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 Escaping Denver and 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 been listed on many occasions as "notable" in the Best American Essays. According to Clifford Garstang's 2024 literary journal rankings, Copper Nickel is ranked number 11 for poetry and number 37 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 B chner 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 42 Includes:
- Translation Folios by Chilean poet Rolando C rdenas (translated from the Spanish by July Westhale), Qu b cois poet Bertrand Laverdure (translated from the French by slp pieplow), Afghan novelist Khosraw Mani (translated from the Afghan Persian by Hajar Hussaini), Cuban poet Osdany Morales (translated from the Spanish by Harry Bauld), and Sri Lankan fiction writer Shobasakthi (translated from the Tamil by N. Asokan).
- New Poetry by National Book Award finalist Calvin Bedient; National Book Critics Circle Award finalist Bob Hicok; Kingsley Tufts Prize winner Angie Estes; UNT Rilke Prize winner David Keplinger; Guggenheim fellow Michael Waters; NEA Fellows Hadara Bar-Nadav, Michael Bazzett, and Mark Irwin; Los Angeles Times Book Award Finalist Erin Belieu; relative newcomers Lyn Li Che, Jordan Escobar, and Derek Otsuji; and many others.
- New Fiction by O. Henry Prize recipient Valerie O'Riordan, John McGahern Award winner Niamh Mac Cabe, Colorado Book Award winner John Cotter, and relative newcomers Erin Pesut and Fortunato Salazar.
- New Essays by Benjamin Saltman Award winner Matty Layne Glasgow and Best American Essays Notable Aaron Rabinowitz.
- Cover Art by Denver-based artist Danielle SeeWalker.
Contributor Locations
Contributors to issue 42 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 Graham Foust; cover artist Danielle SeeWalker)
Minneapolis/St. Paul, MN (home of Milkweed Editions; contributors Michael Bazzett and Jessica Nordell; contributing editor V. V. Ganeshananthan)
Los Angeles, CA (contributors Calvin Bedient and Fortunato Salazar; contributing editors Victoria Chang, Piotr Florczyk, Amaud Jamaul Johnson, and Chris Santiago) San Diego, CA (contributors Jordan Escobar, Peter Krumbach, and Michael Mark) Chicago, IL (contributor C. Pope; contributing editor Robert Archambeau) Kansas City, MO (contributors Hadara Bar-Nadav and Alice White)
New York, NY (contributors Harry Bauld, Lyn Li Che, and Osany Morales) Philadelphia, PA (contributor Amy Thatcher; contributing editor Adrienne Perry) Houston, TX (contributor Erin Belieu; contributing editor Kevin Prufer)
Blacksburg, VA (contributor Bob Hicok; contributing editor Janine Joseph) Boston/Cambridge, MA (contributing editors Martha Collins and Frederick Reiken) Pittsburgh, PA (contributing editors Joy Katz and Kevin Haworth)
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U.S. cities/regions with individual contributors (organized alphabetically by state):
Tucson, AZ (contributor July Westhale)
Merced, CA (contributor