November 20, 2025 | 7 pm @ Tusculum University
GREENEVILLE– High-quality writing and illustrations from established authors and artists, bolstered by a creative partnership with Tusculum University students, will again entertain readers as they absorb the pages of the 21st edition of “The Tusculum Review.”
The prose and artistry will also captivate readers as they pour through the chapbook, a short stand-alone book, written by Robin Lee Lovelace and illustrated by Daeja Sutherland. This book, called “Snakebite,” is the winner of the 2025 Fiction Chapbook Prize presented by “The Tusculum Review,” the university’s international literary journal.
Tusculum University launches the journal and chapbook Thursday, Nov. 20, at 7 p.m. in Behan Arena Theatre and invites the community to attend this free event. It features a live reading followed by a question-and-answer session with Lovelace, Sutherland and writer G.W. Currier. In addition, students who have interviewed authors and artists featured in the journal and chapbook give brief presentations. The concluding activities will be a reception and book signing.
“Enjoy this evening of recognizing outstanding creative writing by exceptional authors and excellent behind-the-scenes work by our students, both of which continue our tradition of providing a voice to compelling literature,” said Kelsey Trom, editor of “The Tusculum Review” and professor ofEnglishat the university. “We take pride in producing a journal and honoring a chapbook each year that reflect our rich history of supporting strong writing and visually striking artwork. This year’s products continue that tradition in a meaningful way.”
“The Tusculum Review”
This year’s edition of “The Tusculum Review” presents the writing of 23 authors in 24 works in the drama, essay, fiction and poetry genres. Trom said the 21st edition will provide an extra helping of fiction because of the submission of so many stellar entries for the Chapbook Prize. The journal will feature six of the entries, including Lovelace’s. In addition, it will spotlight the illustrative talents of Amuri Morris, whose work in the publication consists of the cover and a folio of her paintings of Black women. Sutherland’s full-color illustrations appear with “Snakebite.”
Trom said a strength of this year’s volume is incredible variety in age, style and subject matter among the writers. That includes a new story, “Basic Training,” by legendary author Janet Burroway; Jamie Cortez’s newest story featuring his beloved character Gordo; and a new play by Texas playwright Straton Rushing. The edition also has two poems from Nate Marshall about his baby daughter, a poem by Ace Boggess about the aesthetics of addiction and pieces from two talented high school-age poets – Alexander Lee and Zack Lam.
In addition, “The Tusculum Review” will reprint best-selling author Ethel Morgan’s 2007 essay "Love Means Nothing," which discusses tennis, middle age, teaching and thetreatment of Venus and Serena Williams when they were new stars on the professional tennis circuit.
“It’s a testament to the reputation of our journal that so many writing heroes are publishing with us,” Trom said. “But I’m equally thrilled to be introducing readers to writers they may not have heard of yet – essayist Cynthia Liu, Canadian writer Jacob Scheier, Georgia fiction writer Connie Corzilius, West Virginia poet Ace Boggess and South Korean poet Alexander Lee. When it’s working, this is what literary journals get to do – bring exciting, of-the-moment work by both established and emerging writers to a new readership.”
Trom said Morris’ paintings contribute significantly to the quality of “The Tusculum Review.”
“We're thrilled to include Amuri Morris' incredible oil paintings of Black women in the style of the oldmasters and modern masters like Kehinde Wiley,” she said. “Amuri’s about to graduate from Virginia Commonwealth University's School of the Arts, but her figures have the gravitas, solidity and energy of portraits created by much older artists. Her intention and singular vision are also advanced.”
Morris shared her perspective in her artist statement.
“Painting Black women is an act of reverence and resistance –reverence for the histories, cultures and lineages that shape us andresistance against centuries of erasure, distortion and misrepresentation,” she said.“Each canvas becomes a mirror, a place where Black women can seethemselves centered, celebrated and worthy of attention withoutcondition or compromise."
The chapbook
“Snakebite” is an energetic and intense tale of childhood fear, helpless addiction, relationship distrust and release. In a profile she wrote about Lovelace, Tusculum sophomore Haley Cain said the author’s story shares the captivating narrative of a relative and that person’s lived experience. Cain said Lovelace’s ability to artistically detail this story moves the reader through the parallel story lines before concluding with a final culmination of the piece.
“I based the story on a real incident that happened to one of my relatives, but I did include in the story a sort of flashback about why the protagonist was so scared of snakes,” Lovelace said. “I have three close relatives that are first responders, and I have another one that's an ER nurse, so you can imagine the stories.”
Lovelace said she includes a flashback about the reason the protagonist in the story was so scared of snakes, but Cain said readers will feel immersed as if they were in the room with first responders.
Cortez, who served as the judge for the prize, sang the praises of “Snakebite” in Cain’s profile
“It kind of got me at a visceral level,” Cortez said. “The action that was happening, both the physical action that was happening but also the emotional experience that the characters were going through, was very visceral for me. I really appreciated the writer’s ability to invoke that viscerality. Not just any writer has the gift to do that.”
Cain, whose profile of Lovelace will be published on the website of “The Tusculum Review,”https://ttr.tusculum.edu/,also commended “Snakebite.” She called the chapbook “the epitome of the art of storytelling.”
As Trom reflected on Sutherland’s illustrations, she gave them high marks.
“Herapproach to illustrating ‘Snakebite’ was exceedingly professional, original and magical,” Trom said. “Her figures are anatomically meticulous but also animated with energy and motion. She sometimes sent us corrections of, to my eye, already marvelous illustrations because she was dissatisfied with the anatomy. These illustrations are drawn, inked and painted by hand in a multilayered process.”
Mini-biographies of Q&A participants
Lovelace is a mixed-race African American author who usually writes short fiction. Her novella, “Savonne, Not Vonny,” won or was short-listed for numerous awards, including the Etchings Press Novella of the Year in 2019 and the CIBA in 2021. Her short story “Uncle” won the Marguerite McGlinn Short Fiction Award in 2021. She was recognized as an honoree by Indiana Humanities for her work in fiction in 2020 and 2024.
Currier's fiction, drawn from his Rust Belt childhood and the stories of his Hungarian-American family, has appeared in publications such as “The Table Review,” “Saranac Review,” “Nimrod International Journal,” “The South Dakota Review” and “Waxwing.” He is the recipient of The Tulipán Foundation's 2025 Arts and Culture Award, which funds Hungarian-Americans influenced by traditional folk-craft.
Sutherland is a Canadian illustrator, comic artist and writer. She relishes exploring cultural, political and social questions through illustration and writing and has a particular obsession with fantasy creatures like orcs. She works primarily in traditional media – graphite, ink and watercolor. During her studies at Parsons School of Design, she completed “The Back of the Orchard,” a 20-page graphite and digitally colored comic, which inspired her to pursue a career in comics and illustration.
Editors of The Tusculum Review
In addition to the writers and artists who contribute to “The Tusculum Review,” the journal thrives on the leadership of multiple editors. Besides serving as the editor of the whole publication, Trom is the fiction editor. The others are Dr. Josh Martin, poetry editor; Abby Seethoff, nonfiction editor; and Matt Shvyrkov, drama editor.
Helping the authors and editors are Tusculum students from many majors who read submissions, perform the layout of the ones being published, correspond with the authors and write profiles of them. Those who served on the editorial staff this year are:
Student editors who wrote author and artist profiles for the website and will speak at the launch are:
Campione, a sophomore who is seeking a degree in English, said he enjoyed reading many great pieces of writing and collaborating with a terrific group. He learned a lot about writing and the drama genre.
“I was interested in the assistant editor role for drama because I’ve always been into scriptwriting and wanted to learn more about the genre, so it felt like a good fit,” he said. “It was an awesome opportunity to be part of the process. The experience I’ve had as an assistant editor of ‘The Tusculum Review’ has definitely helped me build skills I can use in pretty much anything I do. And of course, it was a lot of fun.”
Trom touted the students’ performance.
“I’m most proud of our student editors, whose work in the Publications Lab makes the issue possible and whose wisdom and perspective guides our joint editorial decision-making,” she said. “They’ve also written top-rate journalistic profiles of many of the featured writers, which people can view on our website in the upcoming weeks.”
Copies of “Snakebite” will be available for purchase at the launch for $10. People can buy copies of “The Tusculum Review” for $15 starting Monday, Dec. 1, by visiting the journal’s website,https://ttr.tusculum.edu/. More information about Tusculum’s English program and the university can be accessed atwww.tusculum.edu.
Category: Literature