About the Blue Ash Review
The Blue Ash Review, both print and digital versions, is produced through the Department of English and Communication at UC Blue Ash College. Our campus is located in Blue Ash, Ohio, north of UC’s main campus in Cincinnati. We offer associate and bachelor's degree programs in the liberal arts, business, and several health fields, attracting students and faculty with a broad range of interests and talents.
Our magazine is also a product of the Liberal Arts Program at UC Blue Ash. We work with faculty and staff throughout the college to identify students with an interest in the creative and literary arts, and encourage them to submit their work to the magazine. We also feature the work of award-winning authors who visit our campus.
This online version will supplement our print edition, and represents a new phase in the magazine’s history, allowing us to expand our literary offerings, publish our contest winners more quickly, and broaden our readership. A digital archive will include our more recent out-of-print issues. In addition to work by UCBA students, faculty, and staff, we also seek submissions from beyond our campus. Our online version will permit us to include more extensive and varied visual material, audio recordings, and experimental audio-visual texts that take advantage of the electronic medium. Go to our Submissions section for submission information and instructions.
A Little History
There have been many versions of a literary magazine on our campus since the college was established in 1967, then named the University of Cincinnati Raymond Walters College after Dr. Walters, UC's longest tenured president.
The first issue was published in 1969, the product of the Creative Writing Workshop taught then, with help from faculty advisors. Beginning with Act 1, Scene 69, the magazine went by at least twelve different titles before becoming the Blue Ash Review. Many of these early titles capture the social and creative turbulence of the late 1960s and 1970s: Mind’s Mirror; Walter the Lit Mag; The Bottom Drawer; Bald Bobby’s Barbecued Beef on a Bun; Lit Mag; Ersatz (this one lasted three years), doordreams, Scattered Pieces, etherea . . ., Heartsounds, and Kaleidoscope.
The physical appearance of these issues ranged from (roughly, in inches) 8.5 x 5.5, 8.25 x 7, 8.5 x 11, and back to its current 8.5 x 5.5. Cover designs and colors varied, and the magazine’s contents primarily featured student literary writing, with a scattering of drawings, sketches, and cartoons. Blue Ash Review became the official title sometime around 1992.
As our campus expanded its academic programs and services, writing contests emerged from the Department of English and Communication, the Writing and Study Skills Center, and the Liberal Arts Program, providing poetry, fiction, and essays by winning students for the magazine. After the college initiated an annual celebration of National Poetry Month with poetry and song writing contests, readings, and open mic performances, the Blue Ash Review included contest winners, as well as interviews with guest authors and artists, and art and photography by students.
Resources
Contact Information
Co-Editors
Robert Murdock
robert.murdock@uc.edu
Kevin Oberlin
kevin.oberlin@uc.edu
Design Editor
Jamie Albert
jamie.albert@uc.edu