about

Established in 1971, the Coe Review replaced Caravan, the former Coe (student only) literary magazine, as a dual venue for superior work from the newly established Coe Writers' Workshop and from established outside writers. The idea was to place emerging Coe writers alongside established writers in a roughly 50/50 mix. Although this ratio has fluctuated, sometimes wildly depending on the snobbery or lack of it in a given year's editorial staff, the ratio tends to even out over time.

Because of our proximity to the Iowa Writers' Workshop (28 miles south) and because Paul Engle, a Coe graduate, founded the Iowa Writers' Workshop in its present form [we consider ourselves the origin (the beginning, the starting point, the cause, the ultimate source) of all writers' workshops worldwide], we've been the first to publish a number of Iowa Workshop graduates, among them Chris Offutt, Pimone Triplett, Doug Larson, Tim Flanagan, and a host of others. Occasionally, we'll reprint fiction from writers like Robert Coover, T. Coraghessan Boyle, William Vollmann, ZZ Packard, and poetry from writers like James Tate, Eavan Boland, James Galvin, Sarah Lindsay....