Featured Writing

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Sister Act

by Sarah Carleton They ride the East Coast, up, down,hopping from venue to venue like fingers on a fretboard, passenger-seat sister playing mandolinas they sing to mark the miles, their paired tones woven into road-tire roar.On stage they perform the trick of trading instruments for a tune or two to…

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Photo of Tananarive Due, a smiling Black woman with big gold hoop earrings in a leather dress leaning toward the camera and smiling.

Word for Word, Featuring Special Guest Tananarive Due

On Wednesday, April 23, the Word for Word Literary Series welcomed award-winning author Tananarive Due. A leading voice in Black speculative fiction, Due has won an American Book Award, an NAACP Image Award, and a British Fantasy Award. Her books include The Reformatory (winner of a Los Angeles Times Book…

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Word for Word, Featuring Special Guest Jeffrey Ford

On Wednesday, February 19, the Word for Word Literary Series welcomed award-winning author Jeffrey Ford. He is the author of the novels The Physiognomy, Memoranda, The Beyond, The Portrait of Mrs. Charbuque, The Girl in the Glass, The Cosmology of the Wider World, The Shadow Year, The Twilight Pariah, Ahab’s…

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Word for Word Celebrates SNHU’s Fall Fiction Contest Winners

On Wednesday, January 15, 2025, the Word for Word Reading Series at Southern New Hampshire University (SNHU) featured the winners of the Penmen Review’s tenth annual Fall Fiction Contest. This year’s contest had more than 750 submissions, from which five winners were chosen: First place, “Train a Comin’,” by N….

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Meet the Winners of the 2024 Fall Fiction Contest

The 10th annual Southern New Hampshire University (SNHU) Fall Fiction Contest brought writers from across the country together for a chance to win a scholarship to SNHU and publication in The Penmen Review. After receiving more than 750 submissions, a panel of creative writing experts considered several factors during their…

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Word for Word, Featuring Special Guest Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah

On Wednesday, October 16, the Word for Word Literary Series welcomed award-winning author Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah. His debut collection, Friday Black, was a New York Times bestseller, won the PEN/Jean Stein Book Award and the William Saroyan International Prize for Writing, and was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle’s…

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Announcing the Winners of the 2023 Fall Fiction Contest

The 9th annual Southern New Hampshire University (SNHU) Fall Fiction Contest brought writers from across the country together for a chance to win a scholarship to SNHU and publication in The Penmen Review. After receiving more than 700 submissions, a panel of creative writing experts considered several factors during their…

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Alyssa Cole

Word for Word, Featuring Special Guest Alyssa Cole

On Thursday, February 16, 2023, Word for Word, Southern New Hampshire University’s (SNHU) online literary series, proudly welcomed Alyssa Cole, New York Times and USA Today bestselling author of romantic thrillers and more. Her debut thriller, “When No One Is Watching,” won the 2021 Edgar Allan Poe Award for Best…

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Announcing the Winners of the 2022 Fall Fiction Contest

The 8th annual Southern New Hampshire University (SNHU) Fall Fiction Contest brought writers from across the country together for a chance to win a scholarship to SNHU and publication in The Penmen Review. After receiving more than 660 submissions, a panel of creative writing experts considered several factors during their…

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The Death of Jane Lawrence

The Penmen Profile: A Q&A with Award-Winning Fiction Writer Caitlin Starling

by Nicholas Patterson Caitlin Starling is an award-winning fiction writer who creates original and unique horror stories that encapsulate speculative fiction’s broad reach. For example, you can probably find “Luminous Dead” on the science fiction shelf of your local bookstore, although this novel is not your typical sci-fi work. Starling…

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