About Us

O-Dark-Thirty is the journal for the Veterans Writing Project. In our seminars we give participants the skills and confidence they need to tell their own stories; O-Dark-Thirty is the platform to put those stories and others in front of readers. This is not a peer-reviewed professional journal, nor is it a judged literary contest. Our editorial style is more curatorial than other journals. Our editors curate the works submitted to this site.

We have two sections.

The Report is our hub. It’s where the vast majority of our work will be based.We chose the title The Report because of this quote from Oliver Wendell Holmes:

The generation that carried on the war has been set apart by its experience. In our youth our hearts were touched with fire. It was given to us to learn that life is a profound and passionate thing. While we are permitted to scorn nothing but indifference, we have seen with our own eyes, and it is for us to bear the report to those who come after us.

The Review is our quarterly journal. It will be a little tighter, more closely edited. It might have themes.

One of the tenets upon which we built the Veterans Writing Project is the idea that every veteran has a story. This site is where those stories get told. Sure, there are other places to hear or read the stories: around the bar, on a road trip, in some other journal. But like the man says, “This is my rifle. There are many like it, but this one is mine.” This is our journal. It was conceived by and designed for, is run by, features work written by, and provides voice to members of the military community.

Our Staff:

Ron Capps, publisher

Janis Albuquerque, layout and design

Jerri Bell, managing editor, nonfiction editor

Carmelinda Blagg, contributing editor emeritus

Dario DiBattista, non-fiction editor emeritus

Mike Fay, art editor

Fred Foote, poetry editor emeritus

Jim Mathews, senior editor, fiction editor emeritus

Valerie Martinez Peralta, poetry editor

Stuart Phillips, fiction editor

Bryon Reiger, drama editor

Contact:

jerri@veteranswriting.org