"Her contract expires March 31 and we will not renew it," said Thomas Guinzburg, president of the magazine's board of directors. Guinzburg declined Wednesday to offer specific reasons for not retaining Hughes, but expressed general concern about the Paris Review's future, saying it needed more subscribers and a more businesslike approach.

Later in the USA Today article, Guinzburg adds that the magazine's finances are "solid," but that "the informal managerial style under which the Paris Review long operated no longer works."

He continues: "We've always counted on word of mouth, the whole Plimptonian style, but we'd like to get things under solid management."