The international literary magazine New Orleans Review began in 1968 as an endeavor of Loyola's English Department. With professor and poet Miller Williams as the magazine's first editor in chief, New Orleans Review set out to be a journal of litertaure as well as culture. In its first decade, the magazine filled its pages with acclaimed writers, poets, scholars, and thinkers, including Joyce Carol Oates, Pablo Neruda, Ellen Gilchirst, Hunter S Thompson, Tess Gallagher, Annie Dillard, and Diane Wakoski, among many others. The magazine also established itself as a venue for publishing emerging writers and even first-time-in-print authors. Unique to the magazine were Loyola undergraduates working as editorial interns alongside faculty members.
Two letters from the fledgling days of the New Orleans Review, written by Managing Editor Tom Bell, articulate the goals and excitement of the founders. “It it promises to be a swinging publication if we can just tend to ten thousand trivial details.”
Early letter from founding editor Miller Wiliams
The first two issues of the New Orleans Review show the original cover design featuring black and white photography. The publication has changed size and design many times over it’s 50 year history.
“How We Fall in Love” by Joyce Carol Oates, published in the third issue, serves as an early example of a major writer featured in the Review.