Book Reviews

All book reviews are published on our website: www.calyxpress.org/reviews.

Reviews should be double-spaced and from 500 to a maximum of 1500 words.

Men are welcome to review books, but we request that the books themselves be written by women or nonbinary authors.

You may submit book reviews year-round, but they are considered for publication biannually in March and November. Multiple submissions and simultaneous submissions are welcome. 

Please limit your book reviews to books published in the last two years. Please read our guidelines and previous reviews on our website before submitting to see the type of review CALYX is interested in. Guidelines are also provided below:

We welcome reviews of books by women, especially those that would otherwise receive little critical attention. We like to be consistent, and we offer these guidelines so reviewers can approach the task of reviewing with these issues in mind. A sample review is available using the link above, and we encourage reviewers to consult it as a reference for our desired style and literary approach.

• Include in your review both a judgment of the quality of the writing and an analysis of the content of the work, together in an overall statement of why the book is worth reading.
• Quotations from the text are REQUIRED. Weave them into the analysis of the book rather than stacking them one after the other. Don’t quote more than you need to make your point, but enough to give the flavor of the book. CALYX Journal's style in reviews is to put all direct quotations in italics. The title of a poem should always be given with each quotation from that poem. Please include page numbers when quoting from the source. It will not be included in the final version, but it makes our proofing process infinitely easier.
• AVOID MERE SUMMARY. Reviews that provide only summary without text quotation and analysis will not be accepted.
• The review should be appropriate to the work being reviewed, e.g., a review of a book of poems will probably concentrate on the language while a review of an autobiography might give some background about the subject’s life.
• Put the book in context as appropriate—in the context of women’s writing, Black writing, this author’s writing, etc.
• Where appropriate, you may comment on the publisher and/or format and physical appearance of the book.
• CALYX has a strict anti-AI policy. Please do not submit any work that has been generated using AI tools (spellcheck and grammar check tools are okay).

We believe that a good review excites one to read the book, contains conjecture, emotional response, and tells the reader something that is not already obvious.