the rutgers-camden mfa program celebrates acquiring storyquarterly

Cliff Garstang has done a bit of detective work and discovered some news about StoryQuarterly. He writes at his blog:

[T]oday I was browsing the exhibitors that are scheduled to appear at AWP 2009 in Chicago next month and I noticed that “MFA at Rutgers” is sharing a table with StoryQuarterly. I checked on the web and read all about the new MFA program at Rutgers that Jayne Anne Phillips is directing, but that didn’t answer my question. Then I Googled “MFA at Rutgers” AND “StoryQuarterly” and made a very interesting discovery.

According to this press release, Rutgers University-Camden acquired StoryQuarterly in October. They plan to continue the annual publication and also plan an online publication that was supposed to have begun in the fall. Following the links, I got to a new website for StoryQuarterly, although it doesn’t give much information about how the revived magazine will operate, other than to say that Marie Hayes will continue as a consultant.

This is interesting, considering all of the hype that came out of Narrative Magazine‘s announcement that they had taken over StoryQuarterly and would continue to publish it in print annually. Cliff Garstang wants to know what happened with all of that, and I’m curious as well.

I think it would be great to see StoryQuarterly back in action, if only to know that a magazine with that kind of history carries on. For example, looking through a few back issue tables of contents in the ’90s will give you a glimpse of the makings of NOON, a result of Diane Williams editorial hand, and you can see work from Christine Schutt, Gary Lutz, Lorrie Moore, Deb Olin Unferth, etc. Obviously, you can find their work in their full length books, I think, but it’s interesting to see it in some bigger context, I suppose, other than a story collection. Lorrie Moore’s story “How to Talk to Your Mother (Notes)” appears in Self-Help, but was published in StoryQuarterly in the early ’80s – it was her second publication, if what I’ve read is correct. And this interview between Ben Marcus and Brian Evenson originally appeared in StoryQuarterly #31.

That is all for now – look for a hardcopy issue of StoryQuarterly to be published this summer. I know nothing else other than the webmaster at StoryQuarterly appears to have a sense of humor when it comes to posting submission guidelines – click on the Frequently Asked Questions link.