Literary MagNet

While it accepts e-mail submissions of fiction and creative nonfiction year-round, the biannual Annalemma Magazine does not publish poetry. "Good stories, people, that's what we want," editor Chris Heavener writes in the submission guidelines. "Ordinary folks in extraordinary circumstances, extraordinary folks in ordinary circumstances. That sort of thing." The fifth issue will be published this month.

Oxford American recently redesigned its Web site. The quarterly magazine published at the University of Central Arkansas updated the design of the old site to complement several new features, including exclusive interviews, editors' picks, a compendium of Southern bloggers, and a selection of free articles from the print edition of the magazine.

After five years of publishing issues in a spacious (9 x 12–inch) format, Ninth Letter, the biannual literary magazine published at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, has changed its look. The Spring/Summer 2009 issue is more compact (7 x 10 inches) and features several design flourishes by Jimmy Luu, the journal's new art director.

The cover of the eighth issue of Opium Magazine features a nine-word story by Jonathan Keats printed under double layers of a special black ink that, with exposure to the sun, will slowly melt away. The amount of ink used for each word varies, so the words will appear one at a time over the next thousand years. Keats calls it "the longest story ever."

After thirty-two years at the helm of the Iowa Review, David Hamilton has stepped down as editor. He is succeeded by Russell Scott Valentino, a professor at the University of Iowa, where the literary magazine is published three times a year. The new editor plans to redesign the journal and launch a new Web site.

Two-year-old Slice Magazine is looking for essays on the theme Metropolis for the biannual magazine's sixth issue. The reading period is between October 1 and December 1. Fiction and poetry don't need to relate to the theme, but "relevant submissions are always welcomed."

Poet Lore, the biannual journal edited by Jody Bolz and E. Ethelbert Miller, is marking its 120th anniversary this year. Established in 1889 in Philadelphia, it is the oldest continuously published poetry journal in the country.

Fence celebrated its tenth anniversary with the July publication of A Best of Fence: The First Nine Years, a two-volume anthology of poetry, fiction, and nonfiction assembled by eleven of the magazine's current and former editors, including founding editor Rebecca Wolff; fiction editors Jonathan Lethem, Ben Marcus, and Lynne Tillman; poetry editors Caroline Crumpacker, Katy Lederer, Matthew Rohrer, Christopher Stackhouse, and Max Winter; and nonfiction editors Frances Richard and Jason Zuzga.

Introducing itself as "a new model for creating, curating, and delivering," Electric Literature, a new bimonthly journal of short fiction, is available as a print-on-demand paperback or as an e-book for the Kindle or iPhone.