“Our present-tense human experience is like a living tree growing by a river. The current in the river is the passing of time. Our individual pasts are like the same tree fallen in the river, drowned now, and disintegrating with surprising speed. We resist time’s flow with our memories and language, with our stories ”
~ David James Duncan
Issue 26.1
Featuring the writing of Richard Bausch, David Fowler, George Estreich, Stephen Haines, Heather Lanier, Will McMillan, Lindsey Pharr, Suzanne Roberts, Jennifer Taylor-Skinner, William Torrey, and Nicole Walker.
River Teeth is a biannual journal combining the best of creative nonfiction, including narrative reportage, essays, and memoir, with critical essays that explore the impact of nonfiction narrative on the lives of its writers, subjects, and readers.
Pretty Things
By Kat Moore
Cats left gifts for us: dead birds, one time a dead possum, dragged to the middle of the driveway, resting on the dried oil slick...
Letting Go of the Concrete
By Rachel Parker
My son is terrified of the water. Each time he steps in, his small back tenses, his teeth clench, his lip quivers...
In the Delivery Room
By Jeannine Pitas
Leaves know to grow each April, to fall in October; one body emerges from another...
Latest News …
Hannah Hindley Wins River Teeth’s 2024 Literary Nonfiction Book Prize
By Megan Lutes
We are delighted to announce that Hannah Hindley has won the 2024 River Teeth Literary Nonfiction Book Prize. Her manuscript, Love and Also Fish, will be published by the University of New Mexico Press in Spring 2026. Hindley will also receive a $1,000 honorarium. All entries were screened by the editors, and our guest judge, Beth Nguyen, chose a winner from among the finalists. All of us at River Teeth are grateful to the many writers who submitted their books to the competition this year and to Beth Nguyen for sharing her time and expertise to choose the winning manuscript.
River Teeth Goes to L.A. for AWP 2025
We our packing our bags and our boxes of goodies as we prepare to make our way to AWP in Los Angeles this March 26-29 in Los Angeles.
Brooke Champagne Joins the River Teeth Team
Hello from the confluence of River Teeth here at Ball State University in Muncie, Indiana, on the kind of gorgeous fall day that makes a person want to leash up the dog and head out into the fields and woods–but not so fast because submissions opened on September 1st and we’ve got a lot of reading to do. Happily, we love to read.