Beyond HFR: Chronicling The Successes of 2014 Contributors to Hayden’s Ferry Review

Here's a sampling of what our contributors have been up to in 2014. 

Brent Armendinger: The Ghost in Us Was Multiplying

Brent Armendinger, whose piece “Dennis Richmond” was featured in issue 54 of Hayden’s Ferry Review, has recently released a chapbook entitled The Ghost in Us Was Multiplying through Noemi Press. Chronicling narratives about gay life in the age of AIDS, the book balances ethics with queer desire. Poems within have been described as “admirably attentive to sadness, breath, and desire” (Maggie Nelson) and “capable of rendering the incredibly porous and vulnerable state of the desiring mind” (Brian Teare). More information about The “Ghost in Us Was Multiplying” can be found here. Brent has also had his latest poem, “Casual Sex,” published in Bloom Literary Journal, which can be accessed here.

B.J. Hollars: Dispatches From the Drownings and Greetings from Duluth

B.J. Hollars, whose piece “The Year of the Great Forgetting” was featured in issue 54 of Hayden’s Ferry Review, has kept his streak of creating brilliant creative nonfiction alive by releasing Dispatches from the Drownings: Reporting the Fiction of Nonfiction on Sept. 1 2014 through University of New Mexico Press. Within the book, Hollars addresses the discrepancies and inaccuracies that he found while combing through archives of local newspapers surrounding stories of drownings in the river behind his home in Eau Claire, Wisconsin. His blend of fact and fiction proves that both can be as artful as they are messy. More information on Dispatches from the Drownings can be found here.

However, that’s not the only piece of factual wonder that B.J. Hollars has produced. Since his publication in HFR he has also created and released an e-chapbook entitled Greetings From Duluth through Dzanc Books. The collection of essays explores the dark history surrounding the are over the course of nearly a century with the use of lyricism, experimental forms and personal experience. More information can be found here. 

Oliver Bendorf:

The Spectral Wilderness

Oliver Bendorf, whose piece “The Gospel According to X” was featured in issue 54 of HFR, has released a collection of poems entitled The Spectral Wilderness, published through The Kent State University Press. Released in January 2015, the collection focuses on the little-explored territory of the lives of those engaged in gender transformation. The poems within have been described as “gorgeous and ravenous rackets” with “a yearning and beautiful heart” (Ross Gay). More information on The Spectral Wilderness can be found here.

HFR offers its deepest congratulations to these and all of issue 54’s contributors!  

If you are a contributor with a new or forthcoming book/chapbook, we'd love to hear about it.

-Shelby Heinrich