VIRGINIA LITERATURE




more in art

The Strange Afterlife of Virginia’s President Heads

Editor's Note: Reminder, the sculptures are located on private property and are not open for general visitation. Access is available only through scheduled guided tours, with Labor Day weekend currently expected to be the final tour on the calendar. Tour information...

Review | ‘As You Like It’ is Just How I Like It

If you’ve been reading these reviews for a while, you’ll notice I love me some context. Especially surrounding William Shakespeare’s plays. One of my favorite things about the existence of Richmond Shakespeare is that they’ve forced me to go back to the English Lit...

IllumiNATION Tells America’s Story on a Monumental Scale

Editor’s Note: RVA Magazine is partnering with the Virginia Museum of History & Culture on coverage related to America’s 250th anniversary, including Richmond SailFest and IllumiNation. It's hard to impress people with just a building. Yet standing in front of the...

Blöthar: “GWAR Didn’t Change. The World Freakin Changed.”

Richmond metal band GWAR says the Secret Service contacted the group following a recent performance at the Vans Warped Tour in Washington, D.C., that featured the mock execution of a Donald Trump effigy. Video of the performance, which showed band members...

Review | ‘Come From Away’ is the Best We’ve Ever Been

Do you remember the rollerblading guy with the American flag kit on September 12th? We will never forget the 11th for the horrors, but do you remember the 12th? The 13th? If you do, I don’t even have to say which year. If you don’t, let me tell you a little bit about...

Before Richmond Was an Arts City, There Was Best Products

Imagine pulling into a suburban shopping center to buy a toaster and finding a department store that appeared to be falling apart with corners breaking away, walls peeling open like a giant cardboard box, or facades seemingly collapsing under their own weight. For...

Review | ‘I Love You Because’ Is Pure Joy 🏳️‍🌈

It could be said that Shakespeare invented the rom-com. It could also be said that Jane Austen improved it a couple of centuries later. Between the two of them, meet-cutes, notices of love or rejection arriving at exactly the wrong time, and breathless affirmations of...

Stay Hungry pt. 1 | Band on the Road

Editor's Note: Writer's Block is a space for Virginia writers to share personal essays, fiction, memoir, and works that fall somewhere in between. In Stay Hungry, Richmond local Eric Kalata looks back on a cross-country tour and the restless optimism of...

My Life As a Spider: The Two Years I Tried to Delete

Editor’s Note: Max Winter is a University of Richmond alumnus reflecting on his time at UR in the late ’90s and the campus culture he experienced. You can read more of his work on his Substack HERE. Recently, while eating carnitas in East LA, I check my phone and get blasted with an absurd screenshot. A text out of nowhere from my old college...

Read More

My-Life-As-a-Spider_The-Two-Years-I-Tried-to-Delete-by-Max-Winter_RVA-MAgazine-2026_photo by Kaden-Taylor

Love Thy Neighbor

There was a new guy that moved across the street from me, a new neighbor, and every time he saw me on the front porch puffing away, he asked to bum a smoke. It got so incessant that I had begun smoking in the backyard instead, not wishing to part with any of my precious pack of cigarettes if it wasn’t to be consumed by me. After a couple of weeks...

Read More

Love-Thy-Neighbor-by-Eric-Kalata_RVA-Magazine-2026

Writer’s Block | Two Poems by Cameron Ritter

Writer’s Block is RVA Magazine’s series highlighting contemporary writers working in Richmond and across the Commonwealth. Each week, we feature original poems, short stories, or essays. Just real voices writing right now. This week, we’re featuring two poems by Cameron Ritter. His work leans into observation and dialogue, pulling from everyday...

Read More

Poems by Cameron Ritter_RVA Magazine 2026

Writer’s Block | Student Poets from PodiumRVA Speak Their Truth

A Sunday series from RVA Magazine featuring writers from Richmond and Virginia Writer’s Block is RVA Magazine’s Sunday series highlighting contemporary writers working in Richmond and across the Commonwealth. Each week, we feature original poems, short stories, or essays. Just real voices writing right now. Editor’s Note: The following poems were...

Read More

PodiumRVA_photo by Alizea Sidorov_RVA Magazine 2026

I Was To Inherit A Capitalist Nation

The ceilings were all collapsing. The moldering roof was seeping through to the drywall and paint inside. What was once a small emerald speck of mold above the shower had turned into a fuzzy kaleidoscope of blacks and pinks and grays and greens that coated the entire top of the room and filled it with a smell so pungent that I couldn’t spend more...

Read More

American Dream Essay by Eric Kalata_photo Bruno Guerrero_RVA Magazine 2026

Writer’s Block | Atmospheric Dread by Ann Marie

A Sunday series from RVA Magazine featuring writers from Richmond and VirginiaWriter’s Block is RVA Magazine’s Sunday series highlighting contemporary writers working in Richmond and across the Commonwealth. Each week, we feature original poems, short stories, or essays. Just real voices writing right now. Atmospheric Dread by Richmond...

Read More

Writers-Block_-Atmospheric-Dread-by-Kaylee-Walton_Katie-Moum-RVA-Magazine-2026

Writer’s Block | On Our Backs in the Caribbean

Writer’s Block is RVA Magazine’s Sunday series highlighting contemporary writers working in Richmond and across the Commonwealth. We feature original poems, short stories, or essays. Just real voices writing right now. This week, we’re featuring a new story from Richmond writer Eric Kalata. In his first two pieces for RVA Magazine, Kalata...

Read More

Story by Eric Kalata_RVA Magazine 2025