NewPages Blog :: Magazine Reviews

This issue of The Los Angeles Review is packed with nonfiction, fiction, poetry, interviews, reviews, and even a special feature on John Rechy. At just under 300 pages, it is truly a wonder how the editors were able to include so many genres and forms. Rechy was impossibly lucky to have the first piece of fiction he submitted be published. He was a gay hustler who needed physical affection, even after becoming a successful writer. His writing is poignant, vivid, and mesmerizing, here is a little taste included in the magazine: Continue reading “The Los Angeles Review – Spring 2012”

The cover art for this issue—“The Little Prince” by Andrew Robertson—speaks greatly to the aura of the writing held within. The Little Prince stands on his asteroid, back turned to us, with just his rose. The fiction, poetry, and nonfiction held within the magazine emit these same senses of loneliness and solitude, though in a way that is both beautiful and poetic. Continue reading “Palooka – 2012”

Redivider releases their spring 2012 issue loaded with a mix of strong and diverse works of fiction and poetry. From the absurd to the tragic, this issue was a pleasure to read from beginning to end. Continue reading “Redivider – 2012”

It’s Rhino. I don’t know how long it’s been around, but it is one of the best annual collections of poetry you can find. Once you know the quality is there, what would you like me to tell you? It’s always good. If you are not familiar with it, you can count on it to enrich your day and entertain your evening. If you are familiar with it, you look forward to it. So, what did I do? Continue reading “Rhino – 2012”

In an introduction to this issue’s featured artist—Caleb Cole—Joshi Radin discusses how Cole takes old group photographs and whites out all people but one. “We focus on this individual,” writes Radin, “plucked from the crowd. Confined by the white space where companions once crowded, she is alone even in the company of others.” Take, for example, “There Yet,” in which you can see a young girl’s blank expression, barely visible. It may have been lost in the photo originally, blocked out by the other children. Each of the photographs emits loneliness, solitude. “As a group,” Radin says, “They are all alone together.” The pieces of writing contained in this issue speak that same message to me. Continue reading “Printer’s Devil Review – Fall 2012”

Upon reading Volume III of Sakura Review, I had an immediate interest in finding out what the word “Sakura” referred to. I, of course, went first to Wikipedia where I learned that “sakura” might refer to “the Japanese term for ornamental cherry blossom trees and their blossoms.” Continue reading “Sakura Review – Spring 2012”

This issue of Fogged Clarity contains poetry, one piece of fiction, music, an interview, and a review. At first, I was concerned about there being so little in the issue (not realizing at first its monthly publication cycle), but each piece is strong and worth reading. Continue reading “Fogged Clarity – November 2012”

When money’s involved, what constitutes a document can be volcanically contested. Prior drafts, letters of intent, symbols sketched on a corner of a tablecloth are material one way or the other, if at all. Not so with every literary magazine. The summer 2012 issue of Southern Humanities Review is the first out of maybe twelve issues that I’ve reviewed that is curiously harmonic, down to the detailed footnotes of an essay. The Minutes of the Executive Board Meeting of the Southern Humanities Council, the copyright attribution on the last page from November 1931 are allusive, contributing to a cohesive whole, teasing, in the vein of a modern Nabokov, what is real, what is to be believed. Continue reading “Southern Humanities Review – Summer 2012”

Per Contra‘s fall issue offers a varied sampling of fiction, nonfiction, poetry, and visual art. Continue reading “Per Contra – Fall 2012”

What makes the lit mag experience special? Editor Vivian Dorsel provides one interesting answer in the short introductory essay that opens this issue of upstreet. Dorsel describes the experience of arriving in Bermuda for a vacation. The narrow Bermudan roads wind you “through a landscape both commonplace and exotic—simple cottages and family homes and forms and hues foreign to your native New England, palm trees in myriad sizes, shapes and shades of green whose fronds clatter in the gusty wind . . .” upstreet creates a similar experience, introducing the reader to unexpected people and places that are nonetheless familiar. Continue reading “upstreet – 2012”

Before you read The Medulla Review, take everything you think you know about our world and throw it out the window; the stories contained within the issue will challenge new ways to think about the way it actually works. You’ll discover a world in which all men turn, quite literally, into pigs; you’ll meet a man who removes, again quite literally, the faces of women before he can sleep with him; you’ll be introduced, in biography form, to Judas Horse, the world’s greatest cheese artist (“he is best known for his map sculptures of each of the fifty United States and territories of Puerto Rico, Guam and the USVI done entirely in cheese, chewed into shape by his own unique teeth”); and you’ll even find yourself navigating a maze as a lonely lab rat. Continue reading “The Medulla Review – 2012”

Like the magazine, the alligator juniper tree is native to Arizona (the journal is a yearly publication of Prescott College), but, as its unusual name implies, the magazine “invites both the regional and the exotic.” What sets this journal apart from other lit mags is that the only avenue for submission—open to all levels, emerging, early-career, and established—is through their national contests. These include a general one for fiction, creative nonfiction, poetry, and photography, and a separate Suzanne Tito contest for fiction, CNF, and poetry. The prizewinners and finalists selected for this issue are supremely worth reading. Continue reading “Alligator Juniper – 2012”

Hear the name The Fib Review and you may think it is a journal dedicated to literature about lies. But actually, it showcases a unique form of poetry—the Fibonacci poem. Based off of the Fibonacci sequence (0, 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13 . . . or F_n = F_n-1 + F_n-2), the poems use the number of words or syllables on a line to build the pattern, making the journal a wonderful creative outlet for math-lovers. Continue reading “The Fib Review – October 2012”

American Letters & Commentary defines itself as “innovative,” “challenging,” “daring,” and “diverse.” In this issue, John Phillip Santos reviews the poetry of John Matthias, saying that his “work imbeds us in his mind’s ceaseless flow of intimate memories, archival citations, insurrectionary readings, free associations and liberated play that seeks to unsettle the unexamined phenomenology of the reader’s attention to the world.” These phrases characterize ALC 23 as a whole. Continue reading “American Letters & Commentary – 2012”

Populated by winners of each contest, each issue of this magazine has a different premise. This issue includes three winners and three honorable mentions on the premise of time. At first, I wasn’t looking forward to the pieces, expecting the classic race against time scenario, but I was pleasantly surprised to see time handled in a much different way. Continue reading “On the Premises – November 2012”

In The Proceedings of the Natural Academy of Sciences of the United States of America (January, 2006), researchers argue that “emotion enhances remembrance of neutral events past.”1 Investigators speculated that the reason for this might have to do with more pointed attention during the coding process or enhancement after the event, but what they showed more centrally was that emotion enhances long-term memory, “determining what will later be remembered or forgotten.”2 Virginia Woolf wrote in her journal that there was a certain advantage to memory stripped of its emotional coloring, which doesn’t contradict the recent claim of the Academy, but adds to the complexity of the relationship between memory and emotion which would have considerable impact on literature and its sibling sciences—the law and psychology. Continue reading “American Literary Review – Spring 2012”

To set the feel for the rest of the issue, the editors of Goblin Fruit start it off with the haunting image of “The Vigil” by Mike Allen (for a visual of this “woman,” check out the art by Elisabeth Heller for the issue): “Where her eyes affix cannot be guessed. / Beneath a hat of iron wire / hang tattooed skins that veil her face.” Reading the rest of the issue, you’ll get the sense that she is watching you: Continue reading “Goblin Fruit – Autumn 2012”

Although The Antigonish Review is partially supported by the Canada Council for the Arts and the Nova Scotia Department of Communities, Culture & Heritage, the publication does not overreach into a philosophical or political interpretation of the American experiment. Some might imagine that public funding could encourage specific response at the expense of story, but these stories, essays, and poems are not exclusively about Canada and Canadians. The issue is rich with diverse elements—such as references to Tunisia, teenage nihilism, mortuary science, and Egypt. The writing is disciplined, and because of this convention, I can carry the magazine everywhere; it is a talisman against lost time. And that’s the best symptom of clean prose—the ability it affords the reader to weave in and out of the narrative without feeling lost. Continue reading “The Antigonish Review – Spring 2012”

Having somehow never heard of Willow Springs prior to this issue arriving on my doorstep, I was excited by the caliber of the authors listed on the cover: Amorak Huey, Kathryn Nuernberger, Roxane Gay, and even an interview with one of my all-time favorites, Tim O’Brien! Continue reading “Willow Springs – Fall 2012”

After seeing the cover of Pithead Chapel—a colorful collection of birds amongst flowers and plants—I expected something a little different. I’m not sure what, but I somehow expected stories of nature, or stories that were calm, and safe. But what I got was a different kind of surprise. Continue reading “Pithead Chapel – October 2012”

What a find Big Fiction is! The magazine publishes only three to five “shorts” or novellas of 7,000 words or more, bound in a beautiful hand-designed letterpress volume of just the right size: perfect for a weekend away, an afternoon of rich leisure, an evening curled up by the fire. This issue is a delight to hold, to view, to read carefully. The editors’ intention of visual and tactile beauty aligned with literary delectability is fully realized. The green, tastefully mismatched typography of the title takes up a small top left corner of the white cover, which is filled with a red etched fiddlehead fern. “No. 2” takes up minimal space in the bottom right corner, and in the title corner the image of a young fiddler playing unobstrusively. Continue reading “Big Fiction – Spring/Summer 2012”

This was the first issue of Zone 3 I’ve read cover-to-cover, and I was pleased with what I found. It’s an impressive, well-chosen collection of poetry and prose. Beginning with the narrative nonfiction, in “Puttanesca,” Kerry L. Malawista finds comfort in a special dish her friend made and brought to her following her daughter’s death. It is a straightforward and powerful piece that addresses and celebrates a simple gesture of humanity in the face of tragedy. Continue reading “Zone 3 – Spring 2012”

The highlight of this issue of Umbrella Factory was definitely the very first piece, Kristin Faatz’s “The Guardian.” I can sometimes get sick of stories from the perspective of children because I’m often bothered by the language of it or the way that their perspective doesn’t add to the story. But Faatz does an excellent job of allowing us to sympathize with the main character, Leah, and her thoughts seem to mirror a child’s quite well. Written as a close third-person and broken into sections, I was hooked as the story developed into one where Leah has broken a picture frame of her mother and her father, her father which “left” them years ago. The narrative shows how this child understands her world and how she is able to cope with the pain she has already had to endure at such a young age. But because it is written in the third person, we are able to step outside her world for a moment and see what happened to make her father leave, the story she doesn’t know about. The sections were excellently woven together to build very round characters and a round story. Continue reading “Umbrella Factory – September 2012”

Clockhouse Review’s best quality is that you don’t know what to expect. You’ll read a traditionally formed story about family dynamics, and then you’ll read a fake academic paper about medieval witches. Weird, but refreshing. Although CR boasts the usual suspects (poetry, fiction, and creative nonfiction), it also features some unusual suspects such as graphic narrative and drama. Although it’s awesome to see these forms in literary magazines (more, please), I don’t think I’m the best judge of their quality. Truthfully, I find graphic narratives bizarre; although I can say that the one in this issue (“Stomach Hole” by Mike Mosher) is truly fascinating in its bizarreness. Continue reading “Clockhouse Review – Summer 2012”

6X6 is an eccentric little number, a mini-compilation of avant-garde poetry. When you pick up the most recent issue of 6X6, titled “Enough About Pigs,” you know you’re in for a party. The journal is slim and funky, its bubble-gum pink cover accented with red letters and held together by a nifty red rubber-band for the binding. This poetry magazine, published by Ugly Duckling Presse, is a chapbook like no other, displaying the innovative work of six poets. Continue reading “6X6 – Summer 2012”

First of all, I have to say that I’m not sure if Gemini Magazine has a web version or not, but the layout was perfect for mobile reading. I had no problem reading the entire issue from the comfort of my bed and my iPhone. I even had a chance to finish up reading the issue while sitting at a restaurant, awkwardly waiting for my friends to arrive. Continue reading “Gemini Magazine – October 2012”

I’m sure, as writers, we sometimes feel compelled to write a letter to someone—as a way to organize our thoughts and say it “just right”—rather than try to explain what we are feeling or thinking out loud. This issue of Poemeleon is titled “The Epistolary Issue.” Each of the writers in this issue uses this form of poetry in different ways, some even explain it with a short intro. Continue reading “Poemeleon – Summer 2012”

Dogwood has returned to print after a year’s hiatus with Sonya Huber as the new editor. Huber aims to take this university magazine in a new direction with an online presence and the inclusion of creative nonfiction alongside their usual offerings of fiction and poetry. Readers won’t be disappointed with this restart. This issue features solid writing and the winners of the 2012 Dogwood Awards, with special guest judges Katherine Riegel and Ira Sukrungruang. Continue reading “Dogwood – Spring 2012”

Lowestoft Chronicle is about travel, but it’s not necessarily a travel log. The characters in the stories, in the poems, are on journeys—journeys in physical space or journeys in the heart and mind. Continue reading “Lowestoft Chronicle – Autumn 2012”

Enizagam is a breath of fresh air in the literary world. It proves that you don’t have to hold a master’s degree in order to enjoy, edit, and critique good literature. The young students at Oakland School for the Arts edit this literary magazine written by adults and for adult readership every year. Though it is a highly esteemed magazine, I had never gotten the pleasure of reading it until this issue, and it sure didn’t disappoint. Continue reading “Enizagam – 2011”

Revolution House, as the editors indicate, “is the brainchild of a disparate group of writers who came together during the tumultuous early months of 2011, when the MFA application anxiety was high and the lows were lower than low. We had a dream of a sprawling farmhouse, a place where we could all escape the dragging monotony of reality. But it’s difficult to find a house with fourteen bedrooms, so we ended up here instead, building platforms to launch other dreams.” Continue reading “Revolution House – Summer/Fall 2012”

There are enough apt images in this magazine to build a new world whole. In three of its quarterly issues, The Fiddlehead publishes short fiction: not here. Here you’ll find reviews of Canadian literature, as is usual in the journal, but then in addition, purely poetry—enough to populate your mind with figures and tropes and patterns of sound until winter comes to call. The Fiddlehead (a reference to a fern unfolding) is, according to its website, “a veritable institution of literary culture in Canada.” Published in New Brunswick for over 65 years, it is “a regional magazine with a national and international reputation.” Especially if contemporary poetry interests you, it’s easy, in this issue, to see why. Continue reading “The Fiddlehead – Summer 2012”

Founded in 1990, the glossy literary magazine Glimmer Train Stories showcases mostly emerging talent and hosts a bevy of contests to help cull those voices. I did not appreciate the fruits of their model until I read this issue, which carried me cover to cover, through a labyrinth of sound, structure, and emotional and literary sophistication. Continue reading “Glimmer Train Stories – Fall 2012”

This month, Sundog Lit opens the pages of its very first issue. Including poetry, fiction, and nonfiction, it hosts a bevy of writers, both established and new. Editor Justin Lawrence Daugherty writes in his note that this issue accomplishes what they hoped it would; “it burns retinas.” If there is one piece that stands out as “burning” my retinas, it’s definitely “Caul” by Jenna Lynch. It was, well to be honest, gross (if you don’t know what a “caul” is, look it up), but even though it is eerie and not pleasant to picture, it’s insightful: Continue reading “Sundog Lit – October 2012”

Hayden’s Ferry Review announces itself immediately as an important publication, and not just because of its justifiably stellar reputation. This twenty-fifth anniversary issue boasts a top-shelf list of contributors, and the journal itself is heavy and substantial in the hand. This issue puts a special focus on the “artifact,” an object with “unique meaning both within its context and apart from it.” This focus is explicit in the issue’s reproductions of artifacts from notable writers, but is also implicit in many of the poems and short stories that fill the rest of the pages. Continue reading “Hayden’s Ferry Review – Spring/Summer 2012”

The Rusty Toque, now in its third issue, is churning some solid butter. And instead of having just the traditional poetry, fiction, and nonfiction categories, The Rusty Toque publishes comics, monologues, art, and even videos. There is room in this home for a lot of different work. Continue reading “The Rusty Toque – 2012”

The rawness, dissonance and clamor of contemporary American urban life are present in several fine poems in the latest issue of Hiram Poetry Review. Continue reading “Hiram Poetry Review – Spring 2012”

Knock is published bi-annually by Antioch University Seattle and has lots of flavor and flair; it is comprised of poems, fiction, essays, excerpts from books, interviews, and some fantastic color art and one hybrid piece. It must have been difficult to choose which artists’ and writers’ names would be featured on the cover as this issue shocked me with a tremendous amount of quality work. The editors certainly live up to the expectation of publishing “cutting edge” writing. Continue reading “Knock – 2012”

The cover image for this issue of Menacing Hedge—“A Tree” by Alexander Jansson—is a perfect intro to what you’ll find inside. The image features a tree house I’d definitely like to climb up in, with a collection of empty picture frames, lanterns, and odds and ends hanging from the branches of the trees. It’s odd, it’s magical, it’s unique: truly representative of the work inside. Continue reading “Menacing Hedge – Fall 2012”

Meat for Tea is a quirky little journal from western Massachusetts that showcases fiction, poetry, and art of eclectic taste. Themes jump around from absurd, realistic, and even to a small taste of science fiction in a blend that is peculiar yet satisfying, like bacon in earl gray or pork in green tea. You get the idea. Continue reading “Meat for Tea – June 2012”

Fiction Fix offers a large issue (so please forgive my not-so-mini review) filled with many different types of fiction. Some are more traditional stories, while others offer their messages by incorporating images and drawings. Continue reading “Fiction Fix – 2012”

The name Rattle for a poetry journal interests me in the way that names of things often do. There is the death rattle, a baby’s rattle, rattlesnakes. There are people’s minds rattling off the hinges, people’s cages being rattled, and people rattling their own cages or those of others. It could be said that the best poetry rattles our nerves. A little bit of all of this is represented in this issue of Rattle, the death rattle perhaps more than the rest. If I had to pick one poem to represent the issue it would be Rohan Chhetri’s “Not the Exception.” The narrator appears to recently have come close to death and speaks of it in matter-of-fact yet insightful ways. The final lines struck me as boldest: Continue reading “Rattle – Summer 2012”

Flash pieces are often my favorite to read (and write), so when I came upon this brand new magazine, I simply had to review it (after delightedly sharing it with my fellow flash fiction lovers). Quickly publishes pieces unbound by genre or form, so long as they can say what they need to say in 703 words or fewer. Continue reading “Quickly – Issue 1”

This issue of the Santa Monica Review starts out with a bang—literally. Continue reading “Santa Monica Review – Spring 2012”

failbetter.com is an online magazine inspired by the quote from Samuel Beckett: “Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail better.” After a short break, they are now publishing again. This issue of failbetter.com offers two stories and two poems. Continue reading “failbetter.com – Fall 2012”

Storm Cellar is slender literary magazine—this issue is less than 30 pages—whose website advertises “a special emphasis on the Midwest.” The cover is catchy, a colorful curiosity of overlapping images. Flowers and faces mix among abstractions, and it all looks a bit like wallpaper from the neon ‘80s. Despite the inclusion of only three pieces of fiction, one of which is no longer than a page, and poems by five authors, this issue of Storm Cellar holds up as an interesting, varied read. Continue reading “Storm Cellar – Summer 2012”

Arsenic Lobster is a great concoction, a boiling pot of poetry that fizzles and pops. The poetry pokes, it prods. Cristofre Kayser’s poem asks “Was there ever a knife that did not cut?” And Jeanne Stauffer-Merle’s poem tells us that “The mouth of wind is jagged and hanging and / cold and cold . . .” Continue reading “Arsenic Lobster – Summer 2012”

Editor RW Spryszak begins this issue of Thrice Fiction by addressing the misconceptions some have with regard to “micro fiction.” Spryszak rejects the notion that flash fiction is “experimental” and has a very good point. “Experimental” implies that a piece isn’t fully formed “or that the writer doesn’t know what they’re trying to get at . . . by the time something is ready for public viewing the experiment should be over.” The writers whose work is represented in Thrice Fiction make use of the toolboxes of both poets and short story writers to create stories that are as emotionally potent as they are brief. Continue reading “Thrice Fiction – July 2012”