Lit Journals

As literary journals around the world search for new ways to support themselves, The Rumpus has found an unexpected new strategy–readers can subscribe to receive a weekly letter (via postal service) from the literary website.

Check it out: “The Rumpus is finally starting a print subscription. We’d like to say this was the plan all along, but we’ve actually never had a plan. It’s called Letters In The Mail. Almost every week you’ll receive a letter, in the mail. Letter writers will include Stephen Elliott, Janet Fitch, Nick Flynn, Margaret Cho, Cheryl Strayed, Wendy MacNaughton, and Emily Gould. Think of it as the letters you used to get from your creative friends, before this whole internet/email thing.”

What writers do you want to receive letters from?

Create a social media strategy, launch your campaign, and track the results in our Social Media Marketing Boot Camp starting February 16. The online event and workshop will feature speakers including The Onion‘s Baratunde Thurston (left), Facebook’s Morin Oluwole, and bitly’s Tim Devane. Register now.

The new literary journal Unstuck is sponsoring a free micro-lit writing contest to promote its first issue. Submissions should focus on the theme of “Lovemarks.”

We’ve listed the unique submission guidelines below to help you format your entry. Here’s more: “we’re interested in work that explores ideas like: ‘respectful, intimate, committed, trust-based love relationships’ between human beings and corporations; corporate personhood; corporate mythology; corporate empathy; brand/product/design fetishism; and the mystery and ‘sensuality’ of logos and other everyday symbols.”

The annual journal will focus on “literary fiction with elements of the fantastic, the futuristic, the surreal, or the strange,” publishing work by Aimee Bender, Joe Meno and many others.

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Authors Ann Van­der­Meer and Jeff Van­der­Meer just opened Weird Fiction Review, an online journal dedicated to “an ongo­ing explo­ration into all facets of the weird, in all of its many forms.” In August, Ann VanderMeer and her staff were cut at Weird Tales.

Weird Fiction Review launched with a Neil Gaiman interview about weird fiction, an episode of the “Reading The Weird” webcomic by Leah Thomas, a translation of Thomas Owen‘s “Kavar the Rat,” and The art of New Orleans gallery by artist Myrtle Von Damitz III. While they don’t have the same editors, the journal will maintain “a sym­bi­otic rela­tion­ship” with S.T. Joshi’s print jour­nal, The Weird Fic­tion Review.

Here’s more about the site: “[It has] a kind of non-denominational approach that appre­ci­ates Love­craft but also Kafka, Angela Carter and Clark Ash­ton Smith, Shirley Jack­son and Fritz Leiber — along with the next gen­er­a­tion of weird writ­ers and inter­na­tional weird. The empha­sis will be on non­fic­tion on writ­ers and par­tic­u­lar books, but we will also run fea­tures on weird art, music, and film, as well as occa­sional fiction. Angela Slat­ter cur­rently serves as our man­ag­ing edi­tor, Luis Rodrigues cre­ated the site, and Larry Nolen and Paul Smith will be among the reg­u­lar colum­nists.”

On November 14th, actor and comedian Denis Leary will host the 40th anniversary gala for the literary journal Ploughshares.

Several celebrity guests  and authors will read ” their favorite selections from the Ploughshares vault.” The event will take place at the Paramount Theater on Emerson College’s campus. Follow this link to purchase tickets for the event or to make a donation.

Here’s more from the press release: “Some of the notable readers include: Alice Hoffman (author of Practical Magic, Oprah Book Selection Here on Earth); Dennis Lehane (author of Mystic River, Gone Baby Gone, Shutter Island); Cam Neely (Hockey Hall of Famer and current president of the Boston Bruins); Andre Dubus III (author of National Book Award finalist, House of Sand and Fog and Townie, a Salon.com “Mandatory Read”); Sue Miller (bestselling author of The Good Mother, Inventing the Abbotts, and Oprah Book Club selection While I was Gone); Wally Lamb (author of She’s Come Undone and I Know This Much Is True, both Oprah Book Club selections); and Ming Tsai (James Beard Foundation Award-winning chef, Emmy Award-winning host of ‘East Meets West,’ and restaurateur).”

Today the Los Angeles Review of Books (LARB) launched LARB ePubs, a biweekly eBook series that will republish essays from the review’s growing archive that already counts 150 literary essays.

The individual issues will be sold at Amazon and the literary journal’s store for $4.99.

Here’s more about the series: “LARB ePubs will feature book reviews and cultural essays by prominent writers such as David Shields, Barbara Ehrenreich, Michael Tolkin, and others, delivering LARB’s exceptional content in a format that is tailored to the e-reader platform … LARB ePubs is part of an industry trend towards making long-form journalistic content available for e-publication.”

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Television critic Nancy Franklin will no longer serve as the TV critic at The New Yorker.

She broke the story on Twitter: “Some news: I’m leaving my job as The New Yorker’s TV critic. Happy to have had, for 13 yrs, the best job ever, and happy to be giving it up.”

Franklin had worked at the magazine since 1978. She served as an editorial assistant and fact checker before becoming the nonfiction editor in 1985. She began writing for the magazine in 1995 with the feature, “How Did I Get Here?” (Via Motoko Rich)

The “10 Years Later” issue of Granta focuses on 9/11 and its aftermath, and the literary journal will sponsor nearly 50 events around the globe to continue the conversation.

The events will be held through October 11, ranging from the Wordstock Festival in Oregon to the Brooklyn Book Festival. Follow these links to find events in your neigborhood: USA & Canada,UK, Europe and South Asia. RSVP for free events at events@granta.com.

Here’s more from the journal: “A street vendor in Tunisia, an American marine going home and a signals operator on a North Korean fishing trawler. From the battlefields of Afganistan to the streets of Mogadishu and Toronto, these are just a few of the stories in the issue of Granta that conjure the complexity and sorrow of life since 11 September 2001.”

The literary journal Slake has applied for a $2,500 GOOD award to help pay for ten nonfiction essays for the next issue. GOOD L.A. and EPIP L.A. have decided to celebrate “awesome efforts that are moving Los Angeles forward” with a special award.

Here’s more from Slake: “Help the editors fulfill their mission to revitalize the city’s literary scene by financing 10 deeply reported pieces for its next issue …. Slake’s co-founders and editors are spearheading a movement they call ‘Slow Lit’ with deeply reported investigative journalism and a committed engagement with the city.”

Readers and supporters can can vote for the proposal for the next eight days. The GOOD L.A. Fund currently counts 42 different project proposals, many with literary themes. Follow this link to explore all the proposals.

The Paris Review has unveiled its first digital edition, selling four issues of the literary journal for $30 through Zinio’s digital newsstand.

The summer issue includes stories by Jonathan Lethem, Amie Barrodale, David Gates and Roberto Bolano.

Check it out: “For the first time, readers can buy a digital version of The Paris Review—for easy access anytime, anywhere. TPR digital can be read on your iPad, laptop, or mobile device. It’s cheap, it’s easy, and it’s instant gratification!”

Last night the American Society of Magazine Editors (ASME) honored both Poetry and Harper’s with National Magazine Awards.

Poetry received the General Excellence (Print) category for Literary, Political and Professional Magazines. The April, September, and October issues were singled out in recognition. Harper’s won the Reporting category for Scott Horton‘s “The Guantanamo Suicides.” More literary winners follow below…

Here’s more from the release: “Known as the Ellies, for the Alexander Calder stabile ‘Elephant’ given to each winner, the awards were hosted by Katie Couric, anchor and managing editor of the CBS Evening News, and were attended by more than 700 magazine editors and publishers. The sold-out event was highlighted by the presentation of the Creative Excellence Award to Tom Wolfe by Jann S. Wenner, editor and publisher of Rolling Stone and member of the Magazine Editors’ Hall of Fame.”

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