Denver Quarterly


The Denver Quarterly is an avant-garde literary journal based at the University of Denver. Founded in 1966 by novelist John Edward Williams.

''The Best American Short Stories''

Stories from the journal have twice been included in The Best American Short Stories: Margaret Shipley's "The Tea Bowl of Ninsel Nomura," in 1969, and in 1977 Baine Kerr's "Rider." Victor Kolpacoff's "The Journey to Rutherford" received an Honorable Mention in the 1970 anthology, Walter Benesch received a similar notation for "The Double" in 1971, and John P. Fox got one for "Torchy and My Old Man".

''The Best American Essays''

Three essays have had honorable mentions in The Best American Essays: Gabriel Hudson's "The Sky Hermit" in 1986, Stanley Elkin's "What's in a Name? Etc" in 1988, and Albert Goldbarth's "Wind-up Sushi: With Catalogues and Instructions for Assembly" in 1990.

''The Best American Poetry''

Stephen Berg, the founder of The American Poetry Review, won the Denver Quarterly a Pushcart Prize for his poem "First Song/Bankei/1653/", which also was included in Best American Poetry 1990.
In 1990, Joanne Greenberg won an O. Henry Award for her short story "Elizabeth Baird," originally published in the Fall 1989 issue of the journal. Scott Bradfield's essay "Why I hate Toni Morrison's 'Beloved'" was published to acclaim in 2004.

Notable contributors

The first editor was John Edward Williams. Others have included Jim Clark, Leland Chambers, Donald Revell, Bin Ramke, and, currently, novelist Laird Hunt.