When we imagined Broad Ripple Review, we asked ourselves what kind of literary magazine the world still needs. The answer was not another platform for quick clicks or disposable content. What we longed for—and what we hope to offer—is a space where language is taken seriously, where form and imagination matter, and where writers are met with respect. This first issue is the beginning of that vision.
The works we bring you here are not bound by a single theme, yet together they share qualities we believe define our mission: precision of craft, structural intention, emotional resonance, and a willingness to risk new ways of seeing. These pieces are alive to the complications of experience. They resist easy answers. They honor the intelligence of their readers.
We begin with our two prize winners. Angela Townsend’s Write Until You Pray, recipient of the 2025 Broad Ripple Review Prize in Creative Nonfiction, offers a raw and unflinching meditation on the uneasy relationship between prayer and the act of writing. It is a piece that lives in the gap between yearning and failure, and in that space finds a strange kind of beauty.
L.B. Browne’s The Dress Department, winner of the 2025 Broad Ripple Review Prize in Fiction, is a story of exquisite control, capturing a sort of fleeting and enigmatic intimacy. Its elegance lies not only in its sentences but in the silences between them.
The issue is rounded out by three remarkable works that remind us of literature’s breadth. Margaret Dunn’s Little Eden channels the uncanny clarity of childhood memory, where innocence and unease are never far apart. Dorit d’Scarlett’s Green Jumper examines the weight of memory and survival with lyric subtlety and sharp insight. Sofía Carbonell Realme’s Pearls in the Kitchen layers food, family, and history in a sensorial essay that lingers long after the final line.
Each of these works takes risks. Each complicates rather than simplifies. And each affirms what we believe: that literature is not a luxury, but a vital act of attention.
We want to thank the writers who entrusted us with their work. Without them, there is no magazine. We also thank our staff and readers for their discernment and labor, which shaped this issue at every stage. And to everyone who contributed to the tip jar or sought editorial feedback: you made it possible for us to pay our writers a small honorarium. That support closes the gap between “exposure” and fair recognition, and it matters.
Finally, to you, our readers: you are not a passive audience but the other half of this project. Literature is a conversation. These stories and essays exist fully only when they are read, shared, and carried into new contexts. If this issue moves you, we ask you to share it—with a friend, a class, a community. In doing so, you help our writers find the audiences they deserve, and you help BRR grow into the kind of journal that can continue to nurture this work.
Thank you for being here at the beginning. We believe in these pieces. We believe in the writers who made them. And we believe that a community gathered around literature can change the way we see the world.
With gratitude,
Kelly Schoenegge
Editor, Broad Ripple Review
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