NewPages Blog :: Magazine Reviews

Brand new, all fiction (plus one interview), advertisement free and gorgeous, the Land-Grant College Review is one of best literary magazines since McSweeney’s. The contributors, by and large, are the interesting mid-list authors we don’t find enough on the NYTimes bestseller list—Ron Carlson, Stephen Dixon, Aimee Bender, Robert Olmstead. The artwork by Joy Kolitsky is stunning, from the cover to the two-color title pages preceding each story. There’s an interview with Thisbe Nissen that alone is worth the issue price, even if you’ve no familiarity with her award winning collection of stories or novel or stolen recipe book. Continue reading “Land-Grant College Review – 2003”

ZYZZYVA, officially subtitled “The last word: West coast writers and artists,” is above nearly all else a fun magazine. They fill their back cover with letters, a good sampling of the weird to funny to cringe-inducing (for writers), and the front cover, on this latest issue, is a beautiful drawing of a lone chair in front of towering shelves of books. After the “Editor’s Note” on the fifth page, and after the 24 following pages of advertisements for art galleries and MFA programs and coffee shops all along the west coast, there’s an hilarious picture of the comedian Robin Williams (page 29), immediately after which (30 pages in), the art of the magazine begins proper. Continue reading “ZYZZYVA – Fall 2003”

At 56 total pages of creative work, PRISM sends a tremendous wallop of beautiful writing that, it’s made clear on both covers and often throughout, is (primarily) from Canada, although they do feature writers from the United States and declare themselves globally cosmopolitan. For those unfamiliar, there’s an organization called the Canadian Magazine Publishers Association that, through both a stamp on the back cover (“Genuine Canadian Magazine”) and an advertisement in the rear of the journal appearing just a step across the line between pride and swagger, establishes what could feel like a strange provincial sneer, if one were so inclined. Continue reading “PRISM International – Spring 2003”