering around me.” Read the featured Chapbook Poem of the Month for April 2026, “Slow Burn” by Evan Wang, along with a few words from the poet.
Book Excerpt: She wants shimmering scales by Nicole Alston Zdeb
“The nexus of the erotic, the social, and the body felt relevant to what I was experiencing at the end of the 20th Century. There are glimmers of personal lore as well…” Read the featured Excerpt Poem of the Month for April 2026, “She wants shimmering scales” from The End of Welcome by Nicole Alston Zdeb, along with a few words from the poet.
“I wanted to explore how time was registered not only by the calendar and clock, but also in the various utilitarian tasks of my mother’s life.” Read three poems by Ron Mohring, our first biweekly poet of the Spring 2026 issue, along with a few words about “Fuse.”
Three Poems by Andrew Pelham-Burn
“Children in these circumstances are deprived of love at a formative stage and learn to immediately behave like adults without the benefit of the learning path of childhood.” Read three poems by Andrew Pelham-Burn, our second biweekly poet of the Spring 2026 issue, along with a few words about “Conkers.”
A Conversation with John deSouza
“Language is a powerful tool and can do great harm both to ourselves and to those most close to us when used cruelly or selfishly.” Poet John deSouza discusses his chapbook, This Rough Magic, his creative process, and the influence of John Ashbery in this interview with editor Danielle McMahon.
Chapbook Poem: from Stray Hunter’s Bullet by Lance Le Grys
“…what interested me was the idea of a character who didn’t do what he was capable of, not because of external circumstances, but because of either a lack of will or a seemingly perverse one.” Read the featured Chapbook Poem of the Month for May 2026, from Stray Hunter’s Bullet by Lance Le Grys, along with a few words from the poet.
Book Excerpt: Love does not exist by Maria Giesbrecht
“This poem was inspired by a dream… I had this strange feeling when I woke up that it meant something more and started writing a poem to see if anything would reveal itself to me.” Read the featured Excerpt Poem of the Month for May 2026, “Love does not exist” from A Little Feral by Maria Giesbrecht, along with a few words from the poet.
“After a loss in my family, I discovered one grieves for both the living who hide their pain and for the dead who sleep in silence.” Read two poems by Patricia Wallace, our third biweekly poet of the Spring 2026 issue, along with a few words about “Fox.”
May ’26: New Staff, New Calls, New(ish) Name
Editor Aiden Hunt provides information about changes to PCR’s name, format, and staff in this editor’s note, which also contains links to our Spring calls for submissions.
“I kept thinking about how easily adults learn to stop seeing what’s right in front of them, especially when they’re somewhere between one country and another, neither arriving nor leaving.” Read four poems by Nivara Lune, our fourth biweekly poet of the Spring 2026 issue, along with a few words about “Notes Toward an Elsewhere.”
The Lines of Landscape: on The Catastrophes by Marie Scarles
“Scarles’ choice of title points away from place, and toward the book’s deeper and more powerful offering: a changed way of seeing, one of the hallmarks of any successful poetics.” Read the full chapbook review by contributing editor, D.W. Baker.
“Every time I plucked a few of the little orange sun sugars to take inside, their garden smell lingered on my fingers. It was almost enough to just sit with that scent…” Read three poems by Kait Quinn, our fifth biweekly poet of the Spring 2026 issue, along with a few words about “The Tomato.”
Chapbook Poem: Superbloom by Joyce Schmid
“That June, flowers bloomed everywhere in Northern California—as if to honor her, to celebrate her life. This poem is an attempt to accept the fact that she is really gone.” Read the featured Chapbook Poem of the Month for June 2026, from Superbloom by Joyce Schmid, along with a few words from the poet.
Book Excerpt: The Well by Robin Becker
“Allowing flickering sentiments and images to play against one another, I replicated one form of consciousness. A surprising aspect of the poem: the sudden appearance of figures of government.” Read the featured Excerpt Poem of the Month for June 2026, “The Well” from Midsummer Count by Robin Becker, along with a few words from the poet.