Author Readings to Celebrate Release of Fall 2026 Santa Monica Review on Oct. 25

Author Readings to Celebrate Release of Fall 2026 Santa Monica Review on Oct. 25

SANTA MONICA, CA — Santa Monica College (SMC) announces the release of its fall 2026 edition of the Santa Monica Review (SMR), SMC’s esteemed national literary arts journal. Published twice yearly, the Review showcases the work of established authors alongside emerging writers, with a focus on narratives of the West Coast. The journal is the only nationally distributed literary magazine published by a U.S. community college. SMC will hold an issue launch party — “Santa Monica Review Presents... A Celebration of the Fall 2026 Issue with Readings by Recent Contributors” — on Sunday, Oct. 25, from 5 p.m. to 7 p.m. in The Edye at the SMC Performing Arts Center, 1310 11th Street (at Santa Monica Boulevard), Santa Monica. 

Tickets for the launch party — available at smc.edu/tickets — cost a suggested donation of $10. Refreshments will be served. Copies of SMR will be available for purchase. Abundant free parking available on premises. Seating is on a first-arrival basis. The celebration, to be introduced by Revieweditor and Emcee Andrew Tonkovich (Keeping Tahoe Blue), features a special welcome by author and alum of Santa Monica College’s fiction workshop Dylan Landis (List of All Possible Desires) and readings by four contributors to the current issue: Mary Ore, Kareem Tayyar, Richard Wirick, and Monona Wali. 

The fall 2026 issue — edited by Tonkovich, also host of the weekly show Bibliocracy Radio on KPFK (90.7 FM) — features cover art by acclaimed artist elin o’hara slavick (Holding History in Our Hand). The issue includes 14 new original short stories, most by West Coast writers, but otherwise representative of diverse styles, experiences, and themes.

“I’m once again especially pleased to offer writing by first-time-in-print writers,” says editor Tonkovich, “and proud that they and first-time Reviewcontributors knew to submit their work to our lively, brave, idiosyncratic magazine.”

First-timers include Mary Ore, a Santa Monica College creative writing workshop alum. “Clearly,” offers Tonkovich, “she appreciates that our commitment to imaginative writing, allegory, and elegant fabulism remains strong, a legacy of SMR’s founding editor and long-time SMC instructor Jim Krusoe.”

Veteran SMR contributors include Monona Wali (Sutra Americana) and Richard Wirick (Kicking In). “It’s a joyful responsibility,” says Tonkovich, “to feature the work of two longtime contributors, well-known Southern California writers who’ve not only found an audience in SMR readers, but also helped to amplify the other voices of the journal, thus contributing to further building our national audience. I appreciate the generosity of talented literary artists who know the important place of our modest — if mighty! — literary journal.”

The issue features other return appearances, including from SMR favorite Jeffrey Moskowitz, with a hilariously experimental, or perhaps mock-experimental piece. Short stories with wit, social commentary, and stylistic innovation arrive from the reliably funny San Francisco writer Olga Zilberbourg (Like Water and Other Stories); Shane Castle, an editor at the Alaska Quarterly Review; Kareem Tayyar (The Prince of Orange County);Ashley Farmer (Dear Damage); and L.A. bookstore worker, barista, and Pushcart Prize–winner Gregory Tower. As with past offerings, San Diego poet Bryan D. Price melds sociological observation, philosophy, and gorgeous language in a fictional profile of an unlikely hero character.

Also new to the journal are established literary fiction writers Brian Conlon and Joshua Brorby, whose stories are built on voice, humor, and irony. In Conlon’s “Dead Rat,” a trip to the dentist’s office brings unexpected, if torturously funny urban misadventures. Brorby’s “Eastern Churches” is a ghostly family reunion tale told by a dying narrator about his father, who is named, ominously if instructively, Mr. Harms.

“The issue celebrates experimentation, empathy, long histories, mystery, and freedom of imaginative expression,” says Tonkovich. “This journal was founded by Jim Krusoe (The Sleep Garden) in fall 1988 with the encouragement of then-Santa Monica College President Richard Moore. As conceived of and produced by Krusoe and Moore, the magazine continues to reflect urgent literary engagement in a changing world, now perhaps more than ever.” 

Santa Monica Review has presented readers experimental, thoughtful, and funny original writing — including essays and short stories by Michelle Latiolais, Lisa Teasley, Alice Mattison, Emily Greenberg, Keenan Norris, Ismet Prcic, and Gary Soto — in 38 years of publication, and is a celebrated national magazine. Recent stand-out work published in the Review appears in the annual Pushcart Prize, Best American Short Stories, and PEN/O. Henryanthologies. The Review was also recently celebrated in a special performance with L.A. actor/empresario Sally Shore’s long-running New Short Fiction series.

Santa Monica Review is sold online at the SMR website (smc.edu/sm_review), and in print editions at the SMC Campus Store (SMC Main Campus, 1900 Pico Blvd., Santa Monica), at Beyond Baroque and Small World Books in Venice, and at other area booksellers. Copies may also be ordered by mail. Details are available at smc.edu/sm_review. The publication costs $14 per issue or $25 for the two issues each year. More information is available at the Santa Monica Review website (smc.edu/sm_review) or by calling 949-235-8193. All events subject to change or cancellation without notice.

Santa Monica Review is a project of Santa Monica College, part of its mission to promote literacy and engagement with the literary arts in Southern California.Santa Monica College is a California Community College accredited by the Accrediting Commission for Community and Junior Colleges (ACCJC).

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