As a child I still recall the legends of famed writers and their golden pens, seemingly handed down to them from Midas himself. Writers who inked themselves into the eaves of history while enjoying lives…
Browsing Category Blog
Transit / Transition / Translation: A Pandemic Year in Review
What’s it like to make a lit mag in the middle of mass upheaval? As a student-run magazine, Portland Review’s staff changes yearly, meaning we’re used to learning as we go and teaching each other….
“My Beautiful Broken Brain”: Writing My Way Through a TBI
In the recent documentary, My Beautiful Broken Brain, a thirty-four-year-old woman in London records her recovery from a traumatic brain injury (TBI) following a massive stroke. While watching, I couldn’t help but relive my own experiences…
“A startling prescience”: Portland Review editors reflect on labor and lit mags in 2020
At the time of writing, we as a planet are still soundly in the uncertain time of COVID-19, and especially now there is no shortage of things vying for our collective attention. Every day feels…
Playing House in Fiction: The Hunger for Worldbuilding
The rush I used to get from a good game of House is the same cozy urge adults feel when surveying a fictional landscape, projecting themselves into the zombie apocalypse or Earthsea or the strange rhythms of Regency suppers and seasons in London.