October 13th, 2010 / 12:34 pm
Snippets
Snippets
Blake Butler—
What do you think are the 5 top online magazines, based on content, prestige, and design?
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Meta
DIAGRAM, elimae, Abjective, Lamination Colony (I don’t care if this is your post), and Octopus
Diagram, Blip/Rick, elimae, Electric Literature, Fifty-Two Stories (trying not to count ones with print big brothers: web conjunctions, etc.)
Electric Literature is fantastic, but they are a print magazine (although you can buy the magazine in various e-book forms).
I don’t know about best, but here are five of my favorite that I find myself reading and referencing a lot—and thinking about all three: content, prestige & design.
Triple Canopy
Eyeshot (now back online!)
DIAGRAM
Guernica
Words Without Borders.
But I want to add ten, fifteen more. Hard to narrow it down to five.
Blue Print Review, elimae, Guernica, Drunken Boat, Agni online, to name just a few; picked for design, openness to new mediums, professional presentation, diversity of topic, editorial care.
DIAGRAM, elimae, Abjective, Lamination Colony (I don’t care if this is your post), and Octopus
Annalemma
Necessary Fiction
PANK
elimae
Fifty-Two Stories
3am
thieves jargon
dogzplot
lamination colony
mud luscious
&
pindeldyboz (rip)
These are the ones I read on a regular basis, but obviously, I need to expand that list. In no particular order:
The Collagist
3AM
TNY
Annalemma
52-Stories
fifty-two stories
everyday genius
diagram
narrative
the collagist
-Octopus
-Action, Yes
-Shampoo
-HAHA Clever dot com
-no #5 i can think of
what do you think they are?
i feel like the new yorker & 52 stories are sorta gimmes…
I agree with Darby on EG, Diagram, and The Collagist.
I will add elimae and Robot Melon.
they haven’t updated the site in like 9 months. what happened? that site was awesome
I suppose these lists reflect which corner of the lit mag world htmlgiant occupies.
Hate the money they take from young writers, but Narrative should be on the list.
Guernica for sure.
Anderbo?
The Collagist?
And maybe DIAGRAM.
Octopus
Action,Yes
Fou
Sink Review
h_ngm_n
Horror, Sleaze and Trash
DIAGRAM
elimae
The Collagist
52 Stories
Action, Yes
in my current mood. Although I don’t actually read all of these regularly, but I’m pretty random about online stuff generally.
Slope
Kenyon Review Online
Absent
McSweeney’s
Guernica
I’d include Puppy Flowers too, but it is dormant.
It is hard to pick just five. These keep me happy, though.
Jacket. Typo. Blackbox Manifold. Cleaves. Octopus.
elimae
PANK
Necessary Fiction
Juked
The Collagist
mug shots
http://www.mugshots.com/
I have to go, in no particular order:
PANK
The Rumpus
Abjective
The Collagist
Freight Stories
Ask me in a month, and it’ll probably be different, but this is how I’m feeling today.
Everyday Genius, Guernica, Diagram, Annalemma, Abjective and yes, I will add PANK as the sixth man.
sure…thought of leaving TNY off, and i only really dig like 50% of the stuff i read, but when they hit it, like with saunders stories (“victory lap”, etc.) wow…home runs
elimae
DIAGRAM
Abjective
The Collagist
Everyday Genius
probably Typo, Octopus, DIAGRAM, elimae, and notnostrums. I don’t know if this is a top list or just a favorite list, though.
I can’t answer this question as posed b/c I don’t believe in rankings so much. All the sites previously mentioned (the ones that I know anyway, which are most of them) have all made me come back for more. Others that come immediately to mind that I’d also add to a hothot list: Corium, Dark Sky, Metazen, Unsaid (more print, yeah, but a lot of good words online), Red Fez, Drunken Boat, Exquisite Corpse… so many others, too, but yeah, ok, bye.
5 is too few. maybe: lamination colony, mud luscious, elimae, action, yes, diagram
All the ones that like me [PANK, HAHA Clever, Everyday Genius, Lamination Colony, NOO, Artifice Magazine]–and all the ones that don’t like me so much [elimae, 3AM, NOON, 52 Stories, Action, Yes, The Collagist].
Am I really the only one that enjoys Jacket? Interviews, reviews, poetry, ah… is there a fiction gap? Is that what we are talking about here? Maybe it is just that you guys hate Australia. I think that is more likely.
FRiGG
Word Riot
Narrative
Girls with Insurance
elimae
Of those, I think FRiGG and elimae best represent the spirit of internet literature.
Web Conjunctions
DIAGRAM
Jacket
Glitter Pony
notnostrums
elimae,
PANK,
DIAGRAM,
qarrtsiluni,
The Collagist
elimae
DIAGRAM
Abjective
The Collagist
Everyday Genius
oh, glitter pony, damn, duh. good call.
In no particular order:
PANK
Annalemma
Fifty-Two Stories
The Collagist
SmokeLong Quarterly
Guernica (bending the rules to slip this one in)
I can’t answer this question as posed b/c I don’t believe in rankings so much. All the sites previously mentioned (the ones that I know anyway, which are most of them) have all made me come back for more. Others that come immediately to mind that I’d also add to a hothot list: Corium, Dark Sky, Metazen, Unsaid (more print, yeah, but a lot of good words online), Red Fez, Drunken Boat, Exquisite Corpse… so many others, too, but yeah, ok, bye.
Five Dials x 5
The New Yorker
HTMLGIANT
Vice Magazine
McSweeney’s
Harper’s
The New Yorker
HTMLGIANT
Vice Magazine
McSweeney’s
Harper’s
Puppy Flowers anyway.
Notnostrums. EOAGH. Glitterpony. Coconut. Puppy Flowers.
elimae
Fifty-two Stories
Necessary Fiction
Shampoo
wigleaf
Shampoo no doubt. Thieves Jargon. Bananafish has been great lately. Fou is good. Been enjoying Everyday Genius lately. And I guess La Petite Zine must be pretty good if I am an editor of it.
DIAGRAM – Every issue great shit is seen
Action, Yes and Octopus both have editors that I trust won’t let me down
PANK – puts out a new issue every month and that would be impressive even if the content was bad, but I’m a huge fan of the stuff that shows up
Shampoo no doubt. Thieves Jargon. Bananafish has been great lately. Fou is good. Been enjoying Everyday Genius lately. And I guess La Petite Zine must be pretty good if I am an editor of it.
[…] Butler posted a question on HTLMGIANT the other day, asking what people think are the best (“based on content, prestige, and […]
I’m going to get burned for this… but does anyone else feel that ranking journals is a form of cultural eugenics. Here we are deciding what is “good” and reinforcing a system of power that the online journals are supposed to be breaking down. Are we ready to co-opt the exclusionary system in place at many print journals online? This is the same issue I have with ranking MFA programs.
Well, I wouldn’t go so far as to liken the solicitation of opinions to fascistic genetic sanitation, but I would hate to think (and seriously doubt that) a formal ranking could come out of this discussion. Interesting that no one response here has addressed the specific criteria mentioned in the original query. I mean, are there online publications out there that readers here admire for their design but not their content per se? How important is that “total package”, or is there no “package” without all those parts?
My own question: what are some online pubs that the readers have have just recently discovered and been impressed by? At the risk of loosing any hipness sweepstakes, I’ll admit I was unaware of Alice Blue Review until a few months ago.
I didn’t realize that online journals had an ideological goal. Also, people aren’t just listing their favorites or what they think are best here. Are you really opposed to people listing things they like best in literature or is it merely the idea this might lead to ranking that bothers you?
What is the exclusionary system in place in print journals and how are online journals different?
It is the idea of a formal ranking system that bothers me. Which I know some people would love to see and I know is not what Blake was calling for with his post.
Look, we all have our own taste and it’s nice to see what each person likes, I just think that part of the reason fiction in the bigger name journals (for the most part, to me anyway) has been stagnant and safe for years is that there is a system of hegemony in place. This system values name recognition, solicitations, and gatekeepers. I’m probably too passionate about this since it’s what my current thesis is on. I’m basically finding that in the realm of academic fiction there is a hierarchy of journals based mainly on the nebulous reputation (well maybe not so nebulous, it’s based on age and editorial boards and best of american spots and pushcarts… Of course, the best of series are influenced by these reputation. So what do we get? A cycle – where those with prestige keep prestige even if other journals are better). And, for the most part, online publication are not considered countable toward tenure or highering.
This is changing and there is a wave of people who want it to change. But just as ranking MFA programs through people who haven’t ever been in an MFA will reproduce old lists, ranking online journals when there are established journals with a dual presence will reproduce the same exclusionary lists.
My feeling is that if we start to rank online journals and our higher ranking journals are primarily print (New Yorker, Agni, etc) or used to be print (tri-quarterly, Shenandoah) then this will provide those who are involved in highering and tenure in the academy a way to exclude all other online journals (with a few exceptions) when the wave has grown too tall to ignore.
As to the cultural eugenics comment, clearly I was going for affect. Probably a bit too far.
I’m really not trying to sound like a dick, but what is “academic” fiction? That seems like a fake term thrown around by people with chips on their shoulders about MFA programs. Academics don’t tend to write fiction.
All literary magazines or venues advocate gatekeepers, editors ARE gatekeepers. Just because someone edits a small online poetry magazine doesn’t mean they are any different of a gatekeeper than the New Yorker poetry editor. They just guard the gate to a smaller field with less (sheep?) trying to get in.
Although I understand some of the fears about ranking, and I’m glad there is no formal ranking out there, I think there is an unintended effect where the strong anti-ranking attitude leads towards some writers who aren’t “in the know” suffering because they don’t realize which journals have a better reputation and which will help them more. I know your goal is obviously not to hurt younger writers, but this can be an effect of it.
The problem with online journals is almost entirely one of quality. There are some great online-only magazines (Guernica, elimae, etc.) but I think if we are being honest few of them are as consistent as the great print journals. This IS changing, I agree, but I think it has way less to do with old fuddy duddy academic gatekeepers than it has to do with the quality.
As online journals keep higher standards, acquire reputation and hopefully get funding to pay for writers, their status will increase accordingly.
I distinguish between the academic creative writing world and others for scope reasons in my study. Since that what I have data on, that’s what I wrote on. Academic creative writing is an easier system to study because it has formal rules (for tenure and hiring). And a ton of journals are published in the academia.
That being said, I have no chip on my shoulder about MFA programs. In fact, I think some MFA programs can be harmful to writers because it keeps them from experimenting. While these same programs to be great to other writers. Some writers thrive and grow there, others thrive and grow outside of the academy.
Last thing, I’m not a writer. Never have been, never will be. I’m a writer. I want to read good fiction. To me, I don’t find a ton of good fiction in print. I hate most of the New Yorker stories, I dislike much of the best american stories… I find it to be too safe. I find stories I like online — a lot of risk taking (this is not entirely true. I love some print journals – Sonora, Indiana Review, BWR, Big Lucks, Artifice, and many many more — it’s just that I like more online journals than print journals and I like the convenience of online.)
My favorites are elimae, > kill author, PANK, DIAGRAM, and Mud Luscious.
i based my answer on a grading system that incorporated the three criteria mentioned; content, prestige, and design. Of these, content and design I took to mean based on my subjective opinions. Prestige I took to mean what journal already, for whatever reason, occupies a certain level of prestige or top-tierdom. I also excluded any journal that has a press or print offshoot that it can draw prestige from. I was on the fence about fifty-two stories in this regard because it draws prestige from harper perenniel, but I count it due to fifty-two stories is independently titled. I don’t include Action, Yes however because Action Press is too closely named (Action Yes also loses points for me in the design category that probably would’ve offset the high points it gets for content anyway) Narrative’s high points in prestige and design offset its lower points I gave it for content. The rest, what they lack in prestige, they make up in content and/or design, imo.
it occurs to me now that everyday genius may draw too much prestige from publishing genius, and so gets disqualified. would have to revisit. or not. its getting more and more difficult to define what is an online venue that doesnt in some way depend on the prestige of a print tie in.
Thanks Darby.
Do people here generally prefer online pubs that, in their design, replicate as closely as possible the print experience of “words on a page”? How about online pubs that aim to incorporate aspects of the reader’s online experience into an overall design aesthetic?
I’m kind of partial to The Summerset Review, but then, I’m the editor of that one.
Words with Jam is my favourite that hasn’t been mentioned yet. It’s quite new and quite British, so has basically no prestige. But it’s my number one.
No. 1 Epiphany – epiphmag.com
No. 2 Negativesuck
[…] while back, Blake Butler posted the question on HTMLGIANT, “What do you think are the 5 top online magazines, based on content, prestige, and […]
Narrative Magazine
Six Little Things
A River & Sound Review
Hobart
Octopus Magazine