Hi everyone! Hope you’re having a great start to your week!
I just wanted to share a few bits of info, offers, and itineraries.
First, our final meeting for the Lit Mag Reading Club will be this August. We will be reading Epiphany and at the end of August we’ll have Editor Sara Lippmann in to discuss the magazine. (They recently did a redesign, and their new site looks gorgeous.)
The editors have kindly offered a 20% discount on a print or digital issue for members of the Lit Mag Reading Club. You can find the code here.
The Lit Mag Reading Club had a great run. It launched in 2022 and together we read one lit mag every month. This included Conjunctions, STORY Magazine, Zoetrope, Gettysburg Review, Iowa Review, One Story, Pleiades, Ploughshares, Cleaver, North American Review, CALYX, Bellevue Literary Review, Clarkesworld, and many more.
These editors all came to speak with us about their magazines, and many provided discounts. Thank you to all who participated! All interviews are archived here.
I also want to sincerely thank all of you who joined this club. Some of you (well, one of you!) came out every single month, and your presence and participation was so appreciated. Others came out sporadically, which was absolutely fine. We had some really great, funny, honest, interesting and inspiring conversations about all of these magazines. I learned so much from you all.
The club will be ending. But not to worry—my interviews with editors will continue forever and ever until eternity (or until I run out of editors to interview, whichever comes first). And I will also continue trying to score discounts on lit mags for you all.
Onward to next month!
As I’ve mentioned, I’ll be away for the entirety of July. I’ll be taking a break from the interviews for this month and will also not be posting the bi-weekly news roundups.
I will be in France, and they have very strict relaxation laws there. You’re basically only allowed to drink wine, eat cheese, and watch the sunset. If you are caught doing work, they tie you to a wicker chair and force-feed you baguettes and Pastis and demand you read Proust, while the waiter ignores you for five hours.
At least that’s what I’m told.
Still, I will continue with some of our usual operations. (I so very much like connecting with all of you, and it so rarely feels like work!)
We will have our regular Thursday columns, written by writers, editors and publishers around the world.
And we will have our usual weekend conversations, penned by moi.
I considered posting craft articles, and I know some of you requested these. But each time I tried to write something smart about craft, my brain melted into a puddle on the floor. So, those weren’t happening. What I can say is: Go on and write your heart out. It matters. It matters so very much.
In August, all regular programming here will resume, along with an additional Beyond Lit Mags newsletter. I have a full and stellar line-up of interviews planned for then, and I’ll share that schedule in a few weeks.
So, that is all.
Have a great week, everyone, and I’ll catch you on the flip!
Don't forget absinthe. They may poison you with that, too, if it's not really illegal now.
You deserve a quality break after all the breaks you give us, Come back with a knowing smirk on your face that you refuse to explain.