Rock Me Mama Like a Lit Mag Wheel!
Lit mags closing; profiles of Bittersweet, Manoa Journal, yolk; lit mags with Jewish-themed work; South Dakota lit mags; censorship in the lit world; Pocket MFA; grants/residencies; new markets + more
Greetings Lit Magographers,
A fair number of lit mags are closing or going on hiatus. Inkwell Journal out of the Manhattanville College MFA program appears to be defunct. Saint Ann’s Review is taking a break. Briar Cliff Review has announced that their last issue will be published in April 2023. Ghost Heart has closed “due to financial issues.” Though the site says a new issue is forthcoming, Upstreet is closed. (Editor Vivian Dorsel passed away last year.) And Ruminate Magazine has announced that their latest issue, themed Regeneration, will be their last.
If any editors of these magazines are reading this, hat’s off to you for the work you’ve done for these magazines. I will always have a place in my heart for Briar Cliff Review in particular, which was where I won my first-ever short story contest nearly fifteen years ago. I will never forget what that meant to me.
Of course, the show must go on. New lit mags continue to spring forth, and long-standing lit mags continue getting press.
At Publishers Weekly, new mag Bittersweet Review got some buzz.
“Distributed in Europe…, BitterSweet is the brainchild of a collective of international queer artists, scholars, and writers based in London. Described as a ‘non-profit publishing platform’ by its founders, the goal of the publication is to pay homage to queer culture while creating a space where conversations and perspectives from queer voices can coexist…”
At The Hawai’i Review of Books, writer Angela Nishimoto speaks with Pat Matsueda, soon-to-retire Managing Editor of Mānoa Journal. Asked what part of editing the magazine she has enjoyed the most, Matsueda says,
“The aesthetic, artistic part. The copyediting. Teaching students what publishing is. Corresponding with writers, translators, guest editors. Typesetting, layout, which I am not great at but enjoy nonetheless. Feeling that I’ve learned something, contributed.”
At The McGill Daily, Yehia Anas Sabaa speaks with Curtis John McRae, Editor of the Canadian journal yolk. As to what McRae is looking for in submissions he says,
“I’m not looking for anything particular in the work besides being stopped – being arrested…There are many sorts of elements of craft, style, and voice that can elicit that reaction. But the truth of the matter is, I want originality in style, content, and voice – something that, after I read it, I’m going to be thinking about for the rest of the day…I think that’s what excites readers in general – when they come across something ever so subtle that it stops them in their tracks.”
At CLMP, the editors have highlighted work from lit mags with Jewish themes, in honor of Jewish Book Month. Magazines featured include The Hopkins Review, West Trestle Review, Paper Brigade, Cincinnati Review, SOLRAD, Under the Sun, and more.
At The Masters Review, you can find a list of South Dakota lit mags. Say the Editors, “Here’s a small-but-mighty list of active publishers of fiction in the state.”
Poet/writer Amy Holman has a new Substack dedicated to literary magazines. At What Where: Literary Journals, Holman writes, “I'm all for reading literary journals to experience the writing and then to figure out from these selections what the editors seem to want.” Her first column takes a close look at two online mags, Tiny Molecules and Molecule—A Tiny Lit Mag.
Speaking of new Substacks, yes, yes, I know we are all done talking about Hobart and that interview. But a piece at Timon’s Dog caught my eye. In “The Creampuff of Sentimentality: Trends in Literary Censorship (Part One),” @apemandog uses the Hobart interview as a springboard to explore issues in the literary world at large, writing,
“[T]he literary world – from book publishing to small magazines and talent agencies – is controlled by an ideologically fixated cluster of true believers, as dedicated to censorship and morality policing as the most extreme religious activists from the turn of the last century. However different the reigning morality, it commands enough assent to set us up for a repeat of the Comstock era, in which religious busybodies managed to seize, destroy and prohibit the publication of classic works of art and literature.”
And speaking of online culture, Taco Bell Quarterly Editor MM Carrigan has advice for those who want to grow their Twitter following (assuming Twitter is not yet dead, or won’t be dead by the time you finish reading this). Writes Carrigan,
“Keep in mind: Social media is vicious. The algorithms are manipulative. Promoting yourself endlessly is embarrassing. Also, no one cares. I should know. I’ve been busking on the internet for years. I’m a writer without an MFA or any connections. I have long digital trails of blogs, newsletters to come, bylines no one has heard of, and partially-filled-out profiles on the next trains to nowhere. Building a platform is throwing a lot of shit out there. It’s trying to draw a crowd, trying to earn a dollar…You’ll be fine!”
Also, did you know that #AmWriting (the popular Twitter hashtag) has its own Substack and podcast? Episode 339 is entitled, “Lit Mags, Grants and Residencies” and is “a best-we-can how-to for an always changing but more approachable than we imagine world.” The tone is chatty and warm and this whole episode is loaded with helpful information.
For those of you who’d like to continue your education even further, Frontier Poetry Editor Josh Roark has launched, with others, the Pocket MFA. Josh described the project to me:
“We've been developing the Pocket MFA for the past year to help fill the gap between the rigor of a full MFA experience and the accessibility of the community workshop. Our 12 week curriculum is designed for serious writers who want the experience and value of a semester of a typical low-res MFA, but are not ready for the disruptive price and commitment a full 2 year program can bring. Whether you already have an MFA and are curious about a new genre, or you are exploring the idea of getting an MFA in the future, or you are simply ready for something meatier and more rigorous than a 6 week community workshop—check out our program and our stellar faculty. Please feel welcome to reach out to our Director Josh to set up an info session! (josh@pocket-mfa.com)
Finally, for those of you looking for places to send your most recent and most fabulous work of writing, December opportunities await!
Erika Dreifus’s newsletter has dozens of contest and calls for submission listings.
Erica Verrillo has posted 101 Calls for Submissions in December 2022 - Paying markets
Authors Publish has posted 32 Magazines That Accept Longer Fiction.
As for us, tomorrow, November 29th will be the final editor interview of this month. I’ll be speaking with Christina Thompson, Editor of Harvard Review, at 12pm est. We’ll chat all about issue 59 as part of our Lit Mag Reading Club.
You can register to attend the interview here.
If you’ve read this issue of Harvard Review but have not yet commented on the discussion thread, come on, friends. Don’t be shy! Do not make me call you on the telephone or come find you at work so I can hear what you thought of this issue! You do not want that, I’m telling you. Go to the conversation now and share your thoughts! I don’t care if you’ve read one story or all four, if you never read a poem in your life before last week or you have three PhD’s in Comparative Middle English, I want to know what you think! Yes, you. Speak!
Finally, for December we will be reading Indiana Review. If you’d like to participate, be sure to order your issue asap, if you haven’t already. You can find the discount code here.
And that you darling dandelions, home to all the world’s wishes, you robust roses with your radiant glory and occasionally shocking thorns to the thumb, you tulips who’ve gone into hiding, waiting out the winter until it’s your time again to shine divinely, you who are azalea-bright, always explosively eye-catching and ever awe-inspiring, and you who are hardworkingly humble, strong and steady as a good solid sunflower stalk, you who curl, little and yellow as a buttercup and you who rise, sharp and sure with pure snapdragon ferocity, you with your roots in the dirt, you with your petals cast about by the wind, you just sitting around and waiting, waiting, waiting for those bustling, buzzing and occasionally ill-behaved bees to come and feast from all that you have to offer, which is a lot, come to think of it, really, actually, a lot, a whole heck of a lot!, even if it doesn’t always feel that way, but indeed, you and you, everywhere, even on the worst days, are earth, light, ocean, rain, and plant, yes, you who are everything there is, and with everything more to give, always, is the news in literary magazines.
Have a radiant week, pals.
Fondly,
Becky
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Well, that Timon's Dog piece was certainly disturbing/interesting.
sorry but I say bye bye there are way too many out there and for all I know quite a few asking for reading fees may not even be legit. So I'd rather see the well run ones NOT run by writers but rather by actual people with publishing skills and lots of readership ones survive.