Joseph Levens — Editor
Erin Murphy — Poetry Editor
Nick Sweeney — Associate Editor
Meredith Davies Hadaway — Poetry Editor Emerita

The Summerset Review is a literary journal released quarterly on the 15th of March, June, September, and December on the Internet, and periodically in print form. Founded in 2002, the journal is exclusively devoted to the review and publication of unsolicited fiction, nonfiction, and poetry.

All correspondence and submissions should be emailed to editor@summersetreview.org. Postal mailing address: 25 Summerset Drive, Smithtown, New York 11787, USA. See our guidelines for more information.

This publication is made possible, in part, with grants from the Council of Literary Magazines and Presses (CLMP), supported by public funds from the New York State Council on the Arts (NYSCA), a state agency. We are very thankful for the support and encouragement these organizations have given our journal and the literary community.

Republication or redistribution of any material on this web site should not be done without permission from the originator.

ISSN 1933-7175.

Staff Bios

Joseph Levens has had fiction and nonfiction appear in The Gettysburg Review, Florida Review (Editors' Award for Fiction), New Orleans Review, AGNI, Sou'wester, Meridian, Other Voices, The Literary Review, Zone 3, The Good Men Project and many other places. He has completed a two-novel series (thus far unpublished), and is approaching completion of adapting them for the screen. He lives on Long Island and teaches at two colleges. www.josephlevens.com

Erin Murphy is the author or editor of nine books, most recently Assisted Living (Brick Road Poetry Press), Ancilla (Lamar University Press), and Creating Nonfiction: Twenty Essays and Interviews with the Writers (SUNY Press), winner of the Gold Medal in the 2016 Foreword INDIES Book of the Year Awards. A tenth book, Bodies of Truth: Personal Narratives on Illness, Disability and Medicine, is forthcoming from the University of Nebraska Press.

Nick Sweeney reads prose submissions, writes book reviews, and coordinates the social media for The Summerset Review. He received his bachelor's degree in English from Marist College and his work has been published in Nassau Review, Dead Mule, and Bartleby Snopes.

History of the Journal

The Summerset Review started as an online literary quarterly in 2002, publishing exclusively fiction and nonfiction. With a staff of three volunteers, the magazine faithfully produced its issues on time, reviewing unsolicited submissions year-round, the great majority of which were made electronically and sent through email from hopeful writers ranging from high school students to authors with many published books to their names.

Since 2002, the magazine gained several staff members (still all volunteers), has taken on poetry, book reviews, and occasionally art, and produced a few print issues collecting a sampling of work that previously appeared online. Remaining ad-free and simple to navigate and read, the publication has continued to release all issues on time and full of variety.

The Summerset Review has read at The New York Public Library, national conferences, colleges, and other places, including events sponsored by the Council of Literary Magazines and Presses (CLMP), the New York State Council on the Arts (NYSCA), the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA), the National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE), and the Association of Literary Scholars and Critics (ALSC). Print issues of the magazine are frequently donated to book fairs across the country, with all proceeds going to charitable causes in the respective areas.

Work originally published in The Summerset Review has been reprinted in the Pushcart Prize, the Best American series, the PEN America Award series, the Best of the Net anthology, notable collections such as the Iowa Short Fiction Award, and a great many books published by our contributors.

Mission Statement

We think of ourselves as simply people who like to read good contemporary literature, who want to share the best of our experiences with others. The highest form of retribution for our efforts is a lasting impact on a few sensitive readers of our journal—people we don't know, people we will never meet. We received an email from a reader once, who said a story in our current issue (at the time) changed her life. Assuming this change was for the better, what more could we ask for?