About

We are primarily an online magazine and have an international audience, but we operate out of Dallas, Texas. Read on for more about our mission and our passionate editors and readers that make Carve honest fiction.

OUR MISSION

Carve seeks to publish outstanding literary fiction and to promote the writers we publish, helping both new, emerging, and established authors reach a wider literary audience. This is achieved through sharing their stories across a variety of publication mediums: online, print, e-readers, and more.

In addition, we take special pride in our editorial process. While we cannot send a unique response to every submission, we certainly try. We offer notes and critiques on stories that we feel are nearly aligned with our vision while noting that ultimately selections are subjective and varied.

The magazine is named in honor of Raymond Carver, short story artist and master of the “minimalist” form, though his later works espoused a longer, more detailed style. We admire this dyad, as we strive to publish fiction that is both concise and generous. Above all, Carve, like its namesake, is honest fiction.

STAFF

Many of us are writers also, and that's why we like to think our magazine is a bit more special than other 'zines out there. So many lit mags either have a revolving door of editors and readers or cloak their staff in a shroud of secrecy.

Not us. This is who we are: goofy, passionate, and dedicated, all rolled into one. So we hope you forgive some of our campy pictures and know that we mean it in good spirit. We just want you to know that we're real people, too.

If you'd like to creep on us even more, check out Staff Reads, our list of the latest books we're reading.

Editor in Chief: Matthew Limpede
Matthew has attended NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts and he graduated from UT Dallas. He currently lives in Dallas, Texas. He loves traveling and hates cold weather. His favorite authors are David Benioff, Aimee Bender, Amy Hempel, and of course, Raymond Carver. You can learn more about him and his passion for fiction at matthewlimpede.com. He has been the Editor since 2007.
Managing Editor: Kristin S. vanNamen, PhD
Kristin is a writer, scholar, and teacher from Austin, Texas. She enjoys fiction that contains flawed characters and strong aesthetic patterns. She began as a reader for Carve in 2007 and has been Managing Editor since 2011.
Copy Editor: Meghan Rennie
Meghan is a writer, designer, and student of many things. During the day, she designs online experiences and writes copy for Agency.com. A wife and mother, she is also a grad student in Creative Writing at the University of Texas at Dallas. She began as a reader for Carve in 2007 and has been Copy Editor since 2011.
Reader: Leah Pearl Saffian
Leah lives in Fayetteville, Arkansas where she inspires environmental stewardship within the schools of Washington and Madison counties. Leah enjoys stories that permeate the senses and blur the limits of perception. She has been a reader for Carve since 2007.
Reader: Alyssa Cooper

Alyssa is a writer, burlesque performer, mother, and secret agent girl living in the rural underground of Dallas outskirts. Her fiction has been published and awarded, and she is currently at work on memoirs and short stories. Follow her fiction babble and striptease musings on Twitter. Her story “In His Own Image” was published in Carve (under the name Alyssa Morris) in Spring 2007 and became a reader later that year.
Reader: Desirée Ward
Desirée lives and writes in Austin, Texas. In her graduate studies at the University of Texas at Dallas, her areas of focus were Literature and Creative Writing. She’s working on a collection of short stories and a novel. She has been a reader for Carve since 2010.
Reader: Rita Juster
Rita received an MFA in Fiction from Queens University of Charlotte in January 2010. Her short stories have appeared in her friends’ mailboxes and can be found in desk drawers and file cabinets throughout her home in Dallas. She also has an MBA from the University of Dallas. She has been a reader for Carve since 2010.
Reader: Michele Burford
Michele lives, loves, works, and writes in Dallas, but not always in this order. She is currently working on a novel. She has been a reader for Carve since 2010.
Reader: Kristi DeFord
Kristi is a singer-musician mom and storyteller living in a dot-on-the-map town in Northeast Texas with her husband, three kids, four horses, eight chickens, three useless yapping puppies, and a ninja cat named Sophie. She’s currently in the advanced stages of early preparation to contemplate finishing her first piece of fiction. She has been a reader for Carve since 2011.
Reader: Audra Croft
Audra is a life-long lit-lover and blossoming memoirist. She earned her Master’s Degree in Social Work and switched careers from Non-Profit grant writing to raising (or being raised by) her five children. She has been a reader for Carve since 2011.
Reader: Shaun Hamill

Shaun Hamill received a BA from the University of Texas at Arlington in 2008, and is currently at work on his first novel. He’s drawn to fiction with a strong, unique narrative voice, and stories that subvert or exceed reader expectations. His story “Unpracticed Altitudes” won 2nd place in the 2010 Raymond Carver Short Story Contest in Carve, and he became a reader in 2011.
Reader: Gillian King
Gillian King lives in DeKalb, Illinois, where barbed wire was invented. Her work has appeared in River Styx, The Pacific Northwest Inlander, and other publications. She has a BA in film production and an MFA in creative writing from Southern Illinois University. She enjoys quirky characters, magical realism, and coming-of-age stories. Her story “The Dead Kid” was published in Carve in Winter 2008, and she became a reader in 2011.
Reader: Beatriz Terrazas
Beatriz is a Pulitzer-prize winning journalist who has worked in North Texas for more years than she cares to count. Though she still occasionally writes and photographs for blogs, newspapers and magazines, and publishes a couple of personal narratives a year, she’s currently indulging her passion for fiction by writing a novel. She loves fiction that challenges her beliefs and stretches her imagination, and believes wholeheartedly in literature’s power to change hearts and lives. She has been a reader for Carve since 2012.
Reader: Cynthia Litz, MD
Cynthia Litz is a physician living in Dallas. Her short fiction has been published in Narrative and The Annals of Internal Medicine. She is drawn to stories in which there is no answer. She has been a reader for Carve since 2012.
Founder: Dr. Melvin Sterne
Melvin Sterne founded Carve in 2000 with the aid of a grant from the Mary Gates Foundation. Though he is no longer involved with operations of the magazine, we wanted to include him as a tribute to his work as Editor from 2000-2006. He served as guest judge for the 10th annual Raymond Carver Short Story Contest in 2009.