Asia Literary Review 16 / Hong Kong
Hobart 11 / Ann Arbor, MI
American Short Fiction 47 / Austin, TX
Witness XXIII / University of Nevada Las Vegas
Conjunctions 54 / Bard College
Lumberyard 5 / St. Louis, MO
Birkensnake 2 / West Kingston, RI
Gigantic 2 / New York, NY.
Versal 8 / Amsterdam
Review submissions are always welcome at lunaparkreview@gmail.com.
There is a thrilling new story from Jim Shepard in the newest Zoetrope: All-Story. The story—”The Track of the Assassins“—is not unlike much of Shepard’s recent short fiction: slowly-revealed characters lodged in alluring moments in history. The setting of “Assassins” is the 20th century Iraqi and Irani deserts, where Freya Stark searches for Alamut, ancient
Every year I buy the new Pushcart Prize anthology, eager to read the best work that was published in the previous year, and hoping that one day one of my own stories might find its way into its pages. I’d never thought much about how it worked, but this is what I always assumed: an
At the tail end of Virginia Quarterly Review editor Ted Genoways’s infamous (at least in some circles) Mother Jones essay about literary magazines, “The Death of Fiction,” Genoways pleads for contemporary short story writers to: Stop being so damned dainty and polite. Treat writing like your lifeblood instead of your livelihood. And for Christ’s sake,
Standing rabbits grace the wraparound cover of The Tusculum Review volume 6, their recent poetry prize issue. Ralph Slatton’s pen-and-ink drawing on the front and back of the issue is complimented by a five print set inside the magazine, enigmatic representations of creatures encapsulated by thick branches and ropes. Slatton’s work is a preface for
Dear Open City— Please publish fewer stories written by post-MFA academics living in New York City. I still love you, but I’m getting tired. Thank you, Mary Miller 1. Bitter Open City is one of two literary magazines that I currently subscribe to, and it’s a magazine in which I’ve always dreamed of having my
Named after the inner layer of skin beneath the epidermis, Corium‘s debut issue features some terrific writers and writing, including Kim Chinquee, Laura Ellen Scott, Sheldon Compton, Sam Rasnake, Cami Park and more—not surprising, considering its veteran team: Lauren Becker, Heather Fowler, and Greg Gerke. The site’s minimalist design is deceiving. What seems to be
Gulf Coast 22.1 is very good, particularly its prose. Unusually—at least in my experience—its two best prose pieces are supplied by its fiction and nonfiction contest-winners: Dana Kinstler and Kelly Blikre. Kinstler’s “Bird in My Throat” tells the story, from Ava’s, the wife’s, perspective, of a young, seemingly privileged 1960s couple who move down to
Review of The Laurel Review, Vol. 43, No. 2 (Summer 2009) Previous to this issue, I last read The Laurel Review in 2000—Volume 34, Number 1. The Laurel Review has improved in the last nine years, or at least moved closer to my taste, but is still a bit too straitlaced, Raymond Carver earnest for
Part 5: All the News Now we come to the end, and, in the end, what we buy newspapers for is the news. Other print matter we buy for other reasons, things such as novels, literary magazines, comic books & so forth. Newspapers are for the news, and so it is good to see that
Part 4: The Comics As I’ve been reading through The Panorama this past week (see posts 1, 2, and 3) and recording my reading experience, I realized that most of my associations with newspapers date back to my childhood twenty or so years ago, and, more specifically, to my father. This realization came earlier this
