Early contributors to the magazine included David Meltzer, Jerome Rothenberg, Maurice Kenny, Joy Harjo, Terri McMillan, and Quincy Troupe.
The magazine included interviews with Ntozake Shange, Gary Snyder, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Ansel Adams, Robert Bly, John Barth, Toni Morrison, and Allen Ginsberg.
Events included music by Willie Mae Ford Smith, James Baldwin, the World Saxophone Quartet, and St. Louis Symphony musicians Catherine Lehr, Manuel Ramos, and Rich O'Donnell.
In 1986 Jan Castro received the Editors Award for River Styx from CCLM (Coordinating Council for Literary Magazines, now CLMP).
Past artists published in the magazine have been Michael Corr, Alejandro Romero, Lynda Frese, Emmet Gowan, John Slaughter, Patte Loper, Birney Imes, Virginia Beahan, Laura McPhee, Deborah Luster, Dana Moore, Benedict Fernandez, Frank Shaw, Sarah Lorentz, Philip Harris, Mary Laube, and Mary F. Coates.
The magazine has published work by Jacob M. Appel, Margaret Atwood, Jorge Luis Borges, Richard Burgin, Robert Bly, Amy Clampitt, Robert Creeley, Rita Dove, Stephen Dunn, Clayton Eshleman, Martín Espada, William H. Gass, Albert Goldbarth, Allen Ginsberg, Donald Hall, Robert Hass, John Hollander, Jane Ellen Ibur, Rodney Jones, Yusef Komunyakaa, Ted Kooser, Maxine Kumin, Li-Young Lee, Czesław Miłosz, Thylias Moss, Howard Nemerov, Sharon Olds, Octavio Paz, Molly Peacock, Carl Phillips, Adrienne Rich, Jerome Rothenberg, Alan Shapiro, Ntozake Shange, Charles Simic, George Singleton, Gary Snyder, Susan Sontag, William Stafford, May Swenson, Arthur Sze, Wisława Szymborska, Mona Van Duyn, Derek Walcott, Katy Chrisler, Jodi Johnson, Fortunato Salazar, Anca Fodor, Claire Walla, Lise Balk King, Gregory Brown, Parastoo Geranmayeh, Darien Gee, C3 Crew, Rajiv Mohabir, Justin Cox, Daniel Ruiz, Charlene Logan, Alyssa Perry, Mark Neely, Mark Mayer, Becky Kennedy, Mitchell Glazier, Meera Rohit Kumbhani, Robert Nazar Arjoyan, James Crews, Jake Fournier, Jane Wong, Katya Apekina, and Sarah Viren.