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The Center for Writers Loses Barthelme; Rick Magazine Is Born
Frederick Barthelme will soon leave The Center for Writers and the Mississippi Review, and it seems that he’s taking the Mississippi Review Online editorial staff and vision with him in order to create a new online magazine.
A few weeks ago, The Hattiesburg American ran this article about Frederick Barthelme’s leaving The Center for Writers and the Mississippi Review. There was a little bit of a spat in the comments section of that article, then Brevity picked up the news, as did the MFA blog, but that’s about all the coverage the story received (that I could tell from briefly clicking around yesterday). Then, several days ago, The Chronicle of Higher Education published a story about how Barthelme’s departure will directly affect the status of the Mississippi Review:
The Chronicle asked Barthelme via email what’s going to happen with the Review. “At present, then, there is no staff at all, and there is no one here who has actually run a magazine previously,” he responded. “The interim department chair has been talking to other English faculty (non-creative writing) about taking over the magazine. He is also talking to the remaining CW faculty about the same thing, and it’s unclear which way the tree will fall.”
The uncertainty has already had an effect, according to Barthelme, who told us that the summer 2010 online issue has been cancelled. “Another is scheduled for Oct. 1, and I have heard nothing about plans for it,” he said. “The online magazine has, as you may know, separate content, i.e. it is not a reprint, or a partial version of the print magazine–it’s completely separate with original content.”
There’s still a print issue scheduled for December 2010, Barthelme told the Chronicle, “but as far as I know there are no plans in process for producing it.”
If the situation as Barthelme describes it does not change soon, the Mississippi Review will face a rough year or two, during which it will be important for the magazine to reorient itself. The Chronicle goes on to report that, according to Barthelme, Julia Johnson, who will take over the Mississippi Review (she is now listed as Editor on the MR website), may or may not stay on permanently at the university. Barthelme also told The Hattiesburg American that Johnson recently received a more lucrative offer elsewhere for the 2011-2012 academic year. I emailed Johnson to ask if she’d like to comment and will update if she responds.
***
Although little seems different at Mississippi Review Online–for example, they are still accepting contest entries for the 2011 MR Prize–the masthead is much smaller and a new link button has appeared; it sends viewers to www.rickmagazine.net:
I emailed Gary Percesepe, formerly one of the Associate Editors of MROnline, to confirm Rick Magazine‘s existence, and he put me in touch with Barthelme. Barthelme explained via email that the goal of the new magazine was to carry on the work he’s been doing since 1995 with Mississippi Review Online. He wrote
I hope to take the whole MROnline archive with me, as the online version of the magazine had content independent of the print MR, and was a wholly supplementary effort on my part, not in any way encouraged, supported, or paid for (apart from Web space) by the university. I believe the entire editorial staff is joining me at RickMagazine.net and we will be fully operational momentarily at that url. At first we will be an ad hoc operation, and later, perhaps, a full blown quarterly.
Percesepe confirmed that he will be one of the editors helping Barthelme:
I’m happy to be part of the editorial team of the new Rick Magazine. Frederick Barthelme is one of the finest writers working in America. If this were not enough, he practically invented the online lit mag. He was treated shabbily by his university, after many years of faithful service. The only positive thing to have come out of this dreary mess thus far is the creation of Rick Mag, which promises to be as quirky, funny, irreverent, and essential as its creator. I would follow Rick Barthelme anywhere.
Rick Magazine has just posted its first issue, a late summer issue guest edited by Vallie Lynn Watson and devoted to “Writing, Place, and Film.” The issue includes work by Ann Beattie, TC Boyle, Dustin Michael, and Lavonne J. Adams.
Tags: Frederick Barthelme, Gary Percesepe, mississippi review online, rick magazine, The Center for Writers
If the Mississippi Review wants to hire me, fine. But I’m not publishing any of the crap that Barthelme accepted.
Let’s honor Adam’s genius by suspending comments now–Bravo Adam. Please destroy my comment now.
Someone really needs to jump aboard a journal and unreject a bunch of things just to restore the balance of the universe.
If the Mississippi Review wants to hire me, fine. But I’m not publishing any of the crap that Barthelme accepted.
An inside source has revealed that Rick Magazine will merge with Mary Literary Quarterly. The aim: to produce a journal that is at once emotional, minimal, brutal and also very gay.
Let’s honor Adam’s genius by suspending comments now–Bravo Adam. Please destroy my comment now.
Someone really needs to jump aboard a journal and unreject a bunch of things just to restore the balance of the universe.
An inside source has revealed that Rick Magazine will merge with Mary Literary Quarterly. The aim: to produce a journal that is at once emotional, minimal, brutal and also very gay.
LOL. Guess who showed up in the Chronicle comments section “briefly”:
“Hi Steve,
I just wanted to weigh in briefly, as my name was mentioned by another poster, and then you picked up this question of CW rankings in your own post. I have little substantive opinion on the larger question of how the Center is being treated/treated with by the USM brass, as I haven’t tracked the details across the many media reports and contentious comment-fields addressing the issue. I think I was mentioned here solely as to the entirely ancillary issue of USM’s national reputation in the field of creative writing. I’d noted, on another website, that it seemed the media was hanging its hat — as to this story being newsworthy, but also as to this story being a particularly tragic one — in part on USM’s own representations re: being among the top 10% of creative writing programs in the United States.
In the interest of goodwill, I’d note — and suggest to you — an even better (but also far more accurate) way for USM to market itself to prospective applicants: As far as I can tell, in 1996 U.S. News and World Report ranked USM first (literally number one) nationally among those programs with a CW MA/PhD track but no MFA. JHU (#2 in 1996) had an MA but no CW Ph.D. at the time; Utah (#16) had an MFA and a Ph.D.; and UC Davis (t-#30) had an MA but no CW Ph.D. The other programs inside the top 30 were (to my knowledge) all MFA programs at the time.
Besides the fact that it is based on data collected nearly a decade and a half ago, but is worded as though it is based on current consensus (USNWR simply reprinted its collected-in-1996 data in 2001 and 2003), the problem with USM’s present representation regarding its national standing — which I care about, despite it being such an esoteric matter, because I’ve tried to be an activist for CW applicants in ensuring that they get the most accurate information possible from both the media and programs themselves — is that in 1994 AWP acknowledged 232 CW programs (MA, MFA, and Ph.D. combined), but 60% of these (139) were actually in the first of these three categories, non-terminal academic Master’s degrees in English with the mere option of a creative dissertation. Putting aside whether these are actually “creative writing” degrees or “English” degrees — the diplomas suggest the latter, as does the lack of terminality (a CW Master’s would by definition be a terminal degree) — the real problem is that it does not appear USNWR included anything like 139 academic MA programs in its survey (i.e. the questionnaire it sent to graduate creative writing faculties around the country). While it’s true some programs (like JHU and Temple) have evolved from an MA to an MFA since 1994, looking at the 1996 rankings now (and USM is certainly advertising itself now based on the options applicants actually have now) only 4 of the 94, or 4.25%, of the programs ranked by USNWR 16 years ago (specifically: UC-Davis, Kansas State, Michigan State, and Miami [OH]) are of that category of programs that in fact made up 60% of the pool in 1994 — universities with so-called “CW MA” programs but no MFA or Ph.D. in Creative Writing (one program, New College of California, appears to no longer exist). That such programs were 1400% (1400%, not 140%) more likely to exist in 1994 than to appear in the USNWR rankings of that year suggests that USNWR did what the current Poets & Writers MFA rankings do — admit into the national rankings only that small subset of “CW MA” programs which are treated, by applicants, as being on par with MFA programs in popularity and reputation if not terminality and curriculum. Presently there are only two programs in this category: UC-Davis (same as in 1994) and Western Washington University. Kansas State, a holdover from 1994, falls just below the threshold for inclusion in the current “official” rankings for the field. (There’s currently no formal ranking of doctoral CW programs like USM because there’s been no growth in the popularity of this degree — as AWP’s 2009 annual report attests — in the past 15 years; consequently, there’s too little data to work with at present to identify and publish an identifiable consensus.)
Rankings are in no way a final or determinative statement on program quality — I mention all this only in the interest of furthering truth-in-advertising in the field, not because I have a personal opinion on USM or in any way doubt, whatsoever, all the glowing things current and recent students and current and recent faculty have been saying about it lately. But the one thing we cannot say in good faith is that the program is ranked in the top 10% of creative writing programs nationally — much else can be said, but not that. Not unless you want (and I know you do not) aspiring poets and writers to come to Hattiesburg only to discover, one or two years into their five-year CW MA/Ph.D. program, that at least one important factor in their matriculation decision (prompted by the program’s own promotional materials) turned out to be based on bad (not to mention extremely old) information.
I expect the next formal ranking of CW Ph.D. programs to appear in print in 2011 — I’ve had no formal assurance of this whatsoever from anyone, it’s simply what I expect will likely happen, based on the status of data-gathering regarding these programs. At present, the still-incomplete data on my website, The Suburban Ecstasies, would put USM in the bottom 50% of CW doctoral programs in the U.S. (as noted on TSE, which offers the most comprehensive listing of CW doctoral programs of any website in the world, there are 94 such doctorates in the U.S., Canada, England, Wales, Northern Ireland, Scotland, the Republic of Ireland, Australia, and New Zealand; however, the current rankings project really only looks at U.S. programs, so USM’s present #19 ranking [in a five-way tie] out of 35 programs is representative of what can be expected in any formal 2011 ranking, whether or not this exact figure holds steady in the next twelve months). It’s worth noting that the current rankings, however incomplete they may be, are based on applicant opinions, not my own opinions. The same is true for all of the current P&W rankings — none of them are “mine.”
Again, I haven’t followed the real issue here — the fate of creative writing at USM in light of recent developments — but for me the longer-term cause of transparency, comprehensiveness, and accuracy in graduate creative writing program promotional materials (again, however esoteric an issue for non-applicants) remains important whatever the ephemera of the day may be.
Best wishes,
Seth Abramson”
Link: http://chronicle.com/blogPost/Barthelmes-Departure-Leaves/25610/
Honest question–was anyone able to get through that whole post?
I never make it past the first paragraph of his posts.
LOL. Guess who showed up in the Chronicle comments section “briefly”:
“Hi Steve,
I just wanted to weigh in briefly, as my name was mentioned by another poster, and then you picked up this question of CW rankings in your own post. I have little substantive opinion on the larger question of how the Center is being treated/treated with by the USM brass, as I haven’t tracked the details across the many media reports and contentious comment-fields addressing the issue. I think I was mentioned here solely as to the entirely ancillary issue of USM’s national reputation in the field of creative writing. I’d noted, on another website, that it seemed the media was hanging its hat — as to this story being newsworthy, but also as to this story being a particularly tragic one — in part on USM’s own representations re: being among the top 10% of creative writing programs in the United States.
In the interest of goodwill, I’d note — and suggest to you — an even better (but also far more accurate) way for USM to market itself to prospective applicants: As far as I can tell, in 1996 U.S. News and World Report ranked USM first (literally number one) nationally among those programs with a CW MA/PhD track but no MFA. JHU (#2 in 1996) had an MA but no CW Ph.D. at the time; Utah (#16) had an MFA and a Ph.D.; and UC Davis (t-#30) had an MA but no CW Ph.D. The other programs inside the top 30 were (to my knowledge) all MFA programs at the time.
Besides the fact that it is based on data collected nearly a decade and a half ago, but is worded as though it is based on current consensus (USNWR simply reprinted its collected-in-1996 data in 2001 and 2003), the problem with USM’s present representation regarding its national standing — which I care about, despite it being such an esoteric matter, because I’ve tried to be an activist for CW applicants in ensuring that they get the most accurate information possible from both the media and programs themselves — is that in 1994 AWP acknowledged 232 CW programs (MA, MFA, and Ph.D. combined), but 60% of these (139) were actually in the first of these three categories, non-terminal academic Master’s degrees in English with the mere option of a creative dissertation. Putting aside whether these are actually “creative writing” degrees or “English” degrees — the diplomas suggest the latter, as does the lack of terminality (a CW Master’s would by definition be a terminal degree) — the real problem is that it does not appear USNWR included anything like 139 academic MA programs in its survey (i.e. the questionnaire it sent to graduate creative writing faculties around the country). While it’s true some programs (like JHU and Temple) have evolved from an MA to an MFA since 1994, looking at the 1996 rankings now (and USM is certainly advertising itself now based on the options applicants actually have now) only 4 of the 94, or 4.25%, of the programs ranked by USNWR 16 years ago (specifically: UC-Davis, Kansas State, Michigan State, and Miami [OH]) are of that category of programs that in fact made up 60% of the pool in 1994 — universities with so-called “CW MA” programs but no MFA or Ph.D. in Creative Writing (one program, New College of California, appears to no longer exist). That such programs were 1400% (1400%, not 140%) more likely to exist in 1994 than to appear in the USNWR rankings of that year suggests that USNWR did what the current Poets & Writers MFA rankings do — admit into the national rankings only that small subset of “CW MA” programs which are treated, by applicants, as being on par with MFA programs in popularity and reputation if not terminality and curriculum. Presently there are only two programs in this category: UC-Davis (same as in 1994) and Western Washington University. Kansas State, a holdover from 1994, falls just below the threshold for inclusion in the current “official” rankings for the field. (There’s currently no formal ranking of doctoral CW programs like USM because there’s been no growth in the popularity of this degree — as AWP’s 2009 annual report attests — in the past 15 years; consequently, there’s too little data to work with at present to identify and publish an identifiable consensus.)
Rankings are in no way a final or determinative statement on program quality — I mention all this only in the interest of furthering truth-in-advertising in the field, not because I have a personal opinion on USM or in any way doubt, whatsoever, all the glowing things current and recent students and current and recent faculty have been saying about it lately. But the one thing we cannot say in good faith is that the program is ranked in the top 10% of creative writing programs nationally — much else can be said, but not that. Not unless you want (and I know you do not) aspiring poets and writers to come to Hattiesburg only to discover, one or two years into their five-year CW MA/Ph.D. program, that at least one important factor in their matriculation decision (prompted by the program’s own promotional materials) turned out to be based on bad (not to mention extremely old) information.
I expect the next formal ranking of CW Ph.D. programs to appear in print in 2011 — I’ve had no formal assurance of this whatsoever from anyone, it’s simply what I expect will likely happen, based on the status of data-gathering regarding these programs. At present, the still-incomplete data on my website, The Suburban Ecstasies, would put USM in the bottom 50% of CW doctoral programs in the U.S. (as noted on TSE, which offers the most comprehensive listing of CW doctoral programs of any website in the world, there are 94 such doctorates in the U.S., Canada, England, Wales, Northern Ireland, Scotland, the Republic of Ireland, Australia, and New Zealand; however, the current rankings project really only looks at U.S. programs, so USM’s present #19 ranking [in a five-way tie] out of 35 programs is representative of what can be expected in any formal 2011 ranking, whether or not this exact figure holds steady in the next twelve months). It’s worth noting that the current rankings, however incomplete they may be, are based on applicant opinions, not my own opinions. The same is true for all of the current P&W rankings — none of them are “mine.”
Again, I haven’t followed the real issue here — the fate of creative writing at USM in light of recent developments — but for me the longer-term cause of transparency, comprehensiveness, and accuracy in graduate creative writing program promotional materials (again, however esoteric an issue for non-applicants) remains important whatever the ephemera of the day may be.
Best wishes,
Seth Abramson”
Link: http://chronicle.com/blogPost/Barthelmes-Departure-Leaves/25610/
Honest question–was anyone able to get through that whole post?
I never make it past the first paragraph of his posts.
yeah, i stopped after:
“I have little substantive opinion on the larger question of how the Center is being treated/treated with by the USM brass…”
I heard about this a few weeks ago on Roxane’s blog. Interesting to see how things shake out and if in fact the Univ fights him on taking the whole online archived content with him.
if seth abramson and justin taylor had a kid, it would be franz wright
yeah, i stopped after:
“I have little substantive opinion on the larger question of how the Center is being treated/treated with by the USM brass…”
I heard about this a few weeks ago on Roxane’s blog. Interesting to see how things shake out and if in fact the Univ fights him on taking the whole online archived content with him.
if seth abramson and justin taylor had a kid, it would be franz wright
[…] that’s about, but Ryan Call did some investigative reporting, and you can read up on all that here. Roxane Gay, my internet crush, has a story up that’ll make your toes […]
but he so loves his word, ‘substantive!’ can’t you just hang in to support him using it 4 times? maybe we can learn what it means, too, if we get to see it so enthusiastically employed.
but he so loves his word, ‘substantive!’ can’t you just hang in to support him using it 4 times? maybe we can learn what it means, too, if we get to see it so enthusiastically employed.
oops, my bad. poetic repetition of ‘substantive’ was a different epistle altogether.
oops, my bad. poetic repetition of ‘substantive’ was a different epistle altogether.
[…] The Center for Writers Loses Barthelme; Rick Magazine Is Born .Jul 22, 2010 The Center for Writers Loses Barthelme; Rick Magazine Is Born. Frederick Barthelme will soon leave […]
Frederick Barthelme..enjoyed reading Double Down ..know the Gulf Coast fairly well.
Your brother Donald enjoyed my music..recordings available on new.music.yahoo.com
David Eyges