New Limestone Review is the literary journal of the University of Kentucky’s MFA in Creative Writing program.

Established in 1986, New Limestone Review (originally Limestone) published work from internationally-recognized poets Seamus Heaney and Paul Muldoon and from many noted Kentucky writers, including Wendell Berry, Gurney Norman, Ed McClanahan, Frank X Walker, Maurice Manning, Nikky Finney, and Holly Goddard Jones.

New Limestone Review seeks to bring groundbreaking works of literary art to the web and to a national audience.

Editorial Staff

Editor-in-Chief + Nonfiction Editor: Bell McEntire
Bell McEntire (occasionally AKA Isabella Mason) is an emerging nonfiction writer. She is currently an MFA candidate and Graduate Instructor at the University of Kentucky. As a North Carolina native, she graduated from NC State University with a BA in English with a creative writing concentration, and now lives in Lexington, KY. Isabella is enamored by stories and likes to tell the ones she knows best. Her work has appeared in publications such as the Rappahannock Review, Carolina Muse, Stuck In Notes, and MAJORzine. She is an editor of the New Limestone Review. 

Fiction + Poetry Editor: Kimi Hardesty
Kimi Hardesty is a writer from Dallas, Texas. She received her BA in Psychology at The University of Texas in 1978, her BSN in Nursing with a minor in Biology from Texas Woman’s University in 1984 and her MFA in Creative Nonfiction from Goddard College in 2018. She is an MFA candidate at the University of Kentucky. Her work has been published in The Pitkin Review, Ritualwell, Speak Magazine, Healthywomen, Farmer-ish, and The Next Page Book Project.

Fiction Editor: Cayenne Bareng
Cayenne Bareng is an MFA candidate for fiction at the University of Kentucky. Her work focuses on themes exploring the intersection of cultures, as well as relationships with the self, with others, and with nature. As both a musician and a writer, she loves to blend lyricism with storytelling and often implements juxtaposition, metaphors and imagery to convey these thematic observations and allow readers to interpret them through their own learned experience.

Poetry Editor: Samantha Ratcliffe
Samantha Renee Ratcliffe is an MFA candidate and graduate instructor at the University of Kentucky. Her work has been featured in Untelling, Pegasus, Yearling, and Discarded: A Rural Anthology. She is the recipient of the 2025 King Library Press Broadside contest. She is an editorial intern with the University Press of Kentucky and a senior editor with Broadstone Books. She works to build community through her writing workshop, Hill Writers Collective. Find out more about her songwriting and poetry by visiting SamanthaRatcliffe.com or @SamanthaRatcliffePoetry on instagram.

Faculty Advisor: Andrew Milward
Andrew Milward was born in Lexington, Kentucky, and grew up in Lawrence, Kansas. A graduate of the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, he is the author of the story collections The Agriculture Hall of Fame, which was awarded the Juniper Prize for Fiction by the University of Massachusetts, and I Was a Revolutionary (HarperCollins, 2015), which was awarded the Friends of American Writers Literature Award. His fiction has been a finalist for the National Magazine Award and appeared in many places, including Zoetrope, American Short Fiction, VQR, The Southern Review, Guernica, as well as Best New American Voices. His first book of nonfiction, Jayhawker: On History, Home, and Basketball was released Fall 2019. Milward has served as the McCreight Fiction Fellow at the University of Wisconsin, a Steinbeck Fellow at San Jose State University, and has received fellowships and awards from the Lannan Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the Corporation of Yaddo.

Former Editors

January 2024 – December 2025

Editor-in-Chief + Fiction Editor: Jaydon Pritchard

Web Editor + Fiction + Poetry Editor: Katie Limberg

Nonfiction + Poetry Editor: Jeremy Tavares

January 2024 – May 2024

Nonfiction + Poetry Editor: Mallory Donoghue

January 2023 – December 2023

Editor-in-Chief + Nonfiction Editor: Akhira Mahal
Poetry Editor: Kate Arden
Fiction Editor: Nick Ruma

August 2022 – May 2023

Editor: Henry Knollenberg
Editor: Clay Shields
Editor: Daniel Collins
Faculty Advisor: Frank X Walker

February 2021 – May 2022

Editor: Allegra Solomon
Editor: Peyton Howard
Editor: Kevin Bond

February 2020 – May 2021

Editor-in-Chief: Gavin Colton
Editor-in-Chief: Emily M. Goldsmith
Fiction Editor: Chan Kelly
Poetry Editor: Gabby Oliver

March 2019 – February 2020

Editor-in-Chief: Zeke Perkins
Managing Editor: Kimberly Glanzman
Fiction Editor: Michael McEwen
Poetry Editor: Dane Ritter
Podcast & Social Media Editor: Ash Baker
Web & Art Editor: Kaylen Rose

April 2018 – February 2019

Editor-in-Chief: Omaria Sanchez Pratt
Managing Editor: Isabelle Johnson
Fiction Editor: Taylor Sarratt
Poetry Editor: Tiara Brown
Digital Media Editor: Jeremy Flick

May 2017 – April 2018

Editor-in-Chief: Kate Tighe-Pigott
Managing Editor: Evan Arneson
Fiction Editor: Austin Baurichter
Poetry Editor: Sophie Weiner
Nonfiction Editor: Austyn Gaffney

January 2017 – May 2017

Editors-in- Chief: Jordan Hubrich & Amanda Corbin
Senior Editors: Chad Gilpin & Gary Thomas Smith
Interns: Chelsie Abney, Kate Heinonen & Julia Mikulec
Faculty Advisors: Julia Johnson & Gurney Norman