It is our delight to bring you the summer issue of New Delta Review, an issue marked by its authors’ reach and ferocity. It’s been a momentous year, with the publication of our 30th anniversary anthology, and, fittingly, what follows is an issue of celebration—

As we do each year, we celebrate the legacy of Matt Clark: beloved teacher, coordinator of creative writing at Louisiana State University, accomplished short story writer at the start of his career, and former editor of NDR, who died of colon cancer at the age of 31. In his honor, NDR awards one prize each to a work of prose and one of poetry that compellingly challenge expectations and form.

This year, the editors have selected Eric Tran as our winner of the Matt Clark Prose Award; his three flash nonfiction pieces, “Let Me Tell You About the Fireworks,” “Being Gone,” and “Eloisa—” appear in this issue. We have awarded the prize for poetry to Chen Chen, whose “Antarctica” appeared in our winter issue.

We celebrate, too, the release of Leslie Marie Aguilar’s exquisite chapbook, Mesquite Manual. Aguilar is the winner of our 2014 – 2015 Chapbook Contest, judged by Michael Martone. You can read an excerpt of Mesquite Manual in this issue.

And finally, we celebrate the contributions of the fierce young Baton Rouge poets featured in this issue: winners of our inaugural High School Writing Contest, a partnership with Forward Arts, Inc.

Join us in our celebration of moving and inventive and glorious language; as always, we’re honored to have you.