NewPages Blog :: Magazines

If poetry is the food of love, then Spinning Jenny is a five-star restaurant. Whether you’re in the mood for sweet or savory, their menu has it all. This modern delicacy features eighty-plus pages of delicious poems, with a center insert of eight pieces of unconventional art. It’s straightforward. You open Spinning Jenny up. You flip through the first few pages of copyright and staff information, and voila! One page lists the titles of the poems. The rest is love. Or food. Something like that. Continue reading “Spinning Jenny – 2010”

Saranac Review is an annual featuring work by American and Canadian writers published at the State University of New York in Plattsburgh. The terrific cover art is by Ric Haynes, oil paintings from a series called the “The Floral Wars” composed of combinations of “flower set ups” and toy figurines. His short essay, “The Floral Wars: Beauty and Brutality,” (with studies/drawings of the individual figures) is a highlight of the issue. The artist’s approachable style, both in the essay and the visual works, is representative of the journal as a whole, which features work that tends toward the “accessible” and casual in tone and diction. Continue reading “Saranac Review – 2010”

There is no announced theme in this issue (which marks the journal’s 75^th anniversary), but do you perceive a pattern? Here are the opening lines of the issue from “In the Village of Missing Children” by Rigoberto Gonzalez: Continue reading “The Southern Review – Winter 2010”

This special issue of Subtropics features over thirty translations from France, Japan, Russia, Spain, Romania, Argentina, Mexico, and other countries that interpret a variety of crossings. “Hazaran,” by nobel laureate J.M.G. Le Clézio, introduces a mysterious handyman and storyteller who leads his neighbors when they learn that the government plans to evict them from Frenchman’s Dyke, a shantytown populated by migrants. The story concludes with an exodus as one character, Alia, glances back at the darkened shore. Translation can inspire feelings of displacement, but at its best, becomes appreciable as confident work rather than as a shadow of the original. Continue reading “Subtropics – Winter/Spring 2010”

Albanian poet Luljeta Lleshanaku’s poem, “After the Evening Movie,” ably translated by Shpresa Qatipi and Henry Israeli, is not part of the issue’s “portfolio” segment (“Captured: Writing About Film and Photograph”), but part of what editor Amber Withycombe defines as the issue’s “adventurous general work.” But, it’s clearly no accident that a poem about the movies opens this volume of what has been for as long as I can remember, in my view, one of this country’s most underappreciated literary magazines. Continue reading “Witness – 2010”

CALYX was established by four women in 1976 to explore the creative genius that women contribute to literature and art. The publication prints three issues per volume in the winter and summer. It presents a wide range of poetry, short stories, artwork, and book reviews. Its mission is to “nurture women’s creativity by publishing fine literature and art by women.” CALYX is known for discovering and publishing new writers and artists or those early in their careers; among them Julia Alvarez, Molly Gloss, and Eleanor Wilner. The publication delivers high quality work to all audiences. By 2005, CALYX had published over 3,800 writers and artists. Continue reading “CALYX – Winter 2010”

Nonfiction guru Lee Gutkind describes the new incarnation of Creative Nonfiction (big, bold, red!) in a style befitting any charismatic leader: Continue reading “Creative Nonfiction – Spring 2010”

Eclipse is an annual of poetry and fiction published by Glendale Community College in California. I did not find many names with which I was familiar in the TOC (the exceptions being Richard Robbins and Lyn Lifshin), but the writers featured here have solid and even impressive credentials nonetheless (Poetry East, Mid-American Poetry Review, Hayden’s Ferry Review, The Bitter Oleander, Hunger Mountain, Atlanta Review, Ploughshares, Field, Boston Review, The Antioch Review, Kalliope, Black Warrior Review, Beloit Poetry Journal, Glimmer Train, Sixteen Rivers Press, White Pine Press). And what’s more important, I appreciated most of the work, and I liked a lot of it (which are, and happily so, not the same thing). Continue reading “Eclipse – Fall 2009”

Fact-Simile, a young, independent literary journal published out of Colorado, looks more like an unremarkable neighborhood newsletter than a magazine dedicated to “push[ing] the envelope of polite society.” In fact, next to other widely circulated contemporary journals, it appears downright prosaic – an aesthetic yawn. But its homespun look belies its content. Fact-Simile offers interviews with authors, reviews of plays and short stories, and a healthy sampling of poetry representing all genres. It is professionally edited and well composed. Continue reading “Fact-Simile – Autumn 2009”

The rainstorm that thrashed its way across the Northeast in March was just delivering its final punishing blows to the tri-state region when I read Christine Tobin’s “Exhale,” winner of the The Greensboro Review’s Amon Liner Poetry Prize. She captures well the anxiety before and sense of strangeness and near disassociation during a storm of great magnitude, and then the return to routine, in this case one that is symbolic of the death and destruction of the everyday, the cycle of life with or without storms, the return to normalcy as a return to a cycle of expected devastation on some level: Continue reading “The Greensboro Review – Fall 2009”

In memory of the poet Ai, whose work appears in this issue (and which I had not happened upon in a long, long time) and who died just this past March of cancer, let me begin this review with an excerpt from what is likely to be the last poem of hers I’ll see in a current issue of a magazine, “I’m the Only One Here”: Continue reading “Gulf Coast – Winter/Spring 2010”

I’m always pleased when a Table of Contents includes some of my favorite, but lesser known writers, in this case Mark Conway and Christina Davis. Both are moderately well established (impressive publication credentials), but not entirely familiar names even to avid poetry readers (like Jane Hirshfield or Kim Addonizio, both of whom appear in this issue, as well). Conway’s work is always beautifully crafted, tender, moving, and memorable. While his work often narrates a personal or family story (which interests me less, admittedly, than work of a more metaphysical nature), he always reaches beyond the daily images for something larger and fuller. He has just one poem here, “Scholar of the Sorrows,” but it is representative of his work and I am happy to find him in this prestigious location. Continue reading “Harvard Review – 2009”

Harold Fromm’s essay “Michael Phelps, Domenico Scarlatti, and Scott Ross,” encapsulates the issue’s most dominant and captivating aspects, the strangely rewarding juxtaposition of the popular and the esoteric; entertainment and sport with the arts; the ordinary and the arch; gold medals (Phelps) and gold standards (Scott Ross). Continue reading “The Hudson Review – Winter 2010”

I can’t really think of any topic more important right now than this issue’s theme, “the dynamics of wealth and poverty.” Editor Ann Neelon reminds us that the theme, in and of itself, assumes an awful lot: “The assumption is that there IS a dynamics of wealth and poverty – i.e. as opposed to a rigid inherited class structure” (I’m inclined to believe the latter is more accurate), and she is, with good reason, concerned about the disturbing statistics in the region where the magazine is published: “Kentucky is the fifth-poorest state: 23 percent of the poor are children, 30 percent are African American, 27 percent are Hispanic and 30 percent have less than a high school education.” She wonders where all the money has gone. And she is convinced, nonetheless, that the poetry, fiction, and nonfiction in this issue “will help us to…redefine ourselves in the wake of our incursion into near-apocalyptic economic territory.” I hope she is right, but if she is not, it won’t be for lack of originality, creativity, or insights. Continue reading “New Madrid – Winter 2010”

You’re idling in rush-hour traffic. Bored, and sick of hearing the same droning pop song for the fifty-seventh time, you flip through the radio stations and happen upon a song you’ve never heard before. The beat is good; the lyrics are fresh. You’re really in the groove. Bouncing head, tapping fingers, all that. You wait for the end of the song, desperate to discover the identity of the mastermind behind the creation. But the DJ cuts straight to commercial, and like me, you aren’t technologically savvy enough to own a robot-like phone that tells you what the name of the song is or who sings it. You’re stumped and annoyed, and you spend the next week humming the song to all your friends to see if they’ve heard it, too. Continue reading “Saltgrass – 2009”

“Make it good. Do what you have to do to make it good.” That’s jack-of-all-genres (poetry, fiction, nonfiction, teaching, publishing) Ander Monson’s perfect answer to interviewer Shaelyn Smith’s question about process. And it describes the work in Issue 3. The interview with Monson is terrific. Anne Carson and Bob Currie’s “Wildly Constant” is wildly fascinating with its blurred text, revision-like elements (cross outs, arrows, notes) and Carson’s signature economy, those compact little lines that contain whole worlds. Continue reading “Oleander Review – Fall 2009”

Let me be honest: I’ve always had a crush on Pleiades. This venerable journal publishes so much consistently good writing, especially poetry, that it is a pleasure to dive into the words between its covers. At 280 pages, it is bigger than a lot of books being published today; like a good novel, it can be zipped through, or relished over a longer period of time. Continue reading “Pleiades – 2010”

A large format, staple-bound magazine of “fiction, poetry, nonfiction, and visual art that resonates with the complexity and truth of the Christian faith,” Ruminate is published in Fort Collins, Colorado. “Each issue…speaks to the existence of our daily lives while nudging us toward a greater hope.” This issue’s theme is “Earnest Jest,” which editor Brianna Van Dyke describes as a way to consider the “paradox that weighty truths can come from humor; knowledge from fools; and that very act of play is wisdom.” The theme is played out in the work of 14 poets, two fiction writers, and two visual artists. Continue reading “Ruminate – Winter 2009/2010”

The inaugural issue of Sakura Review is striking in its simplicity. The cover of this perfect-bound journal sports a line drawing of a naked tree surrounded by its fallen leaves, and the back cover just a stump, still surrounded by the undisturbed leaves. Continue reading “Sakura Review – Fall 2009”

Named after the Philosopher’s stone used in alchemy to create gold and unite matter and spirit, the Water-Stone Review does exactly what its name suggests – with paper and ink, it unites language and soul, words and spirit. This multi-genre review is diverse, fresh, artful, and exceptionally crafted. At the risk of sounding the fluff alarm, I have to say that the Water-Stone Review is truly golden. Continue reading “Water~Stone Review – 2009”

If you hadn’t considered traveling to New Zealand, White Fungus will make you want to go. Not because this New Zealand-based magazine provides a picture of the landscape, though the cover is a lovely and unconventional painting of flowers in the park at Wellington, Aotearoa; and not because the inside cover graphic depicts the ocean in its sparkling turquoise glory; and not because the many ads for art galleries show that the visual arts are flourishing there. But because the poems, interviews, fiction, and essays here will let you know that New Zealand is a place for serious thinking about politics, cultural realities, social dilemmas, historical realities, the arts, and the power of language to render these subjects with a kind of dynamism and urgency that can often be missing in literature as in life. (And the design and graphics are terrific, too.) Continue reading “White Fungus – Number 10”

This issue’s theme is “Celebrity Houses. Celebrity Politics,” framed by an essay of the same name by Daniel Harris, who has written widely on popular culture. Harris explores the blurred lines between celebrity as a Hollywood-esque phenomenon and celebrity in political life (stars who become spokespersons for “causes,” politicians who flaunt their looks, wealth, and social lives as if they were stars of stage and screen). He considers the relationships between Republican ideology and our fascination (obsession) with the Hollywood elite, a link that is falsely depicted as antagonistic – and more dangerous than it at first appears. Continue reading “The Antioch Review – Winter 2010”

Copper Nickel 12 isn’t a theme issue, but a theme of sorts emerges nonetheless, or at least an organizing principle that is highly appealing and largely successful – how do we relate to the things, the stuff, the variety and quantity of forms and objects around us, human and non-human. It begins with the gloriously evocative cover photograph by Chris Morris from his series “Forgotten History.” Six additional photos in the series appear in the issue, along with the photographer’s remarks. The photos document abandoned homesteads in the area where Morris grew up, and capture the decay (which he does beautifully) and the photographer’s sense of “personal connection” to these “spaces.” Each is a vast landscape of what is missing and yet still exists, highlighted by an outdated or antiquated object (the rotary phone on the magazine’s cover). Continue reading “Copper Nickel – 2009”

I look forward to Event’s nonfiction contest issue every year, and it’s always worth the wait. In addition to the three winning essays, this issue includes the work of ten poets (who couldn’t be more different from each other); three fiction contributors; and a number of reviews. Contest judge John Burns, executive editor of Vancouver Magazine, describes his winning selections, quite accurately it seems to me, as works that “speak truths privately experienced, publicly recounted…told with creativity, absolutely, but also, we trust, with fidelity.” We can’t, of course, know if this is true, but these writers (Eufemia Fantetti, Katherine Fawcett, and Ayelet Tsabari) make me believe that it is so, which amounts to the same thing. Continue reading “Event – 2009”

The Green Mountains Review, published by Johnson State College in Vermont, is a haven of poetry, fiction, essays and book reviews of substantial quality. A literary magazine with an impressive history, the GMR is known for publishing the likes of Julia Alvarez, Galway Kinnell, Mark Doty, Mary Oliver, Billy Collins, Robert Bly, and Joy Harjo over its twenty-plus years of showcasing both established and up-and-coming writers. Continue reading “Green Mountains Review – Winter 2009”

This tenth anniversary issue opens with founding editor Mitch Wieland’s summary, among other remarks, of one marker of his journal’s success: from the first nine issues, nine stories or poems were reprinted in major awards anthologies (best ofs, etc.), another 15 stories were short-listed for these prizes. The Editor’s Note is followed by tributes from more 19 writers to the late Carol Houck Smith, editor at W.W. Norton & Company for 60 years. Maxine Kumin writes that Houck Smith was “everything an editor should be: compassionate, demanding, supportive, and seldom wrong.” Joan Silber remembers that she “loved her writers and she loved her city.” Charles Baxter praises Houck Smith’s worldliness, something he considers essential in a “fine editor.” Continue reading “The Idaho Review – 2009”

Spalding University (where the journal is published) guest faculty editors Kathleen Driskell, Kirby Gann, Charlie Schulman, Luke Wallin, and guest editor Betsy Wood, a Spalding University MFA Program alum, have selected the work of 22 poets, four fiction writers, an equal number of nonfiction writers, two playwrights, and five young writers (for the “Children’s Corner”) for this issue. There is much solid, competently composed work here from writers who publish widely and consistently in fine journals. Continue reading “The Louisville Review – Fall 2009”

Mantis editor Bronwen Tate describes the issue’s contents as “exciting” in her Editor’s Note. An understatement if I have ever read one. The journal is, in fact, exhilarating, captivating, inspiring, and highly original. In addition to new poems from Clayton Eshelman, Adam Clay, Sina Queyras, and Gretchen E. Henderson, this issue features translations – in discrete, handsomely collected groupings, all beautifully translated – of the work of Italian poet Alda Merini, German poet Veronka Reichl, and poet Andrei Sen-Senkov (originally from Tajikistan, now a resident of Moscow), and a special section “Remembering Celan”; a fascinating series of 10 interviews by Elizabeth Bradfield and Kate Schapira “Temporarily at Home: Poets on Travel and Writing”; and smart reviews of books I might not know had been published, were it not for Mantis. The magazine is produced with a kind of subtle elegance and graphic flair seldom encountered and is impressive and polished from the selection of contents to their careful and appealing presentation. Continue reading “Mantis – Summer 2009”

This is simply the best online literary magazine in the country today. New stories are provided every week from a stellar list of writers, and a wide variety of material is presented on a rotating basis – fiction, nonfiction, poetry, interviews, cartoons, book reviews, and other features. And now they have taken the evolutionary step of becoming the first lit mag on Amazon’s Kindle. As I have stated before, if you wish to see the future of online publishing, read this magazine. Continue reading “Narrative Magazine – Spring 2010”

The 2010 edition of New Millennium features a reprint of a profile/interview with the late John Updike by the magazine’s editor, Don Williams, originally published in 1996; a Poetry Suite of work by 51 poets and the short-short fiction, fiction, nonfiction, “Special Obama Awards,” and poetry winners in the magazine’s highly popular contests. Award-winning works are accompanied by author photos and statements. For the most part, prose contributions favor casual and natural voices, credible and authentic dialogue, well rounded plots, logical and familiar narrative impulses, and preoccupations that may be shared familiarly by many readers. Continue reading “New Millennium Writings – 2010”

Jeff Gundy’s essay, “Hard Books,” in this issue of The Georgia Review says, “Sturdy cloth covers, it is true, rarely house the most daring experiments or frontal assaults on literary norms.” He is right, of course, and his quote is somewhat appropriate for Georgia Review. I didn’t find much daring work here, nothing that shattered my perceptions of poetry and writing, though there is much to enjoy. Gundy also says in this essay “persistence over time is still real, and … being of the moment is not the only value.” So, there it is. Continue reading “The Georgia Review – Winter 2009”

Don’t let its diminutive packaging fool you: 5×5 packs a punch. Five poets and one visual artist (not counting the cover photo) packed into a saddle-stapled 5×5 journal that somewhat resembles a CD sleeve. It’s perfect to tuck into your pocket and share with others over coffee. Continue reading “5×5 – Winter 2009”

Two of the seven works of fiction in this issue are first-publications for authors, suggesting the editors mean it when they state their intent to publish “today’s prominent writers and artists alongside upcoming talents.” Continue reading “H.O.W.Journal – Fall/Winter 2009”

This special issue dedicated to “Spain’s Modern Experience” is guest edited by Heidi Czerwiec and Claudia Routon, who selected and translated the work. Originals and translations appear side by side and include poems in Spanish, Asturian, and Galician. Poets include several quite well known in Spain and others in the early stages of their careers. Continue reading “International Poetry Review – Fall 2009”

There is a collection of art pieces by Tyler Ingram within the most recent issue of KNOCK that perhaps captures the journal’s idiosyncratic and smart aesthetic better than any words written here can. Working with acrylic, canvas, paper, and Smith & Wesson – not to mention a Winchester Model 25 .12 gauge shotgun and Remington .22 caliber rifle – Ingram quite literally blasts ordinary images and plain paper with paint, creating a wild paroxysm of colorful abstractions and unorthodox configurations. This sensibility – color! zeal! nonconformity! – is at the gonzo heart of KNOCK, and if you’re willing to move with its freaky beat, then you’re going to like what you find between its garish covers. Continue reading “Knock – 2009”

Lake Effect is an annual publication out of Penn State featuring fiction, poetry, and literary nonfiction. Arranged in sections by genre, the journal makes for easy negotiating. The book feels large, solid and is printed in easily legible font. Continue reading “Lake Effect – Spring 2009”

The front page of Lalitamba states, “During our travels was born the idea for a literary magazine that would uplift the spirit.” Lalitamba presents within its rich 250 pages a variety of poetry, essays and short fiction that explore faith and spirituality, with writing that is rooted in everything from Buddhism to Christianity. As would be appropriate for a spiritual magazine, Lalitamba opens with a section titled, “Letters and Prayers.” Although short, these are the perhaps the heaviest pieces of writing in the issue. They reflect a profound sense of suffering and loss that would speak to the kinds of readers most drawn to this kind of magazine. Continue reading “Lalitamba – 2009”

At first glance, the content of New Genre looks just as its title asserts: a super modern magazine fitted out with cutting edge writing and concerns. This impression is accurate. Take “A Sing Economy” by Adam Golaski, for example. Golaski attempts to explain the plight of the poet in a money-based society. Golaski disagrees with the attitude that such writers, those of short stories included, are to blame for their pitiful financial situation. It is in fact marketable print that lowers the overall intelligence of the population – or specifically the population’s ability to actually recognize thought-provoking writing – and the responsibility for that sorry state of affairs rests with publishers not writers. Golaski says: “Blame the publishers, then blame the editors, then blame the writers, and not the other way around.” Continue reading “New Genre – Summer 2009”

This issue brings together prose and poetry on a variety of subjects. Tony Hoagland edits this issue, choosing to pair works of transcendentalism and realism in such a way that brings out the best of both. Each piece varies in style from the previous one, serving to continually cleanse the palate and keep each work fresh. Continue reading “Ploughshares – Winter 2009/2010”

This journal captivated my interest from the beginning with its colorful and surreal cover art of a boy drawing while a fez-wearing turtle directs him (“Boy and Turtle Drawing” by Judy A. Muscara-Orfanos, acrylic on cigar box). At only 6” x 6” and about 40 pages in length, even the physical size of the journal captured my attention and begged to be taken along for an enjoyable read on the go. It held me through to the end with the imaginative prose, much of it written so beautifully it borders on poetry. Kirsten Rue writes in her piece “Spelling,” that “she is the child born between others. She is the one with the sandy-sprouting skull, pink-shelled fingertips, snowflake collars . . . She rides a bandy-wheel and counts the glitter in the sky.” Continue reading “Quick Fiction – Fall 2009”

I love a good theme. And what better theme is there for the current state of affairs than “lean times”? Continue reading “Red Line Blues – Spring 2010”

Redivider is published by graduate students in the Writing, Literature, and Publishing Department at Emerson College. I had not seen the journal before the current issue and, since this is the seventh volume, I realize I’ve missed out on six years of provocative writing and terrific and unusual artworks. This issue features new writing from established and lesser known fiction writers, essayists, and poets (several names stand out: Sherman Alexie, Dan Chaon, Franz Wright, Kevin Prufer, and Pablo Medina); photographs, drawings, and paintings, many both weird and wonderful, from 12 visual artists; an interview with fiction writer and essayist Alexander Chee; and five thoughtful book reviews. The journal also includes its “Quickie Award” winning fiction and poetry, selected by George Singleton and Rane Arroyo respectively. Continue reading “Redivider – 2009”

Boasting content creepy – in the best possible sense of the word – enough to match the eyeless, button-mouthed citizens congregated across the cover, Skidrow Penthouse is a lovely, straightforward literary magazine of avant-garde grotesquery. Definitely not for the easily disturbed, this issue displays numerous splashy images of sexual amorphous nightmare creatures, visceral flash fiction, and poetry rife with primordial images of animals, colors, and traumatizing childhood experiences. Anorexia, the Holocaust, street life, abortion, insanity, and BDSM are all addressed, often in excruciatingly, darkly humorous ways. Continue reading “Skidrow Penthouse – 2009”

Like a still life painting, the fiction pieces, poetry, nonfiction, artwork, interviews, and illustrations gathered in this issue are artfully placed to bring each piece into the best light. With no distinct sections, the flow of one genre into the next allows us to savor the changing role of food from work to work. Beginning with the cover art, “Pie Wrangler” by Marilyn Murphy, which depicts a cowboy of sorts struggles to keep the massive piece of pie he has roped from carrying him skyward, this issue is interested in the everyday and sometimes playful mixture of food and experience, the various forms of appetite and consumption, and food memories we attach to the senses. Continue reading “Alimentum – Winter 2010”

Specs presents itself as a journal of contemporary culture and arts. Each issue has a theme, and this one is “faux histories.” A brief introduction from the editor-in-chief explains the theme is inspired by the “Renaissance Wunderkammer or wonder cabinet,” and the hope is that this collection of pieces will “allow for an uneasy coexistence between the campy, the sentimental, the political, and the repulsive – a mobile archive of committed fakeries in print and digital form.”

Halldor Gudmundsson’s essay, “Halldor Laxness Across the Universe” opens the Winter 2010 issue of Brick, a Toronto-based literary journal. Using Nobel-Prize-winning-novelist Halldor Laxness as an example, Gudmundsson explores how literature travels and meaning evolves based on culture, language, and ideology. Building upon this premise, Bernardo Atxaga explores the publishing history of Allen Ginsburg’s “Howl” in Franco-era Spain. Yet, Jose Teodoro’s conversation with British writer Geoff Dyer and a subsequent excerpt from his novel, Out of Sheer Rage, serve as the thematic anchor for the rest of the journal. Continue reading “Brick – Winter 2010”

The inaugural issue of this self-defined “independent poetry magazine” presents the work of three dozen poets with no fanfare, pronouncements of intentions or predilections, no submission policy statement, no announcement of prizes or awards, no editorial commentary, and no explanation of its name. In fact, the only information about the journal appears at the end of the its 74 (small format) glossy pages: one page listing the four staff members and editorial address in Salt Lake City, UT and a note that the journal is published biannually; the other a “thank you” to the journal’s sponsor (“Thank you to our sugar daddy”), Nations Title Agency, Inc. in Midvale, Utah. Continue reading “Sugar House Review – Fall/Winter 2009”

If The Paris Review is your worldly college roommate who unselfconsciously regales you with travel stories from “the continent,” Eleven Eleven is the cool kid in your creative writing class who refused to follow rules or obey the professor. The journal is produced by the California College of the Arts, possibly the reason that the editors strike an interesting balance between poetry, prose and visual art. Continue reading “Eleven Eleven – 2009”