ZYZZYVA 93 / San Francisco, CA
New England Review 32.3 / Middlebury, VT
DIAGRAM 11.4 / Tucson, AZ
Camera Obscura 3 / Addison, TX
Fiddleblack 2 / Peninsula, OH
Barrelhouse 9 / Washington, DC
Antioch Review Fall 2011 / Yellow Springs, OH
Birkensnake 4 / Providence, RI
Gigantic Sequins 2.2 / Philadelphia, PA
Paris Review 199 / Manhattan, NY
Bateau 4.2 / Northhampton, MA
6x6 24 / Brooklyn, NY
Brief comments on, and at times from, the lit mag world.
I am a big fan of the Pushcart Prize anthologies; I own the first 1976 anthology, the 25th anniversary edition, and each one from the past six years. Pushcart editor Bill Henderson is something of a hero of mine, a feeling probably held by much of the literary publishing world; I use his book The
Yesterday I received two copies of the first issue of OCCUPY!, an Occupy Wall Street inspired newspaper from the editors of n+1. More than many, perhaps, I tend to see literature in periodical form—by which I mean magazines, journals, newspapers, zines, etc—as an essential part of literary history and culture, in a tradition stretching back to
Luna Park will be posting its first Best Lit Mags of the Year list next month. I am both nervous and anxious to finish the list—nervous for obvious reasons, and anxious because I don’t remember seeing such a thing before for lit mags. If such a list existed in 1978, the first issue of New
Somewhere along the way, I made a conscious decision to not buy an iPhone, or an iPad, or until recently, an iPod touch (which actually belongs to my daughter). Aside from one small snag, I’ve been nothing but happy with my Android device. It plays nice with all of the other Google things I do.
With VIDA’s The Count 2010 on the representation of women in literary and review publications still fresh in my mind, I was eager to get my hands on Granta’s Summer 2011 edition: The F Word. My feminist foundation is Second Wave with Third Wave holes poked in it. I don’t need a monolithic feminism. But
Earlier this October, my wife bought me the new iPhone—a phone whose great power seems to be absorbing chunks of my time. I lost entire days the other week. One thing I spent a great amount of time doing was searching for literary magazine apps. I didn’t find that many. Here’s what I have on
I got this charming email the other day from Dave Housley—a founding editor of Washington DC’s Barrelhouse magazine—and thought I’d pass it on, as it seemed a pleasant, informative, honest response to the “submission curiosity” most writers feel: Hi There Writers, This is Dave Housley from Barrelhouse. If you’re receiving this, then you have an active fiction submission
Dearest A., I received your despairing text just now, detailing your recent dinner with our shared Mentor DB, that large-bearded, judgmental genius who pronounced those two stories you have such high hopes for marred by the same flaws he saw in your work last year, when you were still his student in the MFA
Running across Michael Copperman’s short story “It”—and his accompanying craft essay “Race, Authenticity, Culpability”—in Copper Nickel‘s new online venue COIN reminded me why I read literary magazines. Life is hectic. Motivations can get confused. Students and neighbors alike look at me quizzically when I tell them what I’m reading—the new issue of Conjunctions at the moment—and
It took awhile before Jeanne finally corrected me about the pronunciation of her name. “It’s Jean-ie,” she said, kindly but firmly, as we were seated in her office looking over some manuscripts for the forthcoming issue of The Southern Review. I had been pronouncing it simply “Jean” all afternoon. My face reddened. Jeanne Leiby died on
