Whiskey Island Magazine is a literary magazine published by Cleveland State University. It is a biannual publication. While I’ve never been to Cleveland, or really the surrounding area for that matter, I do love the description of place featured on the magazine’s homepage:
It is currently the site of a salt mine, the largest marina on the great lakes, and the last refuge of the Cleveland-invented, industry revolutionizing Hulett Ore Unloaders: city landmarks on their way toward extinction, see 1 or 2. A rich mythology of bootlegging on the island has been unavoidable, along with eponymous burgers at various area restaurants and an array of empty Canadian beer cans.
Whiskey Island (the land mass) is actually a peninsula and can be found at the mouth of the Cuyahoga River in Cleveland, Ohio. A distillery was built there in 1836, hence its name. The island has suffered multiple incarnations: it has been a dump, a US Coast Guard Station, a ship graveyard, and a predominantly Irish immigrant shanty town.
The journal has proven to be the perfect match for a poem I penned last summer for my traveling friend, Karen, titled “Men Who Serve You Coffee.” Thank you to the editors of Whiskey Island Magazine for giving this one a home.
Kersten Christianson, Poet 