The Art of Editing with The Cincinnati Review

Lisa Ampleman, Managing Editor of The Cincinnati Review, offers a behind-the-scenes glimpse into a literary magazine’s submission review process. By using one poem and one short story recently published in the print journal as examples, she reveals what might catch an editor’s eye in the submission queue, how the editing process unfolded after acceptance, and what kind of changes the authors made to their work. In the process, she sheds light on the editor-writer relationship, the collaborative art of literary editing, how The Cincinnati Review manages submissions, her own poetic inspirations, and more.

 

This conversation was recorded in Spring 2025, and the creative pieces discussed are available to read in The Cincinnati Review. The poem “Ricky Rozay raps ‘put Molly all in her champagne, she ain’t even know it’” by Raphael Jenkins was published in Issue 22.1, and Rebecca Barnard’s short story, “The Theft,” appeared in Issue 21.2. Digital versions of these issues can be purchased for $5 each.

 

Lisa Ampleman is the author of three full-length poetry collections—Mom in Space (LSU Press, 2024), Romances (LSU Press, 2020) and Full Cry (NFSPS Press, 2013)—and a chapbook, I’ve Been Collecting This to Tell You (Kent State University Press, 2012). Her poems have appeared in 32 Poems, Colorado Review, Cortland Review, Ecotone, Georgia Review, The Rumpus, Poetry Daily, and Verse Daily, and her prose in America, Miracle Monocle, museum of americana, and Shenandoah. She is a graduate of the Ph.D. program at the University of Cincinnati.

 

Page Count is produced by Ohio Center for the Book at Cleveland Public Library. For full show notes and an edited transcript of this episode, visit the episode page. To get in touch, email [e-mail] (put “podcast” in the subject line) or follow us on Instagram or Facebook.