Per Contra promises that readers will find contrast in the range of work they publish, from fiction to scholarly essays, and they deliver in their Spring 2015 issue. Variety isn’t limited to the types of genre they provide, but can be seen in the individual pieces within each genre as well. The fiction section varies from “Things We Do To Keep From Dying” by Dominica Phetteplace, which follows a woman reclaiming her life and safety after being raped as her fear centers on dogs in the days after the attack, to “Unfunny” by Stephen Delaney, in which a man’s flubbed joke leads him to the uncomfortable task of facing his faults. However, a few stories stuck out as sharing a common element: the relationship between mothers and daughters. Continue reading “Per Contra – Spring 2015”

Court Green does as good a job as any journal I know of offering just the right mix of established and lesser-known poets. Continue reading “Court Green – 2015”

Boasting 10-15% student work per issue, Eclipse, published by Glendale Community College, is the only nationally distributed literary journal that continues to publish students alongside authors of international prominence. Continue reading “Eclipse – Fall 2005”

This issue of Green Mountains Review focuses on different moments, how writers choose to capture those moments, what they bring into those moments, what they take out of those moments, and what these shared moments can provide to the reader. Every piece of work seems to say “This is a moment that has happened or is happening and how, dear reader, will you handle it?” Continue reading “Green Mountains Review – 2014”

The Fall 2014 issue of The Antioch Review took on the theme of what they have chosen to call “word trucks,” which are similar to “food trucks.” The Antioch Review positions themselves to be like a food truck, “serving up a variety of dishes that were intended to stimulate the intellectual palate with ‘the best words in the best order.’” In order to stimulate the palate of every reader, this issue is packed with essays, poetry, fiction, and reviews, thoughtfully crafted and organized. Continue reading “The Antioch Review – Fall 2014”

Literature is at its best when it resonates, when the reader is inclined to make connections to other texts, genres, and media in an effort to make sense of the work at hand. The resonant quality of the summer issue of Gigantic Sequins is high, indebted to the finely crafted works within its pages. According to Editor-in-chief Kimberly Ann Southwick, “The whole reason we do this thing is to present you some of the finest writers and artists around these days.” In this issue, they have fulfilled this promise. Continue reading “Gigantic Sequins – 2014”

For their final print issue, after the recent passing of their editor and publisher, Csaba Polony, Left Curve provides readers with a strong collection of essays, poetry, and a variety of other musings, including a play and an interview with artists Victor and Margarita Tupitsyn. Although the journal will continue to make use of their website, the final hard copy, like Dylan Thomas suggests in his canonized villanelle, does not go gentle into that good night. The selections are designed, written, and selected by thinkers. Continue reading “Left Curve – 2015”

Returning to “Girl Eating a Bird” by Vanessa Zimmer-Powell published in this issue of Ekphrasis is becoming a habit. The language haunts as it depicts, surmises as it reveals. In just ten lines, the poem written after viewing Rene Magritte’s painting, Girl Eating a Bird, exposes more of the painting and its subject. The first line “She chewed open cardinal” evokes in iamb, trochee, and dactyl, a nearly cannibalistic gnaw at the bone. In the next line, in the single syllable “raw,” a reader might feel a twinge of sulfuric delight before reading on to the satisfying end. “She won’t stop / until it is well tasted,” and neither will readers. Continue reading “Ekphrasis – Fall/Winter 2014”

In my admittedly brief career as a reviewer, I’ve not encountered any literary journals that concentrate almost exclusively on the short story. I really like the idea, and obviously so do many other readers. Two differences I noticed about Glimmer Train Stories: this is the only lit mag I’ve read so far that isn’t connected to a college or university; and it’s the only one that includes a bookmarker as a bonus. Continue reading “Glimmer Train Stories – Winter 2014”

I’m honored to review this particular issue of The Antigonish Review because it announces the 2014 poetry and fiction contest winners. I’m glad I wasn’t a judge. It must have been an agonizing process to glean the wheat—the winners—from what couldn’t possibly have been literary chaff. Continue reading “The Antigonish Review – Autumn 2014”

The Main Street Rag has a different vibe from your distantly intellectual, even-tempered literary journal. It’s unpredictable, quirky. At the very beginning, Publisher/Editor M. Scott Douglass writes in The Front Seat column about why the issue is late and about the kerfuffle of the North Carolina governor inserting himself into the selection of state poet laureate. When he’s had his say on these topics, he directs us to The Back Seat (distinguished by cream-colored pages) toward the end of the issue, where he takes on the U.S. Senate race in North Carolina. This is a hands-on, opinionated rag. Continue reading “Main Street Rag – Fall 2014”

If Volume 8 of Enizagam is an accurate measure, age is no indicator of ability. The literary magazine is produced by 9^th-12^th grade students at the School of Literary Arts at Oakland School for the Arts in Oakland, California. The urban public arts charter school students design, edit, and publish the journal, and they do an excellent job. Enizagam is a beautifully designed read, full of the kind of poetry and fiction that not only delights, but sticks with the reader long after putting the publication down. Continue reading “Enizagam – 2014”

The centennial of anything is generally cause for celebration, but when one is an independent gardening magazine with homegrown roots (pun intended) and a lot of heart, reaching Issue 100 is an even more exciting accomplishment. Issue 100 of GreenPrints does not disappoint. It is a celebration of not only the gardening and gardeners GreenPrints regularly embraces, but also the magazine itself and all those whose impassioned writing is surely on par with their artfully tended begonias and apricot trees. Continue reading “GreenPrints – Winter 2015”

Not long after opening Eleven Eleven Issue 17, the reader finds two photographs by Ken Morisawa (“Fishman speed light #4” and “Fishman #18”). The two black and white images ostensibly depict a man diving into dark water, surrounded by chaos and a disturbance of bubbles. One may read this in other ways, but it strikes me as a man diving into the wild, the unknown, a bold and determined move. He may not know what to expect, but he jumps anyway. It is exhilarating. This interpretation fittingly mirrors the experience of opening Eleven Eleven. Continue reading “Eleven Eleven – 2014”

When sitting down to read Burnside Review, I feel you have to be in the right mood: opening to something different with every turn of the page, and craving something that makes you see things in a new way. At my first sit-down, I wasn’t quite prepared, but during my second chance, I got lost in the words, wanting more when I had finished. Continue reading “Burnside Review – Winter 2014”

The work in this issue (four short stories and eighteen poems) is representative of the highly competent writing that has been the hallmark of The Greensboro Review for some forty years. Most of the works, as is usual with university-sponsored journals, are by writers studying or teaching in MFA programs, or graduates of such programs. Most contributors have solid writing credentials. Continue reading “The Greensboro Review – Fall 2014”

I ended the review I wrote of West Marin Review 3 (2010) by saying I loved everything in it, even the ads, and I still do, so I will spend the first of my 25-or-so sentences here extolling the commercial plugs in Issue 5 as well: “Spirit Matters: [A Store Providing] Oddities and Deities in the Heart of Inverness Park”; the Point Reyes Music Center, where “Your creativity is our business”; “Flower Power Home and Garden,” with its whimsical blossomy heifer logo; Continue reading “West Marin Review – 2014”

Number 27 of Up the Staircase Quarterly exudes colors and bright images through both the art and the writing. With three art features, twelve pieces of poetry paired with art, four reviews, and one interview, this issue is a good way to stay occupied while cooped up on dreary winter days. Continue reading “Up the Staircase Quarterly – November 2014”

The second issue of poetry magazine Kettle Blue Review is rich with work by eight talented poets. At the end of the issue, I found myself disappointed to not see a “next poem” prompt and went back to reread my favorites. Continue reading “Kettle Blue Review – October 2014”

Writing is ordinarily a solitary pursuit, but the result of all that lonely work makes us part of a proud community. The Westchester Review takes the concept of community very seriously, collecting the poetry and prose composed by “established and emerging writers living, working, or studying in New York State’s Westchester County area.” Founder JoAnn Duncan Terdiman and managing editor Naomi L. Lipman tap a deep pool of talent, offering us some very good work that manages to transcend the geographic limits of its submissions policy. Continue reading “The Westchester Review – 2013”

The title Skidrow Penthouse evokes images of grit. A cover photo featuring bird heads and faceless, female nudes immediately confronts readers with the promise of grit. The 200+ pages of varied writing paired with black and white art neither disappoint, nor fall short of those gritty suggestions. The entire volume is a pleasure to navigate, but the words are not always nice. Continue reading “Skidrow Penthouse – 2014”

The North Carolina Literary Review is serious business, filled with substantial articles, interviews, poems, and stories that will be cited and remembered beyond the pleasure of reading that so many good literary journals offer. Moreover, there is a welter of photographs and art work, almost too much to take in. This is not an issue to pass on to a friend, but rather to shelve in one’s permanent library. Continue reading “North Carolina Literary Review – 2014”

Speaking in this issue’s long-form interview with upstreet editor Vivian Dorsel, Pulitzer Prize-winning fiction writer Robert Olen Butler had this to say about the special problems the writer’s medium presents: “The medium for a writer is words, and the words make sounds, but those sounds are immediately overwhelmed by meaning. We are the only artists whose medium is not innately and irreducibly sensual, and yet, as artists, we try to create sensual objects from it. Our medium is constantly struggling with us, to drag us into our heads.”

Continue reading “upstreet – 2014”

At the end of the day, aren’t we all looking for the same thing: words on a page that are strong enough to transport us inside a writer’s mind? I’m a picky reader and I’m sure I’m not the only one. It takes a lot to get, much less keep, our attention. That said, the Spring 2014 issue of Arroyo does not disappoint; in fact, it is quite the page turner—transported I wanted, transported I got. Continue reading “Arroyo Literary Review – Spring 2014”

Dysfunctional families, human nature, and the forces of Mother Nature are all prominent topics in this issue of Pembroke Magazine. While stories with happy endings, delivered with bows on top, are often sought after in today’s culture, it is refreshing and entertaining to read essays, stories, and poetry that have no real resolution. Continue reading “Pembroke Magazine – 2014”

Beth Mead, the editor of The Lindenwood Review, asserts that “the pieces we’ve selected this year are fragmented, showing us moments caught and suspended for our study, helping us find some truths about life through an unexpected point of view.” The Lindenwood Review most certainly holds true to Mead’s statement as each work within the magazine not only enticed me to read its content, but drew me to a level of self-reflection that left me wonderstruck.

Continue reading “The Lindenwood Review – 2014”

An out-of-this-country experience, the Atlanta Review introduces a collection of poems that touches on issues of race and bias. In this issue, readers are taken on a tour of Pakistan as they discover a unity in life’s tragedies. Continue reading “Atlanta Review – Spring/Summer 2014”

Pacifica Literary Review embraces stories dealing with concepts that represent the reality of the world in which they are written. This is evident in the poetry, prose, and art of this issue. The things people wish they could say, or experiences that they may have had but never talk about, find their way onto the page in bold, eye-catching print. Individual poems, stories, and images work together to form a collective narrative of the ever-changing world in which we live. Continue reading “Pacifica Literary Review – Summer 2014”

This Spring/Summer 2014 issue of Quiddity is ambrosia to modern writers and readers alike. It values brevity, and wraps life’s enigmas in eloquent vocabulary. Three-quarters of the issue is dedicated exclusively to poetry, but even the prose is concise, and yet all of the pieces are dense with dimension and meaning. This issue is broken into four categories: poetry, prose, interviews, and art. Each section is carefully pieced together like patches to create a beautiful quilt. Continue reading “Quiddity – Spring/Summer 2014”

Never have I felt a literary magazine embody its name more than the current issue of The Meadow. Its contents guide readers through a field of language which sets forth a landscape of natural beauty that’s not without its seasonal allergies. The Meadow amalgamates previously published writers like Keith Dunlap with students, such as Kirsten Jachimiak, who attend Truckee Meadows Community College where the magazine is published. Continue reading “The Meadow – 2014”

I haven’t reviewed many literary journals despite my sixty-something years on earth, since many of those years were spent in the Navy and at sea. I’ve never read a journal cover-to-cover until I perused the Fall 2014 issue of The Common, a relatively new journal, first published in 2011, and headquartered at Amherst College. And I didn’t expect it to make me feel like this was my journal; like I’d selected all of the pieces I want to find in a journal: fiction, poetry, essays, and photography. Continue reading “The Common – Fall 2014”

According to the cover, the Summer 2014 edition of The Carolina Quarterly is said to be full of “fairy tales, and pheromones, pious knives and lullabies, plus dust, dreams and winged messengers,” but it’s also chock full of darkness and hope, especially in the fiction and nonfiction entries. The Summer 2014 edition takes readers on a roller-coaster ride of loss, love, and optimism. Continue reading “The Carolina Quarterly – Summer 2014”

As part of the Texas State University MFA program, Front Porch Journal publishes poetry, fiction, nonfiction, reviews, and interviews. I’ve perhaps come across it too late to enjoy on those final summer afternoons as the editors suggest (especially since I swore I saw snow this morning), but it’s never too late to enjoy the writing. As I do with most journals, I gravitated to the nonfiction section first. The first of the two selections is Wendy C. Ortiz’s “September 1986,” which was first published in issue 10 and republished here to honor the publication of her collection of essays, Excavation: A Memoir. After reading it, I certainly wanted to pick up her book. Set in a junior high classroom, this essay explores a moment in which, despite her desire to come off as disinterested, Ortiz is first recognized for her writing. Continue reading “Front Porch – August 2014”

“I like folksy vulgarity. I don’t say that because ‘folksy vulgarity’ is a good way to describe the contents of this issue of Bat City Review. I say it because one of my favorite scenes from a novel takes place in Rabelais’s Gargantua and Pantagruel,” writes Alen Hamza in the editorial preface. And thus begins the Fall 2014 issue of Bat City Review. Continue reading “Bat City Review – 2014”

The Autumn 2014 issue of the Gettysburg Review is utterly absorbing. Its writers are not coy about the heart of the matter; readers know exactly what they’re trying to get across. It is very accessible reading. The most straightforward sentence is also fresh, and the most commonplace sentiments come wrapped in stories that linger. In “The Woods Are Never Burning,” Steven Schwartz weaves together different strands of his childhood and adolescence in Chester, Pennsylvania, anchored by his eternally optimistic furniture salesman father. In the background, there is the quiet hum of racial tension, the strangeness of growing up, and changes to Chester itself. Marian Crotty recounts the beginning of a romance in “Love at a Distance,” where the narrator is in Dubai and her lover, Chicago. The language has a touch as light as a ballerina on pointe: “When we talk, it is almost always on the edges of sleep, one of us newly emerged from the unconscious and the other ready to fall.” Continue reading “The Gettysburg Review – Autumn 2014”

Ordinarily, this interdisciplinary journal (formerly the Kansas Quarterly), focuses on the seven states of the Mississippi Delta. This special issue of Arkansas Review grew out of the 100^th year anniversary of the arrival of the Pfeiffer family in Piggott, Arkansas, as celebrated by the Hemingway-Pfeiffer Museum and Educational Center there. Its director, Adam Long, guests edits this exploration of the Hemingway-Pfeiffer connection. Continue reading “The Arkansas Review – August 2014”

Rust, dust, lust is the three-pronged theme carried in the pages of this year’s Slipstream. Poems start on page 5 of this issue and continue, unrelentingly in all the right ways through page 92. That’s 87 consecutive pages of notable work! Janet Warman and Margo Davis do an absolutely amazing job, separately, in weaving a compelling link between all three themes in a short space. Warman’s poem “Tin Man” uses familiar subject matter for the most part and left me cringing in anticipation. School plays, for their derision among parents, foster a necessity for creative ingenuity and a waypoint for future childhood memories. The lines “She made us rust, / and I was to grab his legs / as he told his Beautiful story.” showcase this perfectly. Continue reading “Slipstream – 2014”

Willow Springs has a thirty-year tradition of publishing fine contemporary fiction, nonfiction, and poetry. With this edition, the tradition continues with an impressive body of work. This is a strategically compiled collection, replete with recurring thematic and structural patterns. A striking feature in the issue is Jeffrey Bean’s series of “Voyeur” poems. The pieces, which comprise this series, are interspersed throughout the issue, presenting the speaker as voyeur. But his voice is not menacing or threatening. Instead, it is a gentle voice of longing and inquiry. Continue reading “Willow Springs – Fall 2014”

Only two stories—but two big stories, longer than short stories and shorter than novels, big in word count and big in quality—is what this beautiful issue of Big Fiction offers. When you read the website, you think: big ambition! When you hold the book, you think: big, admirable taste in design and material! When you dive into the stories you think: big winners! big pleasure! big success! This issue is, to put it in big letters, EXCELLENT. SPECTACULAR. WELL WORTH YOUR TIME. Continue reading “Big Fiction – Summer/Fall 2014”

One thing to be said about Sweet’s publications is the creative “cover” of each online issue, making the issue even more of an experience. With this issue, it’s all about the autumn treats: the table of contents is set up like a tray of blueberry pie, the section titles powdered with sugar. And each slice, each piece of writing, is a delicious treat. Courtney Kersten’s very short essays are easily relatable and allow the metaphors to provide all of the insight. For example, in “My Father in Wisconsin,” her father experiences a tragic event, and as a result of it, he has large scars from the gashes: “When I was younger, I would watch him shirtless and swearing and lugging things around the front yard unable to fathom how such deep gashes were able to heal.” Continue reading “Sweet – Fall 2014”

One thing that sets Driftwood Press apart from the crowd of literary magazines is that following each piece of writing is a quick ‘interview’ with the writer, asking about inspiration for the piece and the writer’s creative process. A few writers get asked what drew them to the magazine, and the resounding answer seems to be the cover art. So go ahead, judge the book by its beautiful cover; the writing inside is just as pleasing. One writer who agrees is Jillian Briglia, who contributes the poem “Insomniac’s Eulogy to the Moon.” With a young girl’s imagination, the narrator keeps a suitcase by her bed, only half asleep as she plans escape routes in case of “fires floods earthquakes pirates.” But later in life, this backfires as insomnia ensues: “alarm blinks red every six and half breaths and the dancing shadows are a folded page I can’t help turning to and I think what if what if what if I could fall . . . ” Continue reading “Driftwood Press – Fall 2014”

Started in April of 2012, Embodied Effigies puts an emphasis on creative nonfiction writers, “and the bonds that hold us together as we explore our pasts, presents, and futures.” A long time coming, the Summer 2014 issue is now out, and it was worth the wait.

In Mark Lewandowski’s piece, he admits to having commitment issues, but not those of the romantic variety—he can’t pick a hairdresser: Continue reading “Embodied Effigies – Summer 2014”

For their latest issue, the editors of Tin House have gone tribal, calling on some of their “favorite storytellers and poets” to help explain “what life is like in our contemporary tribes.” In creating their “Tribes” issue, they’ve assembled a trenchant and soulful collection of poetry, fiction, and essays that unsettle as they entertain, exploring the consolation and alienation of belonging or wanting to belong. Poetry from Tony Hoagland and Cate Marvin, fiction from Jess Walter and Julia Elliott, essays from Roxanne Gay and Molly Ringwald, as well as the work of many other well-known writers, all share communal space in this lively gathering of the literary tribes.

Continue reading “Tin House – Fall 2014”

NewPages Lit Mag Reviews
Cumulative Index – by Title – Page 2

Return to Current Lit Mag Reviews

{loadposition magazine-review-index-n}
{loadposition magazine-review-index-o}
{loadposition magazine-review-index-p}
{loadposition magazine-review-index-q}
{loadposition magazine-review-index-r}
{loadposition magazine-review-index-s}
{loadposition magazine-review-index-t}
{loadposition magazine-review-index-u}
{loadposition magazine-review-index-v}
{loadposition magazine-review-index-w}
{loadposition magazine-review-index-x}
{loadposition magazine-review-index-y}
{loadposition magazine-review-index-z}