River Styx Archive
The River Styx literary journal was founded in 1975 in St. Louis, Missouri, under the editorship of Michael Castro and Jan Garden Castro. Before the journal’s publication, the River Styx Poets radio program (1970-1973), of which the journal’s founders were regulars, aired poets and musicians working together, with readings of their own writing or that of poets they admired.
Early contributors and author or poet interviews published by the magazine include, but are not limited to: David Meltzer, Jerome Rothenberg, Terri McMillan, Howard Nemerov, Mona Van Duyn, Rita Dove, Stephen Dunn, Alan Shapiro, William H. Gass, Margaret Atwood, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Ansel Adams, Robert Bly, John Barth, Toni Morrison, Allen Ginsberg, and many more.
The magazine also devoted several pages of each issue to artists, including Michael Corr, Alejandro Romero, Lynda Frese, Emmet Gowan, John Slaughter, Patte Loper, Birney Imes, Virginia Beahan, Laura McPhee, Deborah Luster, Dana Moore, Benedict Fernandez, and Frank Shaw.
The literary organization River Styx (originally Big River Association), incorporated as a not-for-profit in 1975, produced the River Styx magazine with Michael Castro as President. The organization also produced readings, including those hosted at Duff’s Restaurant (1975-2012) and the River Styx PM series at the Missouri Botanical Garden (1979-1986). Events included live-music sessions attended by local artists and visiting writers.
River Styx has won several Stanley Hanks Prizes, awards from the Coordinating Council of Literary Magazines, as well as grants and support from the National Endowment for the Arts, Missouri Arts Council, Regional Arts Commission, Missouri Humanities Council, and Arts and Education Council. Its poems and stories have appeared in Best American Poetry and New Stories from the South anthologies, Best New Poets, and The Pushcart Prizes: Best of the Small Presses.
The River Styx pioneered a multicultural, community‐based approach to literature that was new to St. Louis and much of the country. The River Styx Archive includes correspondence, biographies, collectibles, and miscellaneous material concerning individual River Styx contributors or Duff’s/P.M.
Digital Collections
Portions of this collection are digitized and available to researchers on Digital Collections.
River Styx: Liberating the Spoken Word
River Styx: Liberating the Spoken Word was digitized with the Access to Historical Records grant from the National Historical Publications & Records Commission (NHPRC). The grant funded digitization of all cassette and reel-to-reel tapes in three collections: River Styx Archive, the Jan Garden Castro Papers, and the Michael Castro Papers.
Through the project, WashU provides complete access to recorded performances by hundreds of poets and other writers who appeared in St. Louis from 1969‐2008. A selection of digitized recordings and over 3,000 images of brochures, announcements, schedules, flyers, press releases, and other supporting documents from the mentioned collections and the Duff’s Restaurant Literary Events Collection are available on Digital Collections.
Contact
- Department
- Special Collections, Special Collections, Preservation, and Digital Strategies
- Name
- Joel Minor
- Job Title
- Curator of Modern Lit Collection/Manuscripts
- Email Address
- joelminor@wustl.edu
- Phone Number
- (314) 935-5413