River Whale Review is an online literary journal that publishes the best fiction, nonfiction, poetry, and other ambitious arts created by undergraduates at Minnesota State University, Mankato. River Whale seeks to highlight and celebrate creativity in unexpected spaces–like whale watchers on the Minnesota River, we love to be astounded.
Is it a bird? Is it a plane? What is rising from the water, pale and vast and magical? Surely it isn’t – it is! – the legendary Minnesota river whale!
The Creative Writing program needed to give its MNSU undergraduates a place to publish their work, so a group of grad and undergrad students collaborated to do just that. As a fine Maverick Professor said: “We have such dynamic undergraduate writing and arts communities on campus but had no place to showcase them.” A home for local creativity requires a name with local ties. And what better emblem of Mankato’s creativity than the river whale! Longtime residents still recall when sightings of the river whale made a splash, and we know that our undergrads will make an even bigger one!
Lore
The Minnesota river whale has inspired awe and legend every time it resurfaced, before returning to the midwestern depths. Unlike its coastal cousins, which have alas been hunted and harpooned to near extinction, the Minnesota River Whale (Genus: Caerula) in all its varieties, has always been a cherished treasure of the inlanders: worshipped, venerated, and celebrated in song, cave etchings, and narrative.
Unique to the river whale is its bent body, shaped by the bend of the Minnesota River itself. So beloved is this creature that it has been kept a large secret – partly because of its own reticence, and partly for its protection. (Save for rare sightings, which made it to the news, before being dismissed by coastal residents who did not know better.) But now, in an age that is more enlightened in matters of conservation, and more appreciative of the beauty of things larger and longer-lived than us humans, it is time for this mystic creature to be introduced to the wider world, together with the narratives it inspires.
The Minnesota River Whale family comprises the following species:
Caerula fictio: The fiction whale loves spinning tales and its own embellishments – anything for a good story!
Caerula verum: The nonfiction whale descends to great depths to uncover truths,
Caerula poetica: The poetry whale meanders along the river to gather images unnoticed by others.
Caerula artibus: The visual arts whale creates the tapestry of the riverbed.
Caerula alius: This whale does what the other whales don’t.
Caerula discipulus: This whale is a scholar, fond of haunting the riverbank right by the Mankato city library.
Caerula localis: A connoisseur of local craft beers, it haunts the environs of the downtown beer arena, sometimes surfacing for woozy treats, much to the drinkers’ delight!
Caerula maverickus: This is the sporty whale, ready to spout water sky-high from its blowhole to cheer on the Mavs in all their games!
Caerula internationalis: So, this is our international traveler, fond of migrating ’round the world but returning home every start of term, just in time for class orientation!]
