Very good comparison. The internet also makes it easy to read work from all over the world. My only wish is that I could find more bookshops stocking physical copies of literary magazines, I love to have that sense of in-person discovery that I get while buying books.
YES YES YES I have always found the BEST short stories in lit magazines and subscribed to as many as I could. In teaching I encouraged students to frequent and I emphasized the word, the big university periodicals to sit and read literary magazines. Then subscribe to ones you really like but mainly, read and read and read some more. Stuff yourself with literature....then write.
Such an important message about community and reciprocity. If we don't read the journals we want to be published in, who do we think is going to read our work if/when it's published in them! Thanks, Dan.
Great analogy. Brings the salient point of the need to read all the time more than think some online workshop guru advertises knowing, or even getting a inflated MFA. Read everything possible too. After all, those rock stars being referred to are typically familiar with more than just their own musical genre.
To be honest, a lot of the writing in literary journals is not very good. The New England Review, for example, has published some god awful stuff lately. Even the Paris Review has published some stuff that’s almost unreadable. There’s too much emphasis on “edgy” writing and politically correct voices, and not enough emphasis on clarity and recognizable form. So yes, read the Pushcart Prize winners, and the O Henry Award winners, and all the great poets and short story writers and essayists, but tread carefully in the lit mags. You’ll find some gold there, but a lot of imposters, too.
Great advice - even for we older ones.
Very good comparison. The internet also makes it easy to read work from all over the world. My only wish is that I could find more bookshops stocking physical copies of literary magazines, I love to have that sense of in-person discovery that I get while buying books.
YES YES YES I have always found the BEST short stories in lit magazines and subscribed to as many as I could. In teaching I encouraged students to frequent and I emphasized the word, the big university periodicals to sit and read literary magazines. Then subscribe to ones you really like but mainly, read and read and read some more. Stuff yourself with literature....then write.
Such an important message about community and reciprocity. If we don't read the journals we want to be published in, who do we think is going to read our work if/when it's published in them! Thanks, Dan.
Great analogy. Brings the salient point of the need to read all the time more than think some online workshop guru advertises knowing, or even getting a inflated MFA. Read everything possible too. After all, those rock stars being referred to are typically familiar with more than just their own musical genre.
To be honest, a lot of the writing in literary journals is not very good. The New England Review, for example, has published some god awful stuff lately. Even the Paris Review has published some stuff that’s almost unreadable. There’s too much emphasis on “edgy” writing and politically correct voices, and not enough emphasis on clarity and recognizable form. So yes, read the Pushcart Prize winners, and the O Henry Award winners, and all the great poets and short story writers and essayists, but tread carefully in the lit mags. You’ll find some gold there, but a lot of imposters, too.
Really good advice. I've already started ordering sample issues. Now I'll subscribe.