Literary MagNet

by
Staff
From the March/April 2010 issue of
Poets & Writers Magazine

Beginning with Issue 38, due out this month, Creative Nonfiction, Lee Gutkind's sixteen-year-old journal, based in Pittsburgh, will have an updated design, a larger trim size, and a quarterly frequency. In addition to the usual nonfiction, the issue will also feature new columns on craft by Phillip Lopate and Richard Rodriguez and a conversation with Dave Eggers.

After a two-year-hiatus the (usually) annual New York City-based poetry journal Spinning Jenny, launched in 1995 by Black Dress Press, is back. The new issue, featuring translated work by Tomaz Salamun and an art insert of paintings by Andrew Abbott, hit newsstands in February. Editor C. E. Harrison accepts submissions—via the online submission manager only—from September 15 to May 15.

The Beloit Poetry Journal, which is celebrating sixty years of continuous publication, has featured work by poets such as Sherman Alexie, Charles Bukowski, W. S. Merwin, and Anne Sexton and remains committed to "publishing poems that dissolve both complacency and despair without regard to the reputation of the poet." The Farmington, Maine–based quarterly accepts submissions year-round via regular mail only; see the Web site for details.

As part of an ongoing interview series in which each installment is composed of a three-part Q&A with a writer, his editor, and a "devoted reader," the most recent issue of Natural Bridge—the eleven-year-old biannual journal of contemporary literature published at the English department of the University of Missouri in Saint Louis—features a discussion with Dan Chaon, author of Await Your Reply (Ballantine Books, 2009); his editor, Anika Streitfeld; and Chaon fan Jennifer Burgess.

After forty-two issues and twenty-one years of publishing, Free Lunch, the Glenview, Illinois–based poetry zine that was free to any "serious poets living in the U.S.," has ceased publication due to founding editor Ron Offen's ongoing health problems.

Abe's Penny, the New York City–based "micro magazine" celebrating its first anniversary this month, delivers its content in a format that readers can finish "in the time it takes to walk from their mailbox to their front door." Each week subscribers receive a postcard featuring one writer and one artist whose work culminates in a finished narrative in just four postcards.

The cold weather might be on its way out, but it's not too late for readers to enjoy "wintry poetry, intermittently, from Minnesota, the Dakotas, and Wisconsin" in their inboxes. Subscribers to the two-year-old, free online journal Flurry will receive e-mail notifications through the spring equinox whenever new work has been posted to the site. Readers can also access Flurry's archive, which includes poems by Alex Lemon, Ethna McKiernan, Raul Sanchez, and others.

Founded in 2008, Shape of a Box claims to be YouTube's first literary magazine. Editor Jessie Carty accepts submissions of poetry, fiction, nonfiction, "stage/screen work," and "comic/graphic work" in the form of five-minute videos.