Copper Nickel Issue 41

Copper Nickel is the national literary journal housed at the University of Colorado Denver. It is edited by poet, editor, and translator Wayne Miller (author of six collections, including The End of Childhood and We the Jury, coeditor of Literary Publishing in the Twenty-First Century, and co-translator of Moikom Zeqo’s Zodiac) and co-editor Joanna Luloff (author of Remind Me Again What Happened and The Beach at Galle Road)—along with poetry editors Brian Barker (author of Vanishing Acts, The Black Ocean, and The Animal Gospels) and Nicky Beer (author of Real Phonies and Genuine Fakes, The Octopus Game and The Diminishing House), and fiction editors Teague Bohlen (author of The Pull of the Earth), Christopher Merkner (author of The Rise & Fall of the Scandamerican Domestic), and Emily Wortman-Wunder (author of Not a Thing to Comfort You).

Since the journal’s relaunch in 2015, work published in Copper Nickel has been regularly selected for inclusion in Best American Poetry, Best American Short Stories, Best Small Fictions, Best Literary Translations, and the Pushcart Prize Anthology, and has often been listed as “notable” in the Best American Essays. According to Clifford Garstang’s 2024 literary journal rankings, Copper Nickel is ranked number 15 for poetry and number 35 for fiction, out of more than 700 regularly publishing literary journals.

Contributors to Copper Nickel have received numerous honors for their work, including the Nobel Prize; the National Book Critics Circle Award; the Pulitzer Prize; the Kingsley Tufts Poetry Award; the Kate Tufts Discovery Award; the Laughlin Award; the American, California, Colorado, Minnesota, and Washington State Book Awards; the Georg Büchner Prize; the Prix Max Jacob; the Griffin Poetry Prize; the Lenore Marshall Prize; the T. S. Eliot and Forward Prizes; the Anisfield-Wolf Book Award; the Alice Fay Di Castagnola Award; the Lambda Literary Award; as well as fellowships from the NEA and the MacArthur, Guggenheim, Ingram Merrill, Witter Bynner, Soros, Rona Jaffee, Bush, and Jerome Foundations. 

Copper Nickel is published twice a year, on March 15 and October 15, and is distributed nationally to bookstores and other outlets by Publishers Group West (PGW) and Accelerate 360. 

Issue 41 includes:

• Translation Folios featuring poetry by American Mexican writer Sandro Cohen, translated by J. Kates and Stephen A. Sadow; poetry by Bangladeshi poet Umma Habiba, translated by Quamral Hassan; a story by emerging Kazakh writer Manshuk Kali, translated by Slava Faybysh; and flash fiction by contemporary Spanish writer Julia Viejo, translated by Jacob Rogers.

• New Poetry by National Book Critics Circle Award finalists Rajiv Mohabir and Lia Purpura, Kingsley Tufts Award finalist Hayan Charara, William Carlos Williams Award winners Martha Collins and Kathy Fagan, Guggenheim Fellows Brian Komei Dempster and Eric Pankey, NEA Fellows Bruce Beasley and Emily Skaja, Robert Penn Warren Prize winner Ed Falco, Jenny McKean Writer-in-Washington Award recipient Bruce Snider, Oregon Book Award winner Maxine Scates, and relative newcomers Rivka Clifton, Ángel Garcia, Carolina Hotchandani, Bo Hee Moon, Migwi Mwangi, and Elise Thi Tran. 

• New Fiction by Pushcart Prize recipient Ea Anderson, New York Times Editors’ Choice honoree Katherine Hill, Grace Paley Prize winner Mary Kuryla, Tony Elias, and Elise Levine.

• New Essays by Lambda Literary Award winner James Allen Hall and Steven Cheslik-DeMeyer.

• Cover Art by Denver-based interdisciplinary artist Jensina Endresen.

Contributor Locations

Contributors to issue 41 come from all over the country and the world. 

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U.S. cities/regions where contributors and staff are concentrated include (organized alphabetically by state):

Denver, CO (home of Copper Nickel and the Copper Nickel staff; contributor Rajiv Mohabir; cover artist Jensina Endresen)

New York, NY (contributors Rhoni Blankenhorn, Michael Chang, Steven Cheslik-DeMeyer, Katherine Hill, Migwi Mwangi, Amy Roa, Jacob Rogers, and Nora Rose Tomas)

Los Angeles, CA (contributor Mary Kuryla; contributing editors Victoria Chang, Piotr Florczyk, Amaud Jamaul Johnson, and Chris Santiago)

Boston/Cambridge, MA (contributors Martha Collins, J. Kates, and Stephen A. Sadow; contributing editor Frederick Reiken)

Houston, TX (contributors Hayan Charara, Bo Hee Moon, and Matthew Weitman; contributing editor Kevin Prufer)

San Francisco Bay Area, CA (contributors Brian Komei Dempster and Jacques J. Rancourt; contributing editor Randall Mann)

Chicago, IL (contributors Kathleen Rooney and Elise Thi Tran; contributing editor Robert Archambeau)

Baltimore, MD (contributors Elise Levine, Lia Purpura, and Bruce Snider)

Philadelphia, PA (contributors Henry Israeli and Steven Kleinman; contributing editor Adrienne Perry)

Washington, DC (contributor Eric Pankey; contributing editor David Keplinger)

Minneapolis/St. Paul, MN (home of Milkweed Editions; contributing editor V. V. Ganeshananthan)

Kansas City, MO (contributors John Gallaher and Morgan Jenkins)

Pittsburgh, PA (contributing editors Joy Katz and Kevin Haworth)

Blacksburg, VA (contributor Ed Falco; contributing editor Janine Joseph)

Seattle, WA (contributors Rivka Clifton and Tony Elias)

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U.S. cities/regions with individual contributors (organized alphabetically by state):

San Luis Obispo, CA (contributor Kevin Clark)

New London, CT (contributor Charles O. Hartman)

Tampa, FL (contributor Natalie Tombasco)

Boise, ID (contributing editor Emily Ruskovich)

Lexington, KY (contributing editor Ada Limón)

Chestertown, MD (contributor James Allen Hall)

Duluth, MN (contributor Ryan Vine)

Saint Louis, MO (contributing editor Niki Herd)

Missoula, MT (contributing editor Sean Hill)

Asheville, NC (contributor Bruce Beasley)

Greensboro, NC (contributing editor Emilia Phillips)

Omaha, NE (contributor Carolina Hotchandani)

Princeton, NJ (contributing editor James Richardson)

Canton, NY (contributing editor Pedro Ponce)

Cincinnati, OH (contributor James Matthew Ellenberger)

Columbus, OH (contributor Kathy Fagan)

Eugene, OR (contributor Maxine Scates)

Tulsa, OK (contributing editor Kaveh Bassiri)

Providence, RI (contributor Mary Robles)

Memphis, TN (contributor Emily Skaja)

Dallas, TX (contributing editor Tarfia Faizullah)

Salt Lake City, UT (contributor Mike White)

Bellingham, WA (contributor Jeffrey Morgan)

Ellensburg, WA (contributor Maya Jewell Zeller)

Appleton, WI (contributor Austin Segrest)

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International contributors live in:

Flayosc, France (contributor Ea Anderson)

Berlin, Germany (contributing editor Alexander Lumans)

Breisgau, Germany (contributor Stephanie Staab)

Almati Kazakhstan (contributor Kali Manshuk)

Galway, Ireland (contributor Nicole Olweean)

Beirut, Lebanon (contributor Nur Turkmani)

Madrid, Spain (contributor Julia Viejo)

Copper Nickel is the national literary journal housed at the University of Colorado Denver. It is edited by poet, editor, and translator Wayne Miller (author of six collections, including The End of Childhood and We the Jury, coeditor of Literary Publishing in the Twenty-First Century, and co-translator of Moikom Zeqo’s Zodiac) and co-editor Joanna Luloff (author of Remind Me Again What Happened and The Beach at Galle Road)—along with poetry editors Brian Barker (author of Vanishing Acts, The Black Ocean, and The Animal Gospels) and Nicky Beer (author of Real Phonies and Genuine Fakes, The Octopus Game and The Diminishing House), and fiction editors Teague Bohlen (author of The Pull of the Earth), Christopher Merkner (author of The Rise & Fall of the Scandamerican Domestic), and Emily Wortman-Wunder (author of Not a Thing to Comfort You).