August 20th, 2010 / 1:55 pm
Snippets
Snippets
Blake Butler—
How many literary magazines do you buy a year and what percentage of their content do you read?
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Meta
I buy way too many, probably about 75 a year including AWP acquisitions. I read 70-100% of every issue because I have this annoying thing about completion.
probably 6 or 7 and i read 70-100 percent.
In 2005 I bought all of them and read all the poems. I hope not to repeat that experiment any time soon.
This is an interesting question. Of the ones I straight up buy, I read basically 100%. Like Roxane, I like to complete. Of the ones that get sent to me or that I get because I entered a contest it varies wildly.
20-30, and probably another 20-30 I get for free. I sometimes subscribe to four or five, but right now I’m not subscribed to any (laziness) except the ones where I’m a contributing editor. Some magazines I read with some regularity: Conjunctions, Missouri Review, Georgia Review, Tin House, VQR, The Journal, Puerto del Sol, Gulf Coast, The Georgia Review, Crazyhorse, Ninth Letter, Threepenny Review, Southern Review, Gettysburg Review, Boulevard, PANK, Hobart, The Believer, Ecotone, AQR, Kenyon Review, Sou’wester, A Public Space, and, if they count, Harper’s and the New Yorker.
+/- 25/yr, reading an average of 5%.
you bought all of them? dang
how many do you straight up buy
how much of each issue do you tend to read on average
I should add that I don’t necessarily read them in the same year I buy them. My to-read stack is embarrassing. I’m like a hoarder at this point.
How many do you get from contests?
What about you Blake? How many are in a shit ton?
Windfall + time on hands + wanting to avoid destroying myself the usual ways
15-ish at 75% per
4 or 5 maybe? and i think i read 70-100% of them. (in addition i read trace amounts of litmags at barnes and noble or st. mark’s, which i don’t buy.)
9 at present, but probably a dozen or so in teh near future. I read 80-100%. I also read bits and pieces of a couple of dozen online from their websites.
ha, and i didn’t even notice that two other people said exactly “70-100”, not that you’ll believe me. i barely believe it myself.
Teh, dammit. I’ll eventually increase to about 20 as the money comes, but any more than that I don’t think I could keep up with while still working enough to pay for them.
I never read all of any journal. I read journals I’m in more closely. I read writers I already like first. Then I skip around and sample beginnings, mostly. I can usually tell if I don’t want to spend twenty pages in something. I read most of the poems, but I rarely like more than 10% of them. I’m frequently disappointed by how little I really enjoy. Conjunctions frequently has something cool. Gettysburg Review, too. I almost always love an essay in Missouri Review. Some of the magazines that people say publish boring fiction often publish some thrilling fiction. I almost always love some story in The Georgia Review. I have a few stories and essays from unknown lit journal writers — Miroslav Penkov, Bart Skarzynski, Jennifer Spiegel, Mike Alber, Liz Mandrell, Paul Prather, Adam Desnoyers — sitting on my shelf, and I photocopy them for people. I write them fan mail. Sometimes I become friends with people because of it.
the ones that i actually buy i read 40-80% of. i think i have bought 2 or 3 this year, not counting awp.
i get a lot free in the mail and i usually read the contributor notes and 1 to 2 pieces from them sometimes, sometimes more, sometimes none.
i feel like i dont read that much
i buy 3-4, and read them all the way through, in hopes of being introduced to new writers whose work i can further explore. from every lit mag i buy, i then go on to (usually) buy 3-4 full-length books.
i should read more magazines, i know that, but it’s difficult to justify spending money on them sometimes, when i often just give them away to friends after reading them.
When Im done reading them, I generally put them in a small library I maintain for my students to borrow. They often really dig finding new writers.
5-10 per year. Maybe 40% of each issue. I buy a few, but mostly get them free in the mail or pick up issues from friends after they’re done reading them. I tend to browse opening graphs and bios.
I probably straight buy about five plus subscriptions or muliple issues of the believer, the oxford american, harpers and the new yorker if those count.
MAYBE TEN OR TWELVE? MAYBE MORE? THE ONES ZZZZZZIPP READS ZZZZZIPPP TRIES TO COMPLETE, THOUGH HE CAN BE GUILTY OF SKIMMING. DEPENDS ON HOW LARGE AND HOW GOOD. THE ONES ZZZZIPP DOEZZZN’T READ HE MIGHT READ SOME OTHER TIME. ZZZZZIPP IS A SLOW READER.
see, that’s smart. i lived in a building once that kept a co-op library in the laundry room. every book i took, i swapped it out with something that maybe people wouldn’t come across otherwise. kind of wish there was more stuff like that around.
Maybe two or three from cintest entry fees, then another three from launch parties
None. I refuse to support literary magazines, independent book stores, animal shelters, and feeding-the-poor-programs.
ROXANE THAT IS A GREAT IDEA
i’ve bought like 4 in the last year and i usually only read poems or stories by names i recognize and that i’ve heard are good writers. i prefer single author books to magazines. i’m lame like that.
Buy: 10-15. Read closely: 50%. Skim/bounce through/read first lines of: 40%
On a serious note, I don’t purchase any lit mags because I have access to exchange copies. I’m sort of with Daniel though in my preference for single author books over journals. Reading time is precious and I’d rather go with a book than a journal. The journals I do read cover to cover are ones that publish one genre, like Avery Anthology or Beloit Fiction Journal.
Exchange subs are the second best reason to start a journal
Probably between 10-15 and I read maybe 50%.
I read %100 of Glimmer Train and Zoetrope. I buy 5-10 others a year and read %50-70. I skip poetry. I go through periods trying to convince myself I enjoy poetry, but it never sticks. I read the New Yorker, but for some reason skim a lot of the fiction. I think I have different reading styles when I am reading fiction and journalism, and I have a hard time switching between the two.
Maybe five at the most. I’ll read somewhere under 50%. Unless it’s One Story, in which case I’ll read 100%, most of the time. I’m in the “reading time is precious” category because my day job/personal life take up a lot of time. So since I often find that literary mags too often stuff their issues with a lot of filler, a lot of really mediocre stuff (according to my tastes), I prefer just reading books.
Haven’t been buying them long enough to see a real pattern. I tend to just sort of keep them on my bookshelf and take them down when I want to read something small, after a first scan where I read anything that grabs me or by someone I’m following. Tend to prefer to invest in single-author books too, really.
Will be interesting to see what I read and how often when my book time/book money are my own again.
Honest question: Why the contributor notes? I have to stay away from those. People are weird about them.
its almost always the first thing i read. i have no idea why, i’ve always done it, and still dont know what it is about them, they are mostly so the same.
i think maybe somehow its like really boring porn
what is it about one story that gets you that other magazines do not? the format, or something else?
what is it about glimmer train and zoetrope that pulls you in?
yes i like that
do you read your own work in those issues? if so, do you read it before you read anything else?
No. It jacks with my head to re-read my own work too much.
After it’s published, I mean. By then I’ve spent so much time with it, I’m sick of myself.
Do you?
i often do. or i at least go look at it. i dont feel like i read it from beginning to end but just like get a taste to see if i am okay with how it seems there or not.
Yeah, I’ll often do that much at least.
I read my own work first and often I think, goddamn, I wrote that?
I find that I’m really hungry to like or even love something. I want to find a story that thrills or undoes me or both. I feel very grateful when a literary journal offers up something like that.
I’m with you on contrib notes. First thing I read too.
I probably buy a good 20 to 30 per year, and must get close to a dozen complimentary subscriptions. Probably have paid subscriptions to about half a dozen others.
Read rate depends on much. If it’s a journal I’m doing a series of editor notes with, like Unsaid right now and a few others starting up–I read the entire journal, and usually in order (though, I admit, like Blake, I almost always check out bio notes first–I think it’s an old habit as I used to look in those to find books to go look for in used stores or the library).
If it’s not a project journal, odds are I’ll read poetry from names I already recognize, and probably anywhere from 50 to 75% of the fiction and will almost always read one essay or book review if the journal has them–if I really enjoyed it, or found it to be especially well written, I’ll probably read more of them.
Hobart may be the only journal I can honestly say I know I’ve read every story or essay in, for at least the last five or six issues. Probably starting right after the Hobart/Monkeybicycle issue (the issues before that I had to track down and skimmed). I probably also read One Story within maybe two days of it arriving on average. I guess, now that I think about it, I also read ASF in completion from cover to cover.
pop serial’s contributors section has photos. it is like a yearbook, sort of.
Format is big. I don’t necessarily thing lit mags need to be as selective as to be literally one story, but I do think there’s something to less is more that makes an issue tidier and better when its packed with the strongest stuff. Plus i think the editors at OS just have a good eye for interesting stories. I dig their output quite a bit.
I like contributor notes too. It’s like when I go to a play, I read the actor bios closely while waiting for the curtain. Then I wait to see how their life reflects on their character.
I compulsively re-read, and sometimes feel angry with myself, and sometimes feel a sort of peace, and sometimes notice something that was screwed up in layout and get sort of mad.
I have a limited income, so when I do buy a literary magazine, it’s after reading a fair portion of their online content and debating the purchase for a little while. I never do blind buys. I can only buy one, wait a couple paychecks, and buy another one.
When I get it, I’ll read 80-100% of it. I’ll only skip something if I don’t like the opening paragraph/stanza. I read work by writers I’m familiar with first, then work my way through the unknowns, and I always read the contributor notes. Blake said a few comments above that reading contributor notes like “really boring porn,” and it totally is.
I have the same OCD deal with completing something. Definitely kills me. I even “have” to read teh reviews at the back.
in the last year or year and half or whatever i bought the following:
-artifice 1 (read all of)
-chicago review 55:3 (read all of, start of subscription)
-soft targets 1 (read all of, got from dan b/c i was obsessed with issue 2)
-sleepingfish most recent (just started, two stories in or something)
-collapse vols. 1-4 (just finished first volume a week or two ago, have started volume 2)
-3rd bed “complete” minus whatever was out of stock (have finished the first one, have the rest to read)
-a random issue of fence from BSG (haven’t read yet)
-that PLAYS mag that ariana reines’s telephone was published in (have only read reines’s piece)
-i read mcsweeney’s 13 which is the comix issue that i’ve had for 8 years (read all of, then gave to my brother because i have mcsweeney’s as a concept)
-i bought from amazon tyunai 9/10 because it’s about contemporary french poetry (haven’t read yet)
-i bootlegged the Poetry/Poésie issue of Sub/Stance (i am 90% through this)
-i had a subscription to Black Warrior Review from entering a contest and have gotten 2 issues (first one is 100% read, second one i haven’t started)
i think that is it, maybe, feel like this would be easier if i were at home to look at my shelf
+
I forgot, I also bought
The Coming Envelope Issue 1 and have finished it. It was short but it was on nice paper.
also, my favorite journal from those listed above were Soft Targets Vol 1 & 2, and mainly it was because in addition to ‘new’ prose & poetry there was : 1) semiotext(e)-style politic/theory, 2) inclusion of visual art that is more conceptual than just “cool looking” (which is what it seems like most lit journals go for, as a total art nerd–my degree is not in writing or english, it’s in art–juxtapos style art is actually irritating), and most importantly 3 the inclusion of writing from the 60s and 70s that fit with the overall aesthetic of the mag.
Actually maybe a lot more than this, at least if things like lit mag fairs and used mags at used book stores count.
My job forces me to look at magazine/journal covers all day and then wander around thinking about the articles/stories advertised or listed. A sucker for my own imagination, I probably end up buying 30 or 40 a year and usually only read whatever caught my eye in the first place. But I honestly do plan on going back and finishing these things someday. Possibly when the world runs out of paper?
I do always finish RCF (except the “; or The Whale” issue. Wussed out.), but that’s not a mag.
I buy way too many, probably about 75 a year including AWP acquisitions. I read 70-100% of every issue because I have this annoying thing about completion.
probably 6 or 7 and i read 70-100 percent.
In 2005 I bought all of them and read all the poems. I hope not to repeat that experiment any time soon.
This is an interesting question. Of the ones I straight up buy, I read basically 100%. Like Roxane, I like to complete. Of the ones that get sent to me or that I get because I entered a contest it varies wildly.
20-30, and probably another 20-30 I get for free. I sometimes subscribe to four or five, but right now I’m not subscribed to any (laziness) except the ones where I’m a contributing editor. Some magazines I read with some regularity: Conjunctions, Missouri Review, Georgia Review, Tin House, VQR, The Journal, Puerto del Sol, Gulf Coast, The Georgia Review, Crazyhorse, Ninth Letter, Threepenny Review, Southern Review, Gettysburg Review, Boulevard, PANK, Hobart, The Believer, Ecotone, AQR, Kenyon Review, Sou’wester, A Public Space, and, if they count, Harper’s and the New Yorker.
+/- 25/yr, reading an average of 5%.
you bought all of them? dang
how many do you straight up buy
how much of each issue do you tend to read on average
I should add that I don’t necessarily read them in the same year I buy them. My to-read stack is embarrassing. I’m like a hoarder at this point.
How many do you get from contests?
What about you Blake? How many are in a shit ton?
Windfall + time on hands + wanting to avoid destroying myself the usual ways
30 or so a yr, probably–some I subscribe to, some I just buy online, and the rest I usually pick up at St. Mark’s. I read all of some of them and hardly any of others–just depends why I bought them.
I actually don’t know what to do with these when I’m done. I usually just put them in the laundry room and they disappear pretty quickly. I keep trying to give them (not sell, just give) to used bookstores and they won’t take them.
Hobart and ASF are two of the ones I always read right away and all the way through. Unsaid, Annalemma, PANK and NOON, too. Oh, and NYTyrant.
15-ish at 75% per
4 or 5 maybe? and i think i read 70-100% of them. (in addition i read trace amounts of litmags at barnes and noble or st. mark’s, which i don’t buy.)
9 at present, but probably a dozen or so in teh near future. I read 80-100%. I also read bits and pieces of a couple of dozen online from their websites.
ha, and i didn’t even notice that two other people said exactly “70-100”, not that you’ll believe me. i barely believe it myself.
Teh, dammit. I’ll eventually increase to about 20 as the money comes, but any more than that I don’t think I could keep up with while still working enough to pay for them.
I never read all of any journal. I read journals I’m in more closely. I read writers I already like first. Then I skip around and sample beginnings, mostly. I can usually tell if I don’t want to spend twenty pages in something. I read most of the poems, but I rarely like more than 10% of them. I’m frequently disappointed by how little I really enjoy. Conjunctions frequently has something cool. Gettysburg Review, too. I almost always love an essay in Missouri Review. Some of the magazines that people say publish boring fiction often publish some thrilling fiction. I almost always love some story in The Georgia Review. I have a few stories and essays from unknown lit journal writers — Miroslav Penkov, Bart Skarzynski, Jennifer Spiegel, Mike Alber, Liz Mandrell, Paul Prather, Adam Desnoyers — sitting on my shelf, and I photocopy them for people. I write them fan mail. Sometimes I become friends with people because of it.
the ones that i actually buy i read 40-80% of. i think i have bought 2 or 3 this year, not counting awp.
i get a lot free in the mail and i usually read the contributor notes and 1 to 2 pieces from them sometimes, sometimes more, sometimes none.
i feel like i dont read that much
i buy 3-4, and read them all the way through, in hopes of being introduced to new writers whose work i can further explore. from every lit mag i buy, i then go on to (usually) buy 3-4 full-length books.
i should read more magazines, i know that, but it’s difficult to justify spending money on them sometimes, when i often just give them away to friends after reading them.
When Im done reading them, I generally put them in a small library I maintain for my students to borrow. They often really dig finding new writers.
5-10 per year. Maybe 40% of each issue. I buy a few, but mostly get them free in the mail or pick up issues from friends after they’re done reading them. I tend to browse opening graphs and bios.
I probably straight buy about five plus subscriptions or muliple issues of the believer, the oxford american, harpers and the new yorker if those count.
MAYBE TEN OR TWELVE? MAYBE MORE? THE ONES ZZZZZZIPP READS ZZZZZIPPP TRIES TO COMPLETE, THOUGH HE CAN BE GUILTY OF SKIMMING. DEPENDS ON HOW LARGE AND HOW GOOD. THE ONES ZZZZIPP DOEZZZN’T READ HE MIGHT READ SOME OTHER TIME. ZZZZZIPP IS A SLOW READER.
see, that’s smart. i lived in a building once that kept a co-op library in the laundry room. every book i took, i swapped it out with something that maybe people wouldn’t come across otherwise. kind of wish there was more stuff like that around.
Maybe two or three from cintest entry fees, then another three from launch parties
None. I refuse to support literary magazines, independent book stores, animal shelters, and feeding-the-poor-programs.
ROXANE THAT IS A GREAT IDEA
i’ve bought like 4 in the last year and i usually only read poems or stories by names i recognize and that i’ve heard are good writers. i prefer single author books to magazines. i’m lame like that.
Buy: 10-15. Read closely: 50%. Skim/bounce through/read first lines of: 40%
On a serious note, I don’t purchase any lit mags because I have access to exchange copies. I’m sort of with Daniel though in my preference for single author books over journals. Reading time is precious and I’d rather go with a book than a journal. The journals I do read cover to cover are ones that publish one genre, like Avery Anthology or Beloit Fiction Journal.
Exchange subs are the second best reason to start a journal
Probably between 10-15 and I read maybe 50%.
I read %100 of Glimmer Train and Zoetrope. I buy 5-10 others a year and read %50-70. I skip poetry. I go through periods trying to convince myself I enjoy poetry, but it never sticks. I read the New Yorker, but for some reason skim a lot of the fiction. I think I have different reading styles when I am reading fiction and journalism, and I have a hard time switching between the two.
Maybe five at the most. I’ll read somewhere under 50%. Unless it’s One Story, in which case I’ll read 100%, most of the time. I’m in the “reading time is precious” category because my day job/personal life take up a lot of time. So since I often find that literary mags too often stuff their issues with a lot of filler, a lot of really mediocre stuff (according to my tastes), I prefer just reading books.
Haven’t been buying them long enough to see a real pattern. I tend to just sort of keep them on my bookshelf and take them down when I want to read something small, after a first scan where I read anything that grabs me or by someone I’m following. Tend to prefer to invest in single-author books too, really.
Will be interesting to see what I read and how often when my book time/book money are my own again.
Honest question: Why the contributor notes? I have to stay away from those. People are weird about them.
its almost always the first thing i read. i have no idea why, i’ve always done it, and still dont know what it is about them, they are mostly so the same.
i think maybe somehow its like really boring porn
what is it about one story that gets you that other magazines do not? the format, or something else?
what is it about glimmer train and zoetrope that pulls you in?
yes i like that
do you read your own work in those issues? if so, do you read it before you read anything else?
No. It jacks with my head to re-read my own work too much.
After it’s published, I mean. By then I’ve spent so much time with it, I’m sick of myself.
Do you?
i often do. or i at least go look at it. i dont feel like i read it from beginning to end but just like get a taste to see if i am okay with how it seems there or not.
Yeah, I’ll often do that much at least.
I read my own work first and often I think, goddamn, I wrote that?
I find that I’m really hungry to like or even love something. I want to find a story that thrills or undoes me or both. I feel very grateful when a literary journal offers up something like that.
I’m with you on contrib notes. First thing I read too.
I probably buy a good 20 to 30 per year, and must get close to a dozen complimentary subscriptions. Probably have paid subscriptions to about half a dozen others.
Read rate depends on much. If it’s a journal I’m doing a series of editor notes with, like Unsaid right now and a few others starting up–I read the entire journal, and usually in order (though, I admit, like Blake, I almost always check out bio notes first–I think it’s an old habit as I used to look in those to find books to go look for in used stores or the library).
If it’s not a project journal, odds are I’ll read poetry from names I already recognize, and probably anywhere from 50 to 75% of the fiction and will almost always read one essay or book review if the journal has them–if I really enjoyed it, or found it to be especially well written, I’ll probably read more of them.
Hobart may be the only journal I can honestly say I know I’ve read every story or essay in, for at least the last five or six issues. Probably starting right after the Hobart/Monkeybicycle issue (the issues before that I had to track down and skimmed). I probably also read One Story within maybe two days of it arriving on average. I guess, now that I think about it, I also read ASF in completion from cover to cover.
pop serial’s contributors section has photos. it is like a yearbook, sort of.
Format is big. I don’t necessarily thing lit mags need to be as selective as to be literally one story, but I do think there’s something to less is more that makes an issue tidier and better when its packed with the strongest stuff. Plus i think the editors at OS just have a good eye for interesting stories. I dig their output quite a bit.
I like contributor notes too. It’s like when I go to a play, I read the actor bios closely while waiting for the curtain. Then I wait to see how their life reflects on their character.
I compulsively re-read, and sometimes feel angry with myself, and sometimes feel a sort of peace, and sometimes notice something that was screwed up in layout and get sort of mad.
I have a limited income, so when I do buy a literary magazine, it’s after reading a fair portion of their online content and debating the purchase for a little while. I never do blind buys. I can only buy one, wait a couple paychecks, and buy another one.
When I get it, I’ll read 80-100% of it. I’ll only skip something if I don’t like the opening paragraph/stanza. I read work by writers I’m familiar with first, then work my way through the unknowns, and I always read the contributor notes. Blake said a few comments above that reading contributor notes like “really boring porn,” and it totally is.
I have the same OCD deal with completing something. Definitely kills me. I even “have” to read teh reviews at the back.
Both focus on short stories. I took a fiction class offered by Zoetrope, so I feel like I am somehow part of it (I know that is pretty dumb). Glimmer Train seems pretty dedicated to publishing new writers, and I can leaf through copies at the bookstore.
I have read a few issues of other magazines in the past and enjoyed them, and then they disappeared.
in the last year or year and half or whatever i bought the following:
-artifice 1 (read all of)
-chicago review 55:3 (read all of, start of subscription)
-soft targets 1 (read all of, got from dan b/c i was obsessed with issue 2)
-sleepingfish most recent (just started, two stories in or something)
-collapse vols. 1-4 (just finished first volume a week or two ago, have started volume 2)
-3rd bed “complete” minus whatever was out of stock (have finished the first one, have the rest to read)
-a random issue of fence from BSG (haven’t read yet)
-that PLAYS mag that ariana reines’s telephone was published in (have only read reines’s piece)
-i read mcsweeney’s 13 which is the comix issue that i’ve had for 8 years (read all of, then gave to my brother because i have mcsweeney’s as a concept)
-i bought from amazon tyunai 9/10 because it’s about contemporary french poetry (haven’t read yet)
-i bootlegged the Poetry/Poésie issue of Sub/Stance (i am 90% through this)
-i had a subscription to Black Warrior Review from entering a contest and have gotten 2 issues (first one is 100% read, second one i haven’t started)
i think that is it, maybe, feel like this would be easier if i were at home to look at my shelf
+
I forgot, I also bought
The Coming Envelope Issue 1 and have finished it. It was short but it was on nice paper.
also, my favorite journal from those listed above were Soft Targets Vol 1 & 2, and mainly it was because in addition to ‘new’ prose & poetry there was : 1) semiotext(e)-style politic/theory, 2) inclusion of visual art that is more conceptual than just “cool looking” (which is what it seems like most lit journals go for, as a total art nerd–my degree is not in writing or english, it’s in art–juxtapos style art is actually irritating), and most importantly 3 the inclusion of writing from the 60s and 70s that fit with the overall aesthetic of the mag.
10 maybe for me.
But I also get my university to subscribe to 10, as a rule, and I mean 10 new every year, so it accumulates (continuing the older subscriptions)
As far as reading, i can get the “feel” of a mag quickly. If I don’t like the “feel” I shut down after 30 pp.
I also flip through, just pick things random, esp if beered.
The 10 i order I read ALL. Every word.
People give me mags all the time. Have no idea why. I read them while oil changed/hair cut/waiting for the end to world.
Actually maybe a lot more than this, at least if things like lit mag fairs and used mags at used book stores count.
My job forces me to look at magazine/journal covers all day and then wander around thinking about the articles/stories advertised or listed. A sucker for my own imagination, I probably end up buying 30 or 40 a year and usually only read whatever caught my eye in the first place. But I honestly do plan on going back and finishing these things someday. Possibly when the world runs out of paper?
I do always finish RCF (except the “; or The Whale” issue. Wussed out.), but that’s not a mag.
30 or so a yr, probably–some I subscribe to, some I just buy online, and the rest I usually pick up at St. Mark’s. I read all of some of them and hardly any of others–just depends why I bought them.
I actually don’t know what to do with these when I’m done. I usually just put them in the laundry room and they disappear pretty quickly. I keep trying to give them (not sell, just give) to used bookstores and they won’t take them.
Hobart and ASF are two of the ones I always read right away and all the way through. Unsaid, Annalemma, PANK and NOON, too. Oh, and NYTyrant.
the responses remind, how teen me, in the nineties, would hunt, with a hunch, the alternative, indie, obscurity, that something grand is out there, there just has to be. started with samplers, penpal mixtapes, sometimes any affordable ad in a zine. then i’d focus on one or two labels, with total trust, until i arrive at a scant band or three, so superlative, think i must, must have everything emanating, oh yeah, this is the one. soon samplers seemed juvenile, needn’t spend time searching no maw. (though there always was more lunch money i could, in anorexia, reserve). mixtapes i cared more that I’d make, and scarcely touched those I got back in the trade. // sure wish that that-then fervor might have also seeped toward lit (or film! fah, i was such a fickle aesthete! thank you MTV and perhaps a still-undiagnosed ADD). I can’t read literary mags, i want to, i can’t, i haven’t the attention span, i quit things easily, same with collections of short stories.
Both focus on short stories. I took a fiction class offered by Zoetrope, so I feel like I am somehow part of it (I know that is pretty dumb). Glimmer Train seems pretty dedicated to publishing new writers, and I can leaf through copies at the bookstore.
I have read a few issues of other magazines in the past and enjoyed them, and then they disappeared.
10 maybe for me.
But I also get my university to subscribe to 10, as a rule, and I mean 10 new every year, so it accumulates (continuing the older subscriptions)
As far as reading, i can get the “feel” of a mag quickly. If I don’t like the “feel” I shut down after 30 pp.
I also flip through, just pick things random, esp if beered.
The 10 i order I read ALL. Every word.
People give me mags all the time. Have no idea why. I read them while oil changed/hair cut/waiting for the end to world.
the responses remind, how teen me, in the nineties, would hunt, with a hunch, the alternative, indie, obscurity, that something grand is out there, there just has to be. started with samplers, penpal mixtapes, sometimes any affordable ad in a zine. then i’d focus on one or two labels, with total trust, until i arrive at a scant band or three, so superlative, think i must, must have everything emanating, oh yeah, this is the one. soon samplers seemed juvenile, needn’t spend time searching no maw. (though there always was more lunch money i could, in anorexia, reserve). mixtapes i cared more that I’d make, and scarcely touched those I got back in the trade. // sure wish that that-then fervor might have also seeped toward lit (or film! fah, i was such a fickle aesthete! thank you MTV and perhaps a still-undiagnosed ADD). I can’t read literary mags, i want to, i can’t, i haven’t the attention span, i quit things easily, same with collections of short stories.
5-6 (It’s expensive shipping to Amsterdam from UK and US!) but then I tend to read them completely.
I read the index first and then the first line of the first thing in the mag, and then the contrib. notes, and then the story from the contributors I know, and then the stories/poems with the coolest titles and then the first lines of everything else, and then maybe the stuff with the best first lines.
I agree with this completely. It’s nice to find a writer that kicks your head.
Sadly, it seems to happen less often the more that I read. I won’t even look at the stuff that I liked in High School, because I refuse to kill the magic.
Those are good.
don’t buy any. usually scan ~40% the ones i’ve submitted to or get published in (recently: 34th parallel). try to read lit mags online. wish more lit-mags were readable online as pdf s. would read more if i could get reviewer’s copies but it’s cost prohibitive mailing to patagonia. if i find work i really like i’ll save as pdf and read on netbook.
I read the index first and then the first line of the first thing in the mag, and then the contrib. notes, and then the story from the contributors I know, and then the stories/poems with the coolest titles and then the first lines of everything else, and then maybe the stuff with the best first lines.
I agree with this completely. It’s nice to find a writer that kicks your head.
Sadly, it seems to happen less often the more that I read. I won’t even look at the stuff that I liked in High School, because I refuse to kill the magic.
Those are good.
I leave them on the BART train, hoping to create some kind of found-literature experience or something for someone. I wonder if it works or if they just get thrown away.
don’t buy any. usually scan ~40% the ones i’ve submitted to or get published in (recently: 34th parallel). try to read lit mags online. wish more lit-mags were readable online as pdf s. would read more if i could get reviewer’s copies but it’s cost prohibitive mailing to patagonia. if i find work i really like i’ll save as pdf and read on netbook.
I leave them on the BART train, hoping to create some kind of found-literature experience or something for someone. I wonder if it works or if they just get thrown away.
Wow…with poetry, the blurbs are often the most compelling thing.
I learned that journals don’t make a profit unless you get a two-year subscription, so I started doing that.
Rotating subscriptions to Fence, McSweeney’s, Open City, NOON, Tin House, Conjunctions, Southwest Review, Beloit Fiction Journal (a whole assload of different kinds of stories, which is nice)…
Won an issue of Juked from HTML Giant, and was really impressed (esp with the poetry, which appears to be chosen based on quality — a nice change). Plan to subscribe to that…
Usually read about half an issue, then finish them a few years later.
My favorite thing is still the contributor notes ffom Fence. Found so many great books that way, it’s not even funny…
Wow…with poetry, the blurbs are often the most compelling thing.
I learned that journals don’t make a profit unless you get a two-year subscription, so I started doing that.
Rotating subscriptions to Fence, McSweeney’s, Open City, NOON, Tin House, Conjunctions, Southwest Review, Beloit Fiction Journal (a whole assload of different kinds of stories, which is nice)…
Won an issue of Juked from HTML Giant, and was really impressed (esp with the poetry, which appears to be chosen based on quality — a nice change). Plan to subscribe to that…
Usually read about half an issue, then finish them a few years later.
My favorite thing is still the contributor notes ffom Fence. Found so many great books that way, it’s not even funny…
I buy a lot at AWP, a mix of books and journals. Good chance to try out a journal I’ve never read before, get one copy cheap (reduced rates, no shipping).
Subscribe: Annalemma, Hobart.
At recent AWP I bought Tin House, PANK, Copper Nickel, Juked. Lots of books too. I typically drop about $200 here, only spent about $100 this year though.
Sitting here on the desk I have Sleepingfish, three 2009 Paris Reviews (all with Benjamin Percy, which is why I got them), some old Other Voices that I just bought at Myopic Books here in Chicago. A Barrelhouse.
Usually I’ll pick up an issue that has people I like in it. I’ll typically read the fiction that I bought it for, and the other shorts if I like them, rarely the poetry, the interviews if I know who the people are, non-fiction if it looks appealing. So maybe 50-75%.
I buy maybe 20-30 journals a year I’d say.
I buy a lot at AWP, a mix of books and journals. Good chance to try out a journal I’ve never read before, get one copy cheap (reduced rates, no shipping).
Subscribe: Annalemma, Hobart.
At recent AWP I bought Tin House, PANK, Copper Nickel, Juked. Lots of books too. I typically drop about $200 here, only spent about $100 this year though.
Sitting here on the desk I have Sleepingfish, three 2009 Paris Reviews (all with Benjamin Percy, which is why I got them), some old Other Voices that I just bought at Myopic Books here in Chicago. A Barrelhouse.
Usually I’ll pick up an issue that has people I like in it. I’ll typically read the fiction that I bought it for, and the other shorts if I like them, rarely the poetry, the interviews if I know who the people are, non-fiction if it looks appealing. So maybe 50-75%.
I buy maybe 20-30 journals a year I’d say.
I read all the short stories in whatever lit journals I get my hands on. I read about 25% of the poetry. I don’t read much of the non-fiction in lit journals. this year, i’ve purchased one each of
southern review
vqr
zoetrope
tin house
santa monica review
one story (subscription)
conjunctions
the normal school
missouri review
new york tyrant
open city
columbia
zyzzyva
antioch review
n+1 (two editions)
contributors/free:
paris review (subscription)
The Sun (subscription)
commentary
hobart
southern review (different edition than the purchased one)
reed
Atlantic Fiction Issue
I read all the short stories in whatever lit journals I get my hands on. I read about 25% of the poetry. I don’t read much of the non-fiction in lit journals. this year, i’ve purchased one each of
southern review
vqr
zoetrope
tin house
santa monica review
one story (subscription)
conjunctions
the normal school
missouri review
new york tyrant
open city
columbia
zyzzyva
antioch review
n+1 (two editions)
contributors/free:
paris review (subscription)
The Sun (subscription)
commentary
hobart
southern review (different edition than the purchased one)
reed
Atlantic Fiction Issue