NewPages Blog :: Magazine Reviews

A beautiful hardcover issue, the 50th Anniversary Issue of Tampa Review is rich with colorful images and powerful contemporary writing. Though there is no set theme, each piece contains strong yearning from the characters or figures, bringing the reader close to intimate thoughts. Continue reading “Tampa Review – 2015”

Upstreet 11 contains seven fiction pieces, six creative nonfiction pieces, forty-five poems, and an interview. That’s over 200 pages of engaging entertainment from a broad variety of accomplished authors. Continue reading “upstreet – 2015”

The Fall 2015 Bellevue Literary Review from NYU’s Langone Medical Center operates under the subtitle “Embattled: Ramifications of War.” Self-described as a “journal of humanity and human experience” this issue focuses specifically on narratives surrounding not only war, but war’s varying and often heartbreaking effects on the human experience. The short fiction, poetry, and nonfiction explore delicate topics such as PTSD, death on the frontlines, and post-deployment readjustments with an unflinching matter-of-factness paired with beautiful language. Continue reading “Bellevue Literary Review – Fall 2015”

Harvard Review began life in 1986 as a four-page quarterly called Erato. Today it’s a 200+ page, perfect-bound semi-annual. Many Pulitzer Prize writers have been featured over the years, and this issue contains two Pulitzer nominees: Martín Espada, a 2006 finalist, who writes a tribute to his father in “The Shamrock,” and Cornelius Eady, a 1992 nominee. His poem “The Death of Robert Johnson” has these skilled, telling lines: “That that gal I kissed, / And her husband seeing that, / Was the fine print, / The way things get / Paid off.” Continue reading “Harvard Review – 2015”

Created by three women in Vancouver—Melanie Anastasiou, Jennifer Landels and Susan Pieters—the hybrid PULP Literature “publish[es] writing that breaks out of the bookshelf boundaries, defies genre, surprises, and delights,” according to their website. “Think of it as a wine-tasting . . .  or a pub crawl . . . where you’ll experience new flavours and rediscover old favourites.” Continue reading “PULP Literature – Autumn 2015”

The Bitter Oleander’s autumn issue is a motherlode of bold interpretations softened with poems like the delightfully introspective, “I Don’t Want to Write” by Simon Anton Nino Diego Raena. “Leave me alone, please. / All I want is to enjoy the solitude of being / a nonentity in this lightless balcony.” Continue reading “The Bitter Oleander – Autumn 2015”

Story publishes pieces following a particular theme, and the Monsters issue is as haunting as the title suggests. Stephen T. Asma writes in his essay, “Monsters and the Moral Imagination,” “Good monster stories can transmit moral truths to us by showing us examples of dignity and depravity without preaching or proselytizing.” The pieces chosen for this issue do exactly that, ranging from things that go bump in the night to memories that haunt individuals each day. Continue reading “Story – 2015”

Paralleling the instructions in the publication’s opening “Salutations from the Staff”—where the reader is told to gather a variety of ingredients to let simmer—the editors of Meat for Tea have compiled a diverse selection of genres and writing styles in the “Fond” issue. The unifying thread among the pieces is experimentation, either in structure or content. This issue is a collection of permissions, inviting readers to explore the new directions of contemporary creative writing. Continue reading “Meat for Tea – 2015”

The Fall 2015 issue of Glimmer Train Stories is a delightful showcase of short fiction from both new and established writers, packing twelve short stories, an interview, and a short essay in its 200+ pages. Whether there is an explicit theme is unknown, but the majority of the pieces have a couple of common threads, primarily youth and family. Continue reading “Glimmer Train Stories – Fall 2015”

Storm Cellar is a slim little lit mag, just the right size to slip into my already-near-bursting tote bag. It’s the perfect magazine to keep on hand when readers have a few moments to spare before bed or while drinking their morning coffee. Continue reading “Storm Cellar – Summer/Fall 2015”

Most moths are thin, tiny, and fly towards illumination and pollinate. When the 25-page softback-pamphlet from County Cavan, Ireland landed in my mailbox in Albuquerque, I was intrigued at the journal’s similarity to its namesake. Upon first flip through The Moth, it’s clear they take their art seriously—a photo of gold fish bowl with a bullet hole by Robert C. Jackson entitled “Rotten Escape,” Pat Perry’s “In the Yard,” ink sketches, Diaz Alamá’s haunting portraits of stunning muses and Wen Wu’s cover art, “Wild Swan,” which captures the profile of serene femininity—prepare the reader for a look into the finer side of life. The detail, delicacy and craftsmanship of the selected art, supported by the power of the prose, make it clear from first glimpse, The Moth is not just another freebee-wannabe stacked-by-the-coffee-shop-door listings pile selling ad space and flavor-of-the-week. This tiny journal is flying towards the light. Continue reading “The Moth – Autumn 2015”

Well, this is both overwhelming and embarrassing. This issue of Zymbol is the “Big Fiction Issue,” so there are “The Private Dream Notebooks of Clive Barker,” and the interview of Gail Potocki with her “Freaks of/and Nature,” and Douglas Basford on translating Valentino Zeichen’s poetry. Continue reading “Zymbol – Summer/Autumn 2015”

Bone Bouquet is a biannual print journal that features poetry by women writers. The Spring 2015 issue includes a varied range of voices and styles, and a satisfying selection of creative forms. The speakers throughout are strong, self-aware, and are unafraid to expose their flaws. This slim volume covers topics of grief, loss, and self-consciousness, while also displaying the beauty of language through several complex descriptions of the surrounding world. Continue reading “Bone Bouquet – Spring 2015”

Ruminate explains their choice of title in the beginning of each issue: a “community chewing on the mysteries of life, faith, and art,” and for too long I let the f-word scare me away. Faith. After choosing to leave the faith I was raised in as an adult, what does faith have to do with me now? Would I really be able to ruminate with Ruminate while claiming no faith as my own? But within reading the first paragraph of the editor’s note in the Fall 2015 issue, I set my worries aside. Brianna Van Dyke shares a conversation with her young son about playing with his Spanish-speaking friend and understanding one another, in which he says, “But mostly when he laughs, it’s in English, and I know just what he means . . . And Omar laughs a lot, Mom.” Even if I don’t speak the language of faith, the shared aspects of life and art can give even the most faithless something to chew on. Continue reading “Ruminate – Fall 2015”

If decomP were published on paper, I would consider it a “little mag.” As such, it invites readers to its pages without overwhelming while at the same time delivering writing of depth and breadth. Publishing since 2004, decomP is an online monthly with an experienced editorial staff that assure readers a commitment to selecting the best in a range of genres and styles. decomP also takes advantage of their e-format by providing quality recordings of works read by their authors, further enhancing the modern literary experience. Continue reading “decomP – November 2015”

With three issues a year, publishing fiction, Thrice Fiction is up-front and in-your-face, and not just when it comes to what genre it publishes and when. Its content is just as in-your-face with larger-than-life writing, and with full-color art donning almost every page. Continue reading “Thrice Fiction – August 2015”

If there’s one thing I appreciate, it’s a thin journal. Lightweight, no long-term commitment intimidation, something us not-so-fast-readers can truly read in one sitting. Add to that over a dozen names on the table of contents, and there’s no doubt the variety will add some interesting diversity as a return on the short-term time investment. This is an apt descriptor to introduce Fox Cry Review published out of University of Wisconsin – Fox Valley. Continue reading “Fox Cry Review – 2015”

Cactus Heart is one wicked lit mag. With a spiny cactus bursting out of a skeleton ribcage as their logo, don’t go searching these pages for the soft and sentimental. No box of Kleenex needed here. Instead, be ready to steel yourself against hard truths, take a moment’s pause to settle quietly brutal characters into your imagination, and shift world views subtly through the surreal and abruptly through the confessional. Continue reading “Cactus Heart – June 2015”

“Enamored” isn’t a word I have reason to use often, but it’s the only word that properly explains how the Fall 2015 issue of NANO Fiction left me feeling. From the cover, a digital collage by Andrea Trninic, the perfect shade and gory subject matter for October, to the Sehr Flash: Fiction Becomes Music feature, I am completely enamored. Continue reading “NANO Fiction – 2015”

The Malahat Review has published their $1000 Long Poem Contest winners, and boy are they long, and powerful. Gary Geddes’ 18-page persona poem “The Resumption of Play” gives a post-modern kaleidoscope view of a First Nations boy’s brutal kidnapping into one of the residential schools that blights a chapter of Canadian History with shame. With lines such as, “Kill the Indian in the child was Scott’s / ’final solution.’ Remove parents, culture, language, replace them with perverts, / sociopaths,” Geddes pulls no punches. Continue reading “The Malahat Review – Summer 2015”

“Scottie as The Captain covers her head with her dress, flips the table over, jumps in and rows desperately.” You’ve just read stage directions for “Excerpt from Scottie Doesn’t Play,” a one-act play by Da’Shay Portis in the literary magazine Fourteen Hills – proof that this thick volume is packed with diverse experimental, progressive and cross-genre writings and images. Continue reading “Fourteen Hills – 2015”

Pinning down a comprehensive definition of the term creative nonfiction appears to be an imprecise, ongoing pursuit. Creative Nonfiction’s section editor Dinty W. Moore tackles the subject with “A Genre by Any Other Name?” Noting that Creative Nonfiction Editor Lee Gutkind did not invent the term, Moore brings in quotes from essayist Phillip Lopate and author Philip Gerard who pooh-pooh the term, then he picks up more positive opinions of the classification, calling on various other writers, editors, and critics. Continue reading “Creative Nonfiction – Summer 2015”

Now publishing for over 30 years, there is much to behold in Canada’s premier Arc Poetry Magazine: an abundance of poems, plus essays, a conversation, book reviews and dynamic art. Continue reading “Arc Poetry Magazine – 2015”

Delving into the latest issue of Hippocampus Magazine, I was reminded of You’ve Got Mail  and the moment Meg Ryan’s character is told “I remember when your mother gave me Anne of Green Gables. ‘Read it with a box of Kleenex,’ she told me.” So, readers, let me pass on the same warning before checking out the September 2015 issue of Hippocampus: grab some tissues, or at the very least, be prepared to have a lump in your throat for longer than comfortable. Continue reading “Hippocampus – September 2015”

Blue Collar Review: Journal of Progressive Working Class Literature is a small, targeted magazine filled with voices insisting on being heard. The editorial introduction to this issue states, “Poems in this collection speak of both the pride and the misery of work. They flesh out the real insecurity and resentment of underpaid and tenuous jobs and the seeming hopelessness of unemployment.” Continue reading “Blue Collar Review – Spring 2015”

The American Poetry Review features poetry, of course, and literary essays that are didactic, exhaustive studies on poets and poems, exploring all possible avenues of meaning from every possible angle. And that’s a good thing. Continue reading “The American Poetry Review – Sept 2009”

The Missing Slate, based in Islamabad, Pakistan, is an ambitious gathering of ideas from around the world in the form of poetry, essays, and stories, accented with dazzling artwork. This is the first print anthology from the previously online-only forum. Continue reading “The Missing Slate – 2015”

Beautifully produced, Indiana Review has fiction, poetry, nonfiction, and in this issue, something called “Special Folio: Graphic Memoir.” With seven contributors, the Special Folio has the look of a comic book. Bianca Stone has two watercolors that resemble greeting cards. Continue reading “Indiana Review – Summer 2015”

The theme of this issue of the University of Missouri’s The Missouri Review is “Defy.” Long-time editor Speer Morgan contributes a five-page introduction, which has this sentence: “The best new voices often defy the accepted in the quest for new themes, subjects and possibilities of form.” He then cites Beethoven, Picasso and Jane Austen, all contemporary cultural staples. Likewise, The Missouri Review is mainstream and established. The writers and artists celebrated in this issue—David Mitchell, Michael West and Jacob Riis—are equally so. Continue reading “The Missouri Review – Summer 2015”

In addition to offering readers a hefty volume of contemporary poetry from accomplished writers, the Spring 2015 issue of the Birmingham Poetry Review also includes an interview with featured poet Allison Joseph, a couple of useful poetry-focused essays, and a lengthy review section. Continue reading “Birmingham Poetry Review – Spring 2015”

Jumping into Stoneboat, this issue is kicked off by CL Bledsoe’s poem, “The Squeaky Wheel Has Been Anesthetized.” At the end of the poem the speaker says, “[ . . . ] upsetting. I know we’re all dying at our own pace, / just trying to find a comfortable place to lie down.” The ending of the poem links back to the title’s anesthetization, as well as showcases the poem’s buried rhymes, while working as a good opener for this issue. Continue reading “Stoneboat – 2015”

West Branch is back with another issue and deserves the attention generally reserved for a select few. Editor G.C. Waldrep and his staff consistently serve up some great writing, and their latest installment is no different. Continue reading “West Branch – Spring/Summer 2015”

Ploughshares has returned with their much anticipated annual fiction issue, which features work from the likes of Lydia Davis and Daniel Pena, as well as some new writers coming into their own. In the introduction, Guest Editor Lauren Groff says she is “hungry for voices that speak to me with real emotion; because real emotion is always new.” One can see that influence in the latest installment, which includes a wide-range of narratives where the characters are dealing with unexpected and sometimes strange incidents that showcase little slices of humanity. Continue reading “Ploughshares – Summer 2015”

Time Magazine once labeled The Southern Review as “superior to any other journal in the English language.” The latest edition published on the campus of the Louisiana State University lives up to the high standards that their readers love and have come to expect since the magazine’s inception in 1935. You will not regret reading this cover to cover. Continue reading “The Southern Review – Summer 2015”

The year was 1964 and Leonid Brezhnev had just taken control of the Soviet Union. Nikita Khrushchev had recently been expelled as First Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union as well as Chairman of the Council of Ministers, thoroughly ending another era of autocracy in Soviet Russia and ushering in a collective leadership. Leonid Brezhnev and Alexei Kosygin took the stage to powerhouse Russian politics, and henceforth brought about the Era of Stagnation in the USSR, creating hardship and creative inspiration for citizens of the massive state. Continue reading “Chtenia – Summer 2015”

This issue of Mudfish opens with the winner of the 11^th Mudfish Poetry Prize Chosen by Charles Simic: “Waking Alone on Sunday Morning” by Elisabeth Murawski. Continue reading “Mudfish – 2015”

I’m not sure what I was expecting when I began reading Chagrin River Review. Perhaps the multicolored cover featuring a light dangling above a spray-painted wall convinced me I was getting into something a little brighter than what I found in this issue’s fiction. While not the sunniest magazine I could’ve chosen, I was left feeling anything but disappointed. Continue reading “Chagrin River Review – Spring 2015”

If you are looking for consistency in content, do not look to The Gold Man. This is clearly a group of editors who have not settled into deciding that “this one” is only what their journal will publish when it comes to genre style. And readers looking for a variety of what’s new in contemporary writing—all in one neat package—should appreciate that. Continue reading “The Gold Man Review – 2015”

Doesn’t everybody just love a winner? Especially when it comes to reading the winning entries of a writing contest published in a journal’s newest issue. Chariton Review’s Spring 2015 issue starts off with the winner and finalists of their short fiction prize, judged by Christine Sneed. And, let’s be honest: the reason we love these as readers (and maybe writers ourselves) is because we want to see if we agree with the judge! Continue reading “Chariton Review – Spring 2015”

Brick is a biannual magazine based in Toronto, Canada, with many of the contributors living in Toronto or elsewhere in Canada. Undeniably, then, Brick has a Canadian slant. Continue reading “Brick – Summer 2015”

The Chattahoochee Review is published quarterly in paperback by Georgia Perimeter College, located in Decatur, near Atlanta. According to their website, “our roots are in the South,” but the review publishes work from all over the world, in all genres. Continue reading “The Chattahoochee Review – Spring 2015”

6X6 #32 begins with Lyn Hejinian’s “Illogically; Grievous,” a lengthy prose poem that ventures to ask “Where rest the increments of a human being’s life that’s not now soot in a circle?” It’s an apt place to begin the Summer 2015 issue, which reminds readers that we are small. Our lives are short. Our memories are mortal. And while the editors likely didn’t set out with the purpose of making readers feel inconsequential, there is a common (and often comforting) vein of self-awareness running through the issue. Continue reading “6×6 – Summer 2015”

In 2005, Ecotone was created at UNC-Wilmington with the vision of “reimagining place.” Now in its nineteenth edition, the magazine has successfully navigated the literary landscape for a decade and continues to build on that original motive. In honor of the journal’s tenth anniversary, the Editorial team wanted to further explore its obsession with the “literal interpretations of place and explorations of the transition zones that defines us,” and investigate this in their art. The result of this lasting curiosity is a special issue that celebrates this natural human experience, and brings readers closer to the words on the page. Continue reading “Ecotone – Spring 2015”

Despite a couple brief hiatuses throughout its long history to stabilize the journal’s financial situation, The Kenyon Review remains a staple in the literary world and consistently publishes first-rate material. Many prominent writers have been featured over the years, from Flannery O’Connor to Robert Lowell. In this issue, there is fiction from Laura van den Berg, poems from Natalie Eilbert, and an essay by Floyd Collins, among others. The pieces go in many directions, but they tend to share the theme of the characters discovering more about themselves and the surrounding world. Continue reading “The Kenyon Review – July/August 2015”

How do you define chaos? Perhaps as a series of simultaneously occurring events tossing ripples into reality’s pond? Trying to love someone who wants to change every aspect of your existence? Finding purpose in a traveling circus, performing death-defying stunts? Continue reading “Hayden’s Ferry Review – Spring/Summer 2015”

On the outside, Carve appears to be another waiting room read. Typically, literary reviews are thick and novel-esque. Not Carve. It’s thin (only 50 pages) and non-threatening. Cutesy, but attention-grabbing, vector art garnishes its glossy cover, embodying the literal definition of “magazine.” A rarity in form, I grabbed Carve before any other magazine in the pile. Continue reading “Carve Magazine – Spring 2015”

There are voices that are almost always overshadowed despite that their histories are embedded in our nation’s roots. Centered on the glossy cover of Valley Voices is Margaret Bowland’s painting of a young, black girl—her brown skin thinly painted white. Her attire consists of a white dress, blood spattered against a garden of white roses and cotton blooms. Ahead of her, beyond the splashes of red, a turquoise blue land, perhaps a more promising place. With her face turned almost completely towards me, and hopeful, she leads me there into that place to listen to the voices that I so rarely get to hear. Continue reading “Valley Voices – Spring 2015”

This issue of Arcadia starts off with the fiction piece “All the Women, Disappear” by Jonathan Durbin. In this short piece, the narrator describes his or her past relationships with different women. Without bogging down the reader with a multitude of details, the narrator creates vivid images of each character using each woman’s particular quirks, from Molly who “called the office so much my assistant rated her anxiety by the tone of her voice,” to Morgan who “read the front section of New York Times every day, cover to cover, while her parents were splitting up.” The ambiguity of the narrator also adds depth as the reader is unsure of the narrator’s gender, learning less about the main character of the story, than the past girlfriends. Continue reading “Arcadia – Spring 2015”