Three Rivers Review
Three Rivers Review began a couple of years ago as the magazine Thirst, the project of a few dedicated undergraduates who wanted to publish the best literature in the University of Pittsburgh community. They were not sure at the onset whether that goal would mean printing a 10- or a 50-page magazine, but that was not their concern; they did not care how thick each book ended up being as long as it contained work representative of the best of what undergraduates were producing.
Since that time, the magazine has attracted many more devoted staff members, and with the continuing support of the University of Pittsburgh University Honors College, it has evolved into Three Rivers Review. This name change, however, is only representative of larger changes in the magazine itself.
As it expands into a community-based literary magazine hoping to promote the importance of dialogue across university boundaries, Three Rivers Review opens itself to submissions from undergraduates attending all of Pittsburgh’s colleges and universities. Not only is it exciting for students’ work to be shared with a widened audience, but it’s also important that literature not divide itself into camps according to alma mater. When undergraduate work is published as something larger than a sample study of a particular writing program, undergraduates take a larger place in Pittsburgh’s vibrant writing community.
Throughout this entire process, Three Rivers Review has remained dedicated to the original goal of publishing the best undergraduate writing available. This process inherently leads to a battle against what Helen Vendler has termed “the invisibility of poetry in America to all but the converted.”
With the stories and poems published here, Three Rivers Review hopes to be a part of all that is trying to say: Listen, literature is not dead; it is growing and breathing, gaining new voices and audiences. Progress is slow, if it comes at all, but those of us who have already been converted know the importance of striving toward a visible and penetrating art. And these are the places where it begins.
In Three Rivers Review there are undergraduate writers who we believe have crafted unique and moving pieces of fiction and poetry. They are worthy of respect and deserving of a published voice.
Contact the Three Rivers Review: threeriversreview@yahoo.com