“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 27.2
Featuring the writing of Ann Guy, Indira Khera, Manoj Kumar H V, Gregory Martin, Shannon McCarthy, Julia Nagele, Jessica Lind Peterson, Sam Pickering, Jan Shoemaker, and Ana Maria Spagna.
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.
Things Not Always Seen
This year, we combined forces with Indiana Public Radio's Pop of Culture to bring Beautiful Things to the airwaves. To celebrate this collaboration, we are revisiting "Things Not Always Seen" by Bex Hoffer. Her piece originally appeared in Beautiful Things on November...
Roller-rink Al
by Hallie Johnston
Frozen pickle juice in plastic ketchup cups. Cold and green and twenty-five cents. Better than sour apple Blow Pops or Warheads or hot chips and cheese. Like cool salt licks for little mouths and aerobic hearts thumping, racing eight wheels—faster, fastest—on smooth, polished hardwood.
Private Wilderness
by Stacey Hall Burge Piles of dirt—fill dirt dumped from a truck beneath the trees. Shaded, swirling dunes that we kids scaled and carried into the house in our nostrils, crooks of elbows, backs of knees. Never finding something to fill, the dirt was hugged by ground and green.
Watering Can
by Katie Bannon
There’s a spider at the bottom of the watering can. I’m in the yard, tending to the seedling milkweed my husband planted to attract monarchs. It’s morning before work, and I’m rushing. I just need to fill the watering can so I can go inside to pay the electric bill and cook the oatmeal and turn over the laundry and—
Latest News …
Interview with Sue William Silverman, River Teeth’s 2026 Literary Nonfiction Book Prize Judge
We are delighted to announce Sue William Silverman as the final judge for the 2026 River Teeth Literary Nonfiction Book Prize.
Sue William Silverman is an award-winning author of nine works of nonfiction and poetry. Her new book, Selected Misdemeanors: Essays at the Mercy of the Reader, was longlisted for the PEN/Diamonstein-Spielvogel Award for the Art of the Essay.
Anne Goldman Wins the 2025 River Teeth Literary Nonfiction Prize
We are delighted to announce that Anne Goldman has won the 2025 River Teeth Literary Nonfiction Book Prize. Her manuscript, House of Fragile Things, will be published in Spring 2027 by the University of New Mexico Press.
Interview With Laura Julier – Winner of River Teeth’s 2023 Literary Nonfiction Book Prize
By Megan Lutes Laura Julier, former editor of ten years at Fourth Genre, won River Teeth’s Literary Nonfiction Book Prize in 2023 for her memoir, Off Izaak Walton Road: Grace that Comes from Loss, published by University of New Mexico Press, 2025. As an educator,...