About Us
The Louisville Review Corporation is a member of the Community of Literary Magazines and Presses.
History:
The Louisville Review is now an independent non-profit organization. Until recently, it had been housed at Spalding University since 1998, and was founded in 1976 at the University of Louisville by faculty editor Sena Jeter Naslund and two undergraduate students, Bonnie Cherry and Tom Willett
We have recently published such well-known writers as Stephen Dunn and Claudia Emerson, and NY Times bestselling fiction writer Ursula Hegi. From its founding in 1976, TLR also has fostered the development of new writers; a poem TLR published twenty years ago by Alberto Riós now appears in standard literature textbooks. TLR published the work of Louise Erdrich while she was still a student at Johns Hopkins. Since receiving the top award of the Kentucky Arts Commission as the best literary magazine in the state with its maiden issue, the goal of the magazine continues to be to import the best writing to local readers, to export the best local writers to a national readership, and to juxtapose the work of established writers with new writers. Each poem and story submitted to TLR is judged entirely on its own merit whether the author is already nationally known or previously unpublished.
In 1996, to celebrate twenty years of continuous magazine publication, the Fleur-de-Lis Press was launched. To date, twenty books have been published—including The Real, True Angel by Robin Lippincott, Laughing Sickness by Kathleen Driskell, Silk Weather by Alan Naslund, It Was the Goodness of the Place by Lucinda Dixon Sullivan, The Triangle Pose by Mary Welp, and more. Though a small operation, our books have received endorsements by renowned authors such as Maura Stanton, Maxine Kumin, Billy Collins, Tim O’Brien, Mark Doty, Melissa Pritchard, Silas House, and Fred Chappell, and reviews of national significance in such places as the NY Times Book Review and Kirkus. The goal of Fleur-de-Lis is to publish first books by authors whose work has been previously published in The Louisville Review.
Founding Editor:
Sena Jeter Naslund, MA, Ph.D., U of Iowa; fiction writer, author of critically-acclaimed, national-bestselling novels Ahab’s Wife; Four Spirits; Abundance, a Novel of Marie-Antoinette, and six others. Naslund served as the first director of creative writing at the U of Louisville, where, in 1976, she and students launched The Louisville Review, and where she was awarded the first Distinguished Teaching Award, as well as the university-wide President’s Award for Creative Activity; she also served as founding Program Director of the Spalding MFA in Writing, 2001-2017. She continues as Editor of the independent TLR and its book press, Fleur-de-Lis. Naslund has taught at the U of Montana, U of Indiana-Bloomington, and Vermont College, and has held Distinguished Visiting Professor positions at the U of Alabama-Huntsville and at Montevallo U. A recipient of writing grants from the NEA, the KY Arts Council, the KY Women Writers’ Assoc., and of the Harper Lee Award and the Hall Waters Southern Prize, Naslund has been initiated into the Writers Hall of Fame in both Alabama and Kentucky, where she also served as KY Poet Laureate. A graduate of Birmingham-Southern College where she won the B.B. Comer Medal in English, she was recently recognized as a distinguished alum.
Associate Editor:
Before joining TLR and Fleur-de-Lis in 2020 as Associate Editor, Flora K. Schildknecht’s debut collection, Megafauna: Stories and Screenplay, was published by Fleur-de-Lis Press in 2018. The title story of the collection has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize. Other stories have appeared in Sisyphus, 2nd and Church, The Chaffin Journal, and The Louisville Review. Schildknecht served as an adjunct professor at Bellarmine University from 2016-2022, where she taught courses in fiction, creative nonfiction, playwriting, literature, and humanities. She earned an MFA from Spalding University, where she studied fiction and screenwriting, and she is currently perusing a PhD in Comparative Humanities at the University of Louisville where she also teaches humanities courses.
Managing Editor:
Amy Foos Kapoor is a children’s book author, television and digital media producer, and event coordinator for the annual reading series “Voice and Vision: Presented by Spalding University’s School of Writing, The Louisville Review and 21c” in Louisville. She earned an MFA from Spalding University’s School of Writing, where she studied writing for children and young adults.
Genre Guest Editors:
The poetry and fiction editors change with each issue.
Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion:
The Louisville Review Corporation has been run by women for over forty-five years. As we continue to grow as an independent, nonprofit arts organization, we reaffirm our commitment to being an organization that values diverse voices, creates publication opportunities for underrepresented writers, and that fosters an inclusive literary space.
Diversity: The Louisville Review and Fleur-De-Lis Press value unique voices that represent diverse identities. We enthusiastically welcome submissions from writers of all backgrounds and identities including minority, indigenous, and LGBTQ writers, and writers from outside the US. We welcome fiction and poetry in a variety of registers, modes, and styles. The Louisville Review invites guest poetry and fiction editors for each issue ensure that, over time, a wide variety of backgrounds and tastes are represented. Currently, we are taking the initiative to invite more women, people of color, indigenous, and LBGTQ writers to serve as guest editors ensure diversity in our editorial lineup.
Equity: We at TLR and FDL know that to be an equitable literary magazine and press we must make our organization more visible to writers from under-represented groups so that such writers have the opportunity to submit their work to us. Our editorial staff are currently conducting research on how to spread the word about our submission windows and National Poetry Book Contests to more women, people of color, indigenous, and LBGTQ writers. In acknowledgment of the need to be a grow into a more diverse, inclusive, and equitable arts organization, our editorial staff are attending a series of training workshops, most recently, “Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Accessibility for Nonprofit Arts Organizations,” a workshop hosted by Kentucky Arts Council as part of National Arts and Humanities Month.
Inclusion: At TLR, we wish for all guest editors to understand that TLR truly values unique voices in the fiction and poetry we publish. This is why we communicate to all incoming guest editors that we are eager to publish the very best writing that engages a range of perspectives, in particular those of women, people of color, indigenous, and LBGTQ individuals, as well as perspectives from outside the US. Our goal is for TLR to be a literary space where every voice is welcome and valued.
Contact Info:
The Louisville Review and Fleur-de-Lis Press
1436 St. James Court
Louisville, KY 40208