NewPages Blog :: Magazine Reviews

I really like the way Main Street Rag fits in my hand; it’s the perfect size for a literary magazine. It’s also cool that MSR publishes letters from readers. In my experience, that’s a rarity for a literary mag, but one that I think adds to the experience of reading a magazine. It’s always fun to see what other readers have to say. Publisher/Editor M. Scott Douglass clearly puts a considerable amount of work into Main Street Rag, and marks each issue with his own “Front Seat” and “Back Seat” columns that bookend the contents. Not shy about veering into political territory, Douglass launches this particular issue’s “Back Seat” into a commentary on American economics and class struggles, offering up his own solutions on tax issues (two options to choose from!). This sort of diatribe within a literary magazine may seem out of place to some readers, but I found it refreshing. It helps to project the image that MSR is quite comfortable in its own skin. Continue reading “Main Street Rag – Fall 2011”

Aaron Milstead’s short story “The Pickled Man” was such an easy and captivating read that I suggested to my twelve-year-old son that he read it as well. As I predicted, he devoured the story of Wilber Will’s World of Wonders that features a mysterious oddity floating around in a pickle jar. That night, at around two a.m., I awoke to a shadowy figure standing at the foot of my bed. I knew immediately that figure was my son and that he’d just had a nightmare featuring, not surprisingly, the pickled man. After putting him back to bed, I thought about the power of Milstead’s story. It had left an unsettling impression on my son—one that lies just below the cerebral surface—long after he’d finished reading it. It is the titillating payoff that you hope for when you read something particularly spooky. This is exactly what Black Lantern Publishing’s fifth issue offers its readers with its collection of short stories, poetry, flash fiction, and artwork, all within a macabre theme. Despite my recommendation to my son, this is not a collection intended for children. BLP offers an assortment of haunting contemplations that deal with the subject of death and ushers readers to a darker side of literature. Continue reading “Black Lantern Publishing – November 2011”

Run by the MFA program at Butler University, Booth publishes something every week on their website and has a print publication each spring. I have never seen the print edition, but found the online material quite intriguing. I was especially impressed by their selections of poetry. Continue reading “Booth – December 2011”

Off the Coast, based out of Robbinston, Maine, publishes poems, artwork, and reviews. It seems to me that this particular issue has a strong focus on nature and animals interacting within their natural surroundings. The title of each issue is chosen from a line or phrase from one of the issue’s selected poems. The Fall 2011 issue is entitled Everything Here. The editors make a very honest effort to live up to the promise of such a title. Continue reading “Off the Coast – Fall 2011”

I am not a fan of science fiction, but I decided to check out Strange Horizons, an online publication of speculative fiction, poetry, articles, reviews, and art. The first two stories bored me but the third was engaging, and I was hooked. I read a bunch of them. Continue reading “Strange Horizons – June 2011-November 2011”

Part community news bulletin, part travel guide, and part literary magazine, Voices de la Luna drops the reader into the vibrant arts community of San Antonio, Texas. The magazine describes itself as “actively promoting poetry and arts in San Antonio by supporting other literary and arts organizations.” Discovering the interdependent community of creative folks represented in Voices de la Luna’s pages makes me want to buy a one-way ticket to this great town. Continue reading “Voices de la Luna – July 2011”

Anobium embraces and celebrates the strange and surreal. As a reader, sometimes this works for me and sometimes not. This is the first issue of Anobium, and I think for what they are trying to do, it’s a strong start. I liked the design, for one: the journal is pocket-sized, perfect-bound, and features subtle yet effective graphic design by staff artist Jacob van Loon. Continue reading “Anobium – Summer 2011”

Are you up for a side trip to Bat City? The landscape is compelling and the water’s fine. Compiled and produced by the University of Texas at Austin, the Bat City Review demands, as Editor Caleb Klaces states, “to be read closely.” Jam-packed with wonderfully wrought poetry and provocative prose, this issue is the perfect companion to take along on a weekend trip or for curling up by the fire on a chilly evening. Continue reading “Bat City Review – 2011”

On its website, The Coffin Factory states that it “serves as a nexus between readers, writers, and the book publishing industry,” with a mission to “provide great literature and art to people who love books, including those who do not usually read literary magazines.” It strikes me that the debut issue upholds this mission. Continue reading “The Coffin Factory – 2011”

I fell in love with this issue of Ecotone at founding editor David Gessner’s first mention of John Hay, one of my favorite nature writers. The issue proceeded to draw me in further and further, as I accompanied Poe Ballantine during his down-and-out struggles in Hope, Arkansas; drifted through former U.S. Poet Laureate Billy Collins’ dreamy poems; mired myself in Stephanie Soileau’s tale of two siblings, each stuck in a different rut; and stared transfixed at Magdalena Solé’s color photos of the Mississippi Delta. Next I floated above a poignant slice of childhood from Nancy Hale and stood by Joe Wilkins as he sent boys still short of manhood into a dark bar, following childish desires and finding much more. From there I traced Peter Trachtenberg’s enchanting map of his cats’ forays into the outside world, saluted Sam Pickering as he said goodbye to teaching, and in the final pages unsettled myself outside a remote cabin spun out of Kevin Wilson’s chilling words. Continue reading “Ecotone – Spring 2011”

Epiphany is “committed to publishing literary work in which form is as valued as content.” This emphasis on craft results in a balanced mix of excellent fiction, memoir, and poetry from both new and familiar authors. Continue reading “Epiphany – Spring/Summer 2011”

Co-edited by two sisters, Susan Burmeister-Brown and Linda B. Swanson-Davis, Glimmer Train is a well-regarded magazine containing primarily short-stories. While many of GT‘s authors have impressive lists of past publications, other writers earn their first publication here. This issue includes stories by Geoff Wyss, Jenny Zhang, Daniel Torday, Evan Kuhlman, Nona Caspers, Olufunke Grace Bankole, Daniel Wallace, and Ken Barris. There is also an interview with Victoria Barrett by Debra Monroe. Continue reading “Glimmer Train Stories – Fall 2011”

Sometimes you need some literary chow. Your brain gets to feeling a bit peckish—in need of a good read. If so, this issue of Hunger Mountain will provide you with a veritable reading buffet. Take care that you don’t stuff yourself too quickly. Continue reading “Hunger Mountain – 2010”

In this issue’s featured interview, author Dan Choan says, “A big part of my life has been feeling out of place in one world or another and trying to adjust to that sense of being alien all the time.” Displacement is a central theme in the fall issue of The Missouri Review, and the journal’s diverse settings keep readers moving as well. Most pieces at the beginning of the journal place readers abroad, showcasing the magazine’s attention to current political issues. It is about two-thirds of the way through that the stories take a turn toward cityscapes. (Burt Kimmelman’s urban nonfiction, Peter LaSalle’s NYC story and Kristine Somerville’s essay on graffiti art.) The final piece of fiction situates readers in rural Maine in Stephanie DeGhett’s story “Balsam.” We are constantly moving in this issue, but what ultimately unites all the included pieces is a thoughtfulness and quality of writing that make this issue a humbling, excellent read. Continue reading “The Missouri Review – Fall 2011”

One is prone to read Poetry expecting not only to find good poems, but also that something will be said about poetry. In this issue, the about reverberates most abundantly in Michael Robbins’s insightful review on three volumes, Clavics by Geoffrey Hills, Moving Day by Ish Klein, and Come and See by Fanny Howe. As Robbins suggests, poetry can be one thing—or that thing’s very contradiction: “where Flarf’s virtue is in its failure to hang together, Klein’s poems exude counterintuitive coherence.” This broad definition seems useful in dealing with a collection of poetry so diverse as in this issue of the journal. Continue reading “Poetry – November 2011”

Christopher Bakken’s skillfully paced essay “Octopus Ear” begins serenely with a dive off the coast of Greece, where he takes students on tours. Before long, though, he’s climbing down Mount Olympus in terrible pain from an ear infection, confronting his grief over his wife’s mental illness, finding unexpected kindness from a young waitress, and simultaneously laughing and weeping in a gust of what the Greek’s call harmolypi—“joyful sadness.” Part observant travel writing, part gripping personal narrative, the essay gets this ninety-six-year-old magazine off to another good start. Continue reading “Southwest Review – 2011”

What in the absence of color will staunch
this dreaming, what without fire will cauterize,
clot? Can nothing—not doubt nor distraction
nor sleep nor dopamine—stopper this seeping
apace? Continue reading “Spoon River Poetry Review – Winter/Spring 2011”

In the seventh issue of upstreet, creative nonfiction shines like an LED sun. Its poignancy encourages the reader to think of his or her own life experiences. The creative nonfiction stands out, to this reviewer anyway, as nothing short of amazing. It is both inspirational and compelling. While the fiction and poetry in this issue were good, the creative nonfiction reminded me, over and over again, of why I love to read. Continue reading “upstreet – 2011”

Ah, Marin, county of my heart. Cross the Golden Gate Bridge north from San Francisco, veer west toward the ocean, and keep driving through oaks, hill country, and sea. Who wouldn’t love its rural beauty, or the loyalty to earth and humanity of the independent souls who choose to live there? The bio of Catherine David, whose delightful short essay “Amateurs are First-Rate Lovers” opens this issue of West Marin Review, identifies her as “an artist, journalist, and pianist living in Paris who visits West Marin whenever she can.” That love of place, that desire to be in this land of “seashore and woodland” infuses every work of word or art in this fine book. Continue reading “West Marin Review – 2010”

The Point is a sophisticated 187-paged Chicago-based literary magazine about contemporary life and culture. The Spring issue’s most frequent theme is sports entertainment and rationale, although its five sections, “Letters from the Editors,” “Essays,” “Art,” “Symposium,” and “Reviews” include other topics. It’s good that it is a biannual, as its many articles require, more often than not, erudite engagement, and certainly more than one sitting. Continue reading “The Point – Spring 2011”

Brenda Miller, author of five Pushcart-Prize-winning works and co-author of a best-selling creative nonfiction text, is the editor-in-chief of Bellingham Review. The names of Rita Dove, Tess Gallagher, Tobias Wolff, and other better-than-well-known poets and writers light up the editorial board. And with such a masthead, and a mission statement that includes a cry of “hunger for […] writing that nudges the limits of form, or executes traditional forms exquisitely,” how could we not expect excellence from this fine journal out of Western Washington University? This hefty issue contains nearly 250 pages of striking fiction, creative nonfiction, poetry, and photography. And from the contest winners that open the issue to the interviews that conclude it, not a single entry misfires. Continue reading “The Bellingham Review – Spring 2011”

Notwithstanding Lee Sharkey’s essay/review on the poets Kazim Ali and Brian Teare, this entire volume of BPJ features just one poet, Michael Broek—more precisely, his series of thirty poems titled The Logic of Yoo. Reading the collection is a transforming experience. The series tackles the problem of violence in modern history. The problem is approached without preaching or thundering. A protagonist—a doctoral student—researches the topic, not because he is passionate about it or wants to rid the world of violence, but because he is paid for his work. Masterful irony reverberates in the laconism of the student’s research notes, in his quoting factual documents, and in evoking authentic objects, places, and persons. Continue reading “Beloit Poetry Journal – Fall 2011”

Two pieces shine brightest in the Summer 2011 issue of the Colorado Review—Diana Wagman’s nonfiction piece “Mess” and James O’Brien’s fiction piece “The Bones Inside Your Skin.”

Continue reading “Colorado Review – Summer 2011”

The “dossier” section of every issue saves Court Green from falling in with, and being hopelessly lost among, the more run-of-the-mill fair getting churned out among MFA programs. It’s a pretty classy way to get around having “themes” for issues while actually having different themes for each issue, and offers the editors a good chance at a shot of overall cohesion. Once the “dossier” covered Lorine Niedecker, next year it’s going to be “The Short Poem,” but this year it’s Frank O’Hara. Continue reading “Court Green – 2011”

The cover art chosen for the Spring 2011 issue of Kestrel is a misty-blue piece titled Okeanos IV 2010 by Kathleen Holder, the visual artist featured in this issue. The artwork reminds me of a cold day on a beach, where the sky and the water fuse. Donna Long writes in her editorial comment, the submissions selected for publication sometimes “just seem cosmically ordained to share an issue.” Long tells us water is this cosmic connection, bending and rolling through the work like the thread of a river tying up a landscape. And I see that connection from the opening essay, “Upstream Against Forgetting” by Rob Merritt, to the poems, such as “Aqua Vitae” by Charles Tisdale or “Meditation: Labor Day” by Nancy Takacs. Wonderful. Continue reading “Kestrel – Spring 2011”

The dignified beauty of the vast Great Lakes region is often outshone by the bright lights of Broadway and the high-wattage glow of Hollywood. This issue of the Michigan Quarterly Review, subtitled “Love Song and Lament,” contains poetry, fiction and creative nonfiction that will immerse the reader in the quiet dignity of the area and the people who call it home. Continue reading “Michigan Quarterly Review – Summer 2011”

The Paris Review is such a great magazine, edited with such discrimination that likes and dislikes inevitably come down to matters of personal taste. The pieces that I most enjoyed in this issue were two essays—Lydia Davis’s “Some Notes on Translation and on Madame Bovary,” and Geoff Dyer’s “Into the Zone”—and a poem by Sharon Olds, “The Haircut.” Continue reading “The Paris Review – Fall 2011”

We’ve all said or heard from time to time: “old friends are the best.” This adage is certainly true with the Fall 2011 issue of Prairie Schooner. I’ve known this magazine for a long time—it has been published for longer than most of us reading it have been alive—and the current issue is just as lively and alive as the issues from the 1970s when I first subscribed in graduate school. Its generous collection of poems and prose is at once rich, exciting, challenging, and refreshing as the ample section of reviews is enlightening. Continue reading “Prairie Schooner – Fall 2011”

It is truly shocking to know that Prime Mincer is a young magazine still in its first year of publication. This edition is packed with insightful, daring, and creative work that will appeal to a diverse readership. So many poems, stories, and nonfiction pieces stood out and demanded to be heard. This is certainly a magazine you will have to hold in your hands to enjoy the punch it delivers. Continue reading “Prime Mincer – Summer 2011”

This issue brings a fresh approach to regionalism by positing its own ad hoc region. “The I-90 Poetry Revolution” includes varied, ambitious work by poets who came from, live in or have some relation to the territory strung along the lanes, ramps, gas stations, motels, fast-food joints and rest stops between Boston and Seattle. Continue reading “Redactions – 2011”

The cool thing about THEMA is that prompt thing. Each issue of this cleverly-conceived magazine offers one premise (the prompt) and solicits whatever plots, poems, images and issues writers can come up with from that opening. Now, I don’t mean the opening or beginning of the story. I mean that opening into the imagination, that one key into story or wordplay. THEMA‘s threefold goal is: “to provide a stimulating forum for established and emerging literary artists […] to serve as source material and inspiration for teachers of creative writing [ . . . ] [and] to provide readers with a unique and entertaining collection of stories and poems.” The theme for the summer issue was “About two miles down the road.” What would you come up with for that? Continue reading “THEMA – Summer 2011”

Loras College, the Catholic liberal arts college in Dubuque, Iowa, has inaugurated what I think is long overdue and should be welcomed with huzzahs from East to West: Catfish Creek, a literary journal “intended as a showcase for undergraduate writers from across the country and around the world.” O ye scads of undergraduate creative writing majors, minors, and hopefuls, and all those who teach and mentor said scads, should unite in praise of the concept—and the execution. Demonstrating the variety and depth of which undergrads are capable, this is a very fine first volume. May there be many more! Continue reading “Catfish Creek – 2011”

Grain, “the journal of eclectic writing,” comes to us from Canada and was a 2011 finalist in Canada’s Western Magazine Awards in the category Magazine of the Year Saskatchewan. Grain is proudly, if not aggressively, Canadian (though it publishes two American poets in this issue). After thirty-eight years of publication, Grain continues to throw a spotlight on Canadian writing in this 101-page issue. Continue reading “Grain – Spring 2011”

From its Facebook page: “An online literary journal devoted to experimentation, humor, and the crossbreeding of the arts, featuring stories and essays by established and emerging writers, interviews with writers, and reviews of just about anything.” Continue reading “Knee-Jerk – 2010”

The latest issue of The Ledge is dense. Not hard to get through, not incomprehensible; I mean actually dense. At just over 300 pages, it’s their longest issue to date. And while it’s certainly understandable (and often enjoyable) that most literary journals break up their included works with artwork, book reviews, etc., sometimes it’s nice to just read pages and pages and pages of fiction and poetry. Especially when the pieces are as stylistically varied and well-written as those in The Ledge. Continue reading “The Ledge – Summer/Fall 2011”

This issue of New England Review has me very conflicted. There is work within that is both inspiring and inspired; however, it was a lot of work to get there as a reader. The versatility of the issue is astounding, considering the many diverse topics and themes covered in the publication. Usually, when I pick up a literary magazine, I expect the fiction and poetry to be the stars, yet in this issue of New England Review, the nonfiction and translations take center stage. Continue reading “New England Review – 2011”

Get past any queasiness at this journal’s title right away and plunge into its rich substance. This five-year anniversary issue has a theme—feasting—and the poetry, nonfiction, book review and artwork appearing in the large-format fifty-six pages are well-chosen by the editors to cohere around this theme. Production values, including full-page four-color reproductions of artwork, are opulent. Only a classicist would object to the background grayscreen flourishes which adorn some of the pages, apparently chosen at random to be thus graced. The enormous pull-quotes, though, in the nonfiction pieces, are so huge that at a glance one might think they signal the beginning of a new story. Although the subtitle of the magazine is “chewing on life, faith and art,” the messages of faith in the various works, including the editor’s column, are generally subtle, causing nary a wince for this reader. Continue reading “Ruminate – Summer 2011”

Still Point Arts Quarterly is the print publication of the virtual Still Point Art Gallery based out of Brunswick, Maine. Their premise: “That art and artistry possess the capability to transform the world.” It is a laudable belief and Still Point’s editor, owner and director Christine Brooks Cote is working admirably to see this premise through, as the art, artist portfolios, feature articles, poetry and exhibition information chosen for this journal are of exceptional quality. Continue reading “Still Point Arts Quarterly – Summer 2011”

Reading The Sun is like spending a few hours with a very smart and environmentally-aware friend who is also a little bit of a goof. The theme of this independent, ad-free journal varies month to month, but the prose, poetry and photography selections tend to create an over-arching narrative like a well-ordered book of poetry. Continue reading “The Sun – September 2011”

It is difficult to determine what kind of writing this journal is looking for since they do not give any directions on their website, but I paused in my incessant trolling of the online lit mags to read a story, and was hooked. Continue reading “Umbrella Factory – June 2011”

In this issue of Apalachee Review, some of the best writing is about sports. Joe Ponepinto’s boxing story, “The Sting of the Glove,” puts you deep inside a morally compromised manager who pushes his fighter too far, then puts on the gloves again himself. Perhaps he returns to the ring in an effort to recapture his own stolen career. Perhaps he does it to win the comatose fighter’s girlfriend. Perhaps both. Continue reading “Apalachee Review – 2011”

Blueline describes itself as a “literary magazine dedicated to the spirit of the Adirondacks.” Like many regionally-themed publications based in scenic areas, it includes a big helping of traditionally conceived nature poetry, most of it in competently handled free verse. Poets submitting to Blueline obviously find nature to be a source of beauty, interest and anthropomorphic imagery. Kathleen E. Schneider, for example, writes of digging mica fragments from a steep hillside and holding them out “like precious shards of broken glory.” Georganna Millman writes a tongue-in-cheek account of a day in the life of crows, who, in late morning “beat it to the trees / hanging over Elk Creek / henpecking an old owl / where she hides.” Continue reading “Blueline – 2011”

You certainly don’t have to be a woman to enjoy the enticing lines found in CALYX. For thirty-five years, CALYX has been bringing women’s voices to life within their pages. The summer 2011 issue is a compact collection of poetry, fiction, creative nonfiction, art, and book reviews. The writing is smart, remarks witty, and images powerful. In this issue, the reader will encounter a goddess cleaning out her purse, an aging couple who have lost both memory and close friends, and witness the destruction of cancer. Calyx features work from writers that is so poignant and striking, you will be thinking about their words for days. Continue reading “CALYX – Summer 2011”

Joan Fox’s Editor’s Note, entitled “Variety and Vision,” states that this inaugural issue “features poems of survival, defiance and hope; images of our Western landscape; and, works offering a world of beings—mountain lions, coyotes, doves, dragonflies, cockroaches, fleas, cats, dogs, pelicans, humans, machines, sunlight.” Indeed, Three Coyotes highlights the beauty of the natural world, whether it is through the medium of prose, poetry, or photography. Continue reading “Three Coyotes – Winter/Spring 2011”

The latest issue of Versal establishes its strong character before you even open it up. Simply styled with Antoinette Nausikaä’s cover art, it states in black handwriting “I AM HAPPY” (followed by the date and location of the statement’s creation). There it is. A negation of the bland and normal, an embracing of the strangeness of human existence. Part of the cover’s beauty comes from its confidence—isn’t it a bit more difficult, a bit more unnerving to say simply, “I am”? It allows for the possibility of any (or no) emotion, any description, and in that sense it is universal. Fitting, since the journal prides itself on its trans locality, based in Amsterdam but spanning across nations. At the same time, however, the statement is personal, almost forceful. Continue reading “Versal – 2011”

Brick is one of those journals that makes you feel a little inadequate, but in a good way. You realize, after reading, the vast amount of interesting and impressive writers who have somehow stayed hidden from you. It’s not only a matter of discovering new, contemporary voices you hadn’t yet had the pleasure of hearing (though that’s certainly part of it), but one of being exposed to established authors as well, those who have been around for years and—apparently—already have a good deal of clout to their names (even though you have no idea who they are). This latest issue of the Canadian-born magazine does a wonderful job of making you want to learn more about these men and women, to run to the library and check out every one of their books. Continue reading “Brick – Summer 2011”

When I received my stack of magazines to review this month, Weave felt the best in my hands. It’s a smaller journal, thin and light-weight, but that’s not all that separates it from “the big boys.” Weave opens its sixth issue with a stitched in supplement called The Clothesline. Here’s what founding editor Laura E. Davis has to say about it: Continue reading “Weave Magazine – 2011”

Willow Springs Issue 68 is a meal. Maybe a sandwich. But maybe that metaphor is too old. Let’s say lasagna, poetry stuffed between layers of prose, topped with a melted interview. Willow Springs fills you up with poems by Dexter L. Booth, Beckian Fritz Goldberg, and Nance Van Winckel among many others, prose from Clare Beams, Kirsten Sundberg Lunstrum, Jill Christman, and Sarah Hulse, and a conversation with Richard Russo. Continue reading “Willow Springs – Fall 2011”