“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

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Issue 26.2

Jun 1, 2025

Featuring the writing of Megan Baxter, Will Bridges, Janet Burroway, Roger Conant Cranse, Hope Henderson, Catherine Humikowski, Katherine Larson, Lucy McBee, Mariana Penãloza Morales, Sharman Apt Russell, Margot Singer, and Michael Wiley.

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Painting of two women looking to the right

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.

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Beautiful Things

River Teeth‘s weekly online magazine, Beautiful Things, features micro-essays (of 250 words or fewer) that look closely to find beauty and meaning in the everyday.

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River Teeth Revisited

Here at River Teeth, we love essays. We love reading essays, choosing essays, and writing essays. We love essays that feel urgent, essays we can’t put down, and essays that don’t turn away when the truth gets difficult or slippery.

We also like to think about how the best essays work—and that’s why we have created the online feature: River Teeth Revisited.

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Share your essays with River Teeth

River Teeth accepts submissions of creative nonfiction through Submittable from September 1 to December 1 and January 1 to April 1.

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The Book Prize

River Teeth‘s editors conduct a yearly national contest for a book-length manuscript of literary nonfiction in English. All manuscripts are screened by the co-editors of River Teeth. The contest winner receives $1,000 and publication by The University of New Mexico Press.

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Beautiful Things: a weekly online magazine of micro-essays
Volcano
Volcano

Volcano

By Bethany Bruno
Jimmy Buffett’s “Volcano” blared from the lanai speakers, steel drums skipping over sun-soaked chaos. Kids doing cannonballs, adults sloshing bourbon in plastic cups, and bathing suits doubling as dinner clothes...

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Oct 13, 2025 | 2 min read

Waste Not
Waste Not

Waste Not

By Desiree Cooper
My parents are old and inert, their bones want only to be still. There’s not much we can do for entertainment, except sit here, and then for a change of scenery, sit there.

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Sep 29, 2025 | 2 min read

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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.

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Apr 22, 2025 3 min read

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