The “first” online literary magazine was technically Swift Current in 1984. Begun by Frank Davey, Fred Wah, and David Godfrey, Swift Current was a literary database loaded onto a VAX 11-750 computer located at York University in Toronto and made accessible by subscription to personal users and institutions. More of a creative commons than an editor-run literary publication, Swift Current nonetheless served as a forerunner to the online literary magazine.

A decade later in 1995, Mississippi Review Online became the first contemporary online literary magazine, offering original literary content (differing from the print magazine), put together by an editor (Barthelme), and offered up to readers in a designed website. As Barthelme’s intro on the website explains, Rick Magazine is the continuation of what he began online at Mississippi Review. (It should also be taken into account in the history of online lit mags that The Missouri Review had a site a couple of years before this, though it was not as I understand original content.)

Here is Vallie Lynn Watson’s introduction to the Summer 2010 issue—the ‘first” issue—or Rick Magazine: Writing, Place, and Film.

I recently spent a semester in Wilmington, NC—also known as Wilmywood, or Hollywood East—drawn by the scenic background I’d seen in various movies and television shows filmed there over the years.  I wanted to study how film’s use of place could be used with similar effect in fiction writing.  (Only in academia can one get away with calling a six-month vacation in a resort town “research.”)

Playing among these Wilmington film sites and seeing firsthand how setting comes to life as a character of its own inspired the Writing, Film, and Place theme for this issue, though I wasn’t sure, until I started reading submissions, if my idea even made sense.  I chose works that not only refer directly to film, but also pieces that present place in a cinematic manner, realizing how our characters and narrators visualize the world around them reveals as much, if not more, than dialogue.  Ann Beattie’s opening essay “Writing Visually,” explores this idea far better than I can.

This issue would not have been possible without the kindnesses of Melina Reed, Gary Percesepe, Susan Swartwout, and, always, Rick Barthelme.  My thanks.