Editor Note

Dear Readers and Writers-
Here we are already at the end of another year of reading, reviewing, and publishing. If you’ve come by our website lately, you’ll see that we’ve temporary closed submissions,— hoping this gives us a chance to catch up on our backlog as well as make some steady progress on BOOK #2 — our coming-in-2024 Anthology of Student Writing, published in collaboration with Wise Ink Press.

Issue 32 is swarming with creative writing along with our rapidly expanding ART section. As our submissions increase we try to respond by adding a few more pieces to each issue. Still we end up turning down lots of good stuff simply due to the volume of work we receive. But also this is good (!) news because that means so many students are WRITING.

We’ve said this before- but we always encourage simultaneous submissions, and hope that all our student submitters are sending work to many places, to increase their odds of publication.

Submissions will reopen FEBRUARY 1, 2024. Keep us in mind! – we’ll be ready to read.

Enjoy the issue—
Molly Hill
Editor

December 2023
Issue 32

Dear Readers and Writers:

Somehow we’ve arrived at the end of a full year of reading, reviewing and publishing. If you’ve stopped by our site recently you’ll see that we’ve closed submissions temporarily. This gives us time to catch up on the backlog, as well as move forward with production of our coming -in- 2024 Anthology Volume 2.

Issue 32 holds a swarm of good writing in addition to loads of creativity in our ever expanding ART section. We love the work in this issue, —and feel the same about so much of the creativity we’ve had to turn down. Luckily there are many lit journals, and lots of opportunities for student writers both online and in print. We’re grateful you’ve stopped here, and in the spirit of freudenfreude* we hope you’ll take time to share what you’ve read and enjoyed here.

Submissions will reopen FEBRUARY 1^st, 2024. We’ll be ready to READ.

Happy holidays and enjoy the issue.

 

Molly Hill
Editor

 

 

 

 

 

*freudenfreude: finding pleasure in another person’s good fortune

Issue 30
June 2023
Editor’s Note:

No writing is a waste of time— no creative work where the feelings, the imagination, the intelligence must work. With every sentence you write, you have learned something. It has done you good.
Brenda Ueland- If You Want to Write

 

 Dear Readers and Writers,

Welcome to our June Issue — Issue 30! Not sure we imagined this way back in 2015 when we first started brainstorming the idea of creating an online journal just for student writing. And we’re in great company— there are many other lit mags for students both online and in print,some backed by academic institutions, and many that are both created and run by student volunteers. We’re in favor of sending your creative work to MANY places, to increase your chances of being published. Some great resources:

www.newpages.com/young-writers-guide/young-writers-guide-to-publication/
www.duotrope.com
www.pw.org

When we started Blue Marble Review, we pictured this online space as a repository for creative work that would both showcase and inspire student creatives. In our eight years online we’ve seen the way creativity mirrors and speaks to cultural change. Students still write about family, school, sports, graduation, college, jobs, love, hobbies… but all of these themes are colored by where we’ve been (covid, isolation,) and what’s up ahead— environmental changes, inequality, political change, inflation…. Wait — also HOPE.

Writing has always been about connection, and whether a piece seems relatable or leaves you feeling riled, well maybe both are okay.

 

Enjoy the issue.
Molly Hill
Editor

Spring 2023
Issue 29

Dear Readers and Writers:

Eight years ago we first constructed our website (thank you Sumy Designs!) and then we waited. The first submission that appeared in the inbox was a poem from a young writer in Indiana. Although we’ve received countless stories, essays, book reviews, photography, and travelogues since then, our poetry submissions outnumber all the others by about three to one.

It could be that British poet W.H. Auden was onto something when he said:

Poetry is the clear expression of mixed feelings.

 And while we’ve received poetry in many formats— sonnets, haikus, odes, and ghazals, we’re just as glad to see students abandon official structures, and explore their own creative forms.

The poems in our spring issue are all over the board, which is just how we like it.

Northwestern University student Maddie Kerr starts off her poem into congruence, with hair clippers in hand ‘buzzing a lullaby.’

Ivi Hua describes herself as an Asian-American writer/dreamer/ poet, and muses about life in  all the things I tell myself.

 The opening lines of Potential Potion for a Wildlife Brew (Peas in a pod are accustomed to company, but I am not) find writer Kamilah Valentin Diaz pondering a major life decision.

In our nonfiction section Addeline Struble uses poetic and poignant language to hold a lost sister close in past, present, future.

And in answer to the perennial question — do we ever publish the same students more than once? Yes— see The Physician from the prolific and talented Nigerian writer/poet Samuel Adeyemi.

When we accepted Pantoum for the Departed from A.R. Arthur he wrote in an email— “hey, thanks for homing my poem!” Which reminded us again of our main mission—to discover and bring all these gems of student writing first HOME to our site, and then out into the wide world.

Enjoy the spring issue!

 

Molly Hill
Editor