As 2022 comes to an end, you should be receiving issue 89.3/4 of North Dakota Quarterly even as we speak (weather permitting of course!). Wrapping up the year and another issue is a nice opportunity to take a look back before starting to pull together the first issue of volume 90.

This year was an exciting year for NDQ! Not only did we produce a pair of double issues packed with poetry, essays, fiction, and reviews, but we also published our first novel in almost 40 years!

If you’re looking for something to read in the New Year or a last minute holiday gift, do consider getting a copy of Jurij Koch’s The Cherry Tree. Translated by John Cox. It’s available as a free download or in paperback! Or, if you’re looking for a gift that keeps on giving, consider getting a subscription to the Quarterly!

If you’re looking for something to read in the meantime, here are some of the more popular posts to the NDQ blog from the past year:

NDQ publishes a lot of poetry and we tend to think this is a good thing (although we have such a backlog now, we’re pressing pause on poetry submissions this spring and will resume them in the fall!). Over the past twelve months, we’ve been very happy to see that some of our poetry really resonates with you as readers. Check out some of our most popular poetry posts: A Haiku by Uchimura Kaho offers a gentle meditation, Robert Fillman reminds us of winter’s past, and, for those of us struggling to weather the wintertime, there’s always the promise of summer: On Believing and the Poetry of John Poff.

We’ve also really enjoyed making some fantastic essays available to our readers. I loved Sarah Beck’s “Ymir’s Blood,” which was one of the most read essays on our blog this past year. We were also thrilled to see the popularity of Serrana Laure’s “Teach a Girl to Make a Fire.” Finally, we were thrilled to see the publication of Taylor Brorby’s Boys and Oil: Growing Up Gay in a Fractured Land (Liveright 2022) and to celebrate this accomplishment, we published his compelling essay, “The Fracking of My Body” which originally appeared in NDQ 87.3/4. 

Of course, we haven’t neglected fiction! In addition to the publication of Jurij Koch’s novel, we also posted Tallia Deitsch’s haunting story “The Famous Patient” which offers a Gothic reflection on long-standing questions of identity and care.

You can also find more fiction in our special digital “pull out” on Literature in Translation. Check out “The Summer My Mother Had Green Eyes” by Tatiana Ţîbuleac and download the entire thing here.

Finally, NDQ would not be possible without the constant support and encouragement from the editorial board who juggle responsibilities with NDQ with their own teaching and writing. Hats off to our tireless poetry editor, Paul Worley, our non-fiction editor Shelia Liming (whose latest book Hanging Out: The Radical Power of Killing Time, is out next month!), our fiction editor, Gilad Elbom (whose latest book Textual Rivalries: Jesus, Midrash, and Kabbalah, appeared last year!), and our review editor, Sharon Carson, who not only offers a steady reservoir of advice and institutional knowledge about the Quarterly, but also contributes to the blog whenever she can. Our art editor Ryan Stander has made sure that we have enticing covers and engaging photo essays. No list of editors would be complete without mention of our contributing editor Gayatri Devi, who regularly produces some of the most popular contributions to NDQ both online and in print! Our copy editor, Andrea Herbst, has worked with NDQ for close to a decade and ensures that we produce as clean and error free text as possible. 

If this isn’t quite enough to keep you busy, remember that we expanded our archive this fall and you can now read every issue of NDQ from its first days in 1910 to 2017 for free on our website!

Happy Holidays and All the Best in the New Year!