Literary Magazines to Buy

badducky · Mar 5, 2006

I was pondering another thread where I encourage other people to buy literary magazines...

So, why not put together a thread where we discuss which literary magazines are worth buying?

I am partial to Glimmer Train, Atlanta Monthly, One Story, and the Pushcart Prize Anthology.

What do you recommend buying?

pdr · Mar 5, 2006

Literary magazines to buy?

The Canadian ones are well worth buying. Try Descant, Prairie Fire, The Antigonish Review, Grain, Event, Harpweaver, Queen's Quarterly and Pottersfield Portfolio.

Jamesaritchie · Mar 6, 2006

Mags

The hsort answer is to buy all those you want to write for. A another short answer is to go to Barnes & Noble and buy all the ones they have. They'll all be worth reading.

The longer answer is to look at the list of magazines Pushcart get's its stories from and start reading down that list.

blacbird · Mar 6, 2006

I was down at my local Barnes & Noble just yesterday, and I took a quick browse through their racks of periodicals. Wanna know how many lit mags were there? Five. And that's being generous, counting Asimov's and Hitchcock's as lit mags.

I could have got four or five times that many celeb gossip mags, though.

caw.

Jamesaritchie · Mar 6, 2006

blacbird said:
I was down at my local Barnes & Noble just yesterday, and I took a quick browse through their racks of periodicals. Wanna know how many lit mags were there? Five. And that's being generous, counting Asimov's and Hitchcock's as lit mags.

I could have got four or five times that many celeb gossip mags, though.

caw.

Jeeze, you have one lousy Barnes & Noble, or you're looking in the wrong section. How tiny is that store. Our piddly little B&N, about a fourth the size of many, has at least twenty-five lit mags, and probably more. And this is NOT counting such magazines as The Atlantic and The New Yorker, and certainly doesn't count Asimov's, Hitchcock or any other such magazines which are in a different section all the way on the other side of the store.

I've never been in a B&E that didn't have at least a dozen top literary magazines, and most have quite a few more.

Sounds like it's time for you to have a serious talk with the manager of that particular bookstore.

badducky · Mar 13, 2006

My local BnN has two separate magazines about Alpacas.

It does not have ANY literary magazines. Not the New Yorker. Not Harper's. Sometimes it'll have the Atlantic Monthly, but it comes and goes.

Welcome to the Bible Belt, where nobody drinks, nobody dances, and the only book we read is the Da Vinci Code because it really makes you think, don't it...

Jamesaritchie · Mar 13, 2006

badducky said:
My local BnN has two separate magazines about Alpacas.

It does not have ANY literary magazines. Not the New Yorker. Not Harper's. Sometimes it'll have the Atlantic Monthly, but it comes and goes.

Welcome to the Bible Belt, where nobody drinks, nobody dances, and the only book we read is the Da Vinci Code because it really makes you think, don't it...

I live in the heart of the Bible Belt. A store that doesn't at least carry the New Yorker and The Atlantic isn't even a bookstore. Even the tiny, independent bookstores here carry The New Yorker, Harper's, and The Atlantic. I've never been in a Barnes & Noble that didn't carry these three. I don't think I've ever been in any bookstore that didn't carry them. They're all top selling magazines. Even every library I've been in has them.

I don't think being in the Bible Belt is part of the problem. I live in the Bible Belt, travel all over the Bible Belt, and never have a problem finding literary magazines. I think you just have a really lousy bookstore. Time to have a heart to heart with the manager.

Although darned few people I know in the Bible Belt have read Da Vinci Code, or want to read it. They think it's blasphemous.

BlueTexas · Mar 16, 2006

badducky said:
My local BnN has two separate magazines about Alpacas.

It does not have ANY literary magazines. Not the New Yorker. Not Harper's. Sometimes it'll have the Atlantic Monthly, but it comes and goes.

Welcome to the Bible Belt, where nobody drinks, nobody dances, and the only book we read is the Da Vinci Code because it really makes you think, don't it...

I live about forty miles from badducky, and my local B&N-part of the same Metroplex-carries Harper's, and Atlantic, Asimov's, and Ellery Queen's. That's it. You can buy twelve Nascar or body-building mags, all the quilting info you want, but literature? Umm, no. Not really. Border's is worse. They had Pamela Anderson's book in the literature section, and the blank diary/gifts section is half the size of the lit section, if that tells you anything.

God Bless Amazon.com.

rich · Mar 17, 2006

I'm a pen-throw away from NYC. Off the top of my head the closest B&N carries Zoetrope, GlimmerTrain, Rosebud (I'm in issue #33) Ploughshares, Threepenny Review, ZYZZYVA, and others.

badducky · Mar 17, 2006

Just last year my local poetry section shrank from three bookshelves to one and a half, so the Manga could be expanded.

I've got nothing against Manga. I just think it's awful that I have to special order Rimbaud, Mallarme, Simic, Ondaatje's Poetry, and etc.

It wouldn't be so bad if I didn't have to drive half an hour to buy a bottle of whiskey. They just last year passed an order allowing for wine and beer in the local grocery stores, and I hope the trend continues. Whenever I have to debate the merits of evolution on curriculums with the young ladies I meet, I feel a strong urge to go home and drink whiskey.

Yesterday I did notice one, lonely copy of the New Yorker. Apparently, they do keep it in stock, but the literature-starved masses of my neighborhood buy them all so fast it's hard to keep in stock.

You'd think they'd at least stock local University literary magazines...

CaptainCanard · Mar 17, 2006

Literary Journal Deal

Here's a deal from a few months ago.

Emerging Writers Network: Get Lit Journals

Ted · Apr 6, 2006

What?

The only people buying lit mags are writers???

awayss · Apr 20, 2006

what would you read

If you could suggest something to literary mags, what would you suggest? Would you make them more accessible? Do you think that having more lit mags in Barnes and Noble would eventually commercialize them? What would you want to read about, and what do you think people who DON'T read lit mags would want to read about? Does it have to be such a small niche of readers?

katrinka · Apr 20, 2006

I feel for you who have a crappy B & N or Borders in your area. Hey, but look at it this way. At least you do have a bookstore. I have to travel an hour out of town to get to the nearest B & N or any decent bookstore. Oh, we do have the book section of the local super WalMart, but you can imagine what's in there. They don't carry The New Yorker or Atlantic Monthly. Had to go online to subscribe. We had two malls go up in the past 3 years. Neither have a bookstore. Argh...

pdr · Apr 21, 2006

Thank you

for the list of literary magazines, Captain C. I found a couple of new ones.

Natasya · Apr 23, 2006

I never even knew such things as Lit Magazines exist. Any literary E-zines. It's hard getting anything when you don't own a credit card.

pdr · Apr 24, 2006

Just to let you know...

that's there is a sticky at the top of the Short Fiction board where this thread is.

The sticky is called Markets.

Many of the urls listed are lists of markets and you can find literary zines listed among the print ones. Indeed many of the old established print literaries are now also going on-line with a zine version too.

Natasya · Apr 28, 2006

writer's digest mentions this website! woo hoo! maybe you all already know

kojled · May 11, 2006

i have the complete new yorker on dvd. cost $85. it's an unbelievable resource for short fiction. mavis gallant is probably the greatest writer ever and tny has most of her stuff.

considering what a lit mag costs, the complete tny on disc is very competitive.

zilla
MoovyBoovy.com

Mike Coombes · May 12, 2006

I'm suprised nobody's mentioned Night Train. Excellent mag, even if they did reject me.

bsolah · May 12, 2006

You guys obviously haven't been to the land down under. We have NO lit mags at any of the bookstores I've been to. And I do mean nothing.

I've heard so much about short story mags in the US and the UK, I've subbed to e-mags and such. But I've never actually seen a hard copy literary mag. They just don't exist here unless you order them.

pdr · May 12, 2006

When I was in OZ,

bsolah, living in Melbourne, I could get the Oz literary magazines at the University (Monash Uni) bookshop. But that was 30 years ago!

You should actually support your literaries, of which there are many good ones, by buying a copy. But you live in/near Sydney? Have you been to the FAW centre in the city? The Victorian FAW had a library with copies of literary magazines so I expect your New South Wales one will too. You should join, they're helpful. You probably have a New South Wales Writers Assoc too and they will have a library. (Well, Tasmania's does so your should!) Your Federal govt also spends a lot (even though Howard's cut back) on writers' grants and courses. FAW and NSWWA will have the details and you might be able to get an OZ literary markets course paid for by them which will cover the cost of magazines for the course!

Also get a look at 'the australian Writer's marketplace' 2006. It's now published by the Queensland writers' association (www.qwc.asn.au) and lists most of the Oz literaries and our few NZ ones.

Your FAW or NSWWC will list writers near you too and you could probably get a group organised where each of you buys a different magazine and swops.

There's always a way!

Shweta · May 15, 2006

Huh, Mike, I picked up a copy of Night Train to read last weekend because a friend of mine is one of their fiction editors.

Read two stories and came away feeling like they were self-important crap, with no plausible character motivations or plot arc or anything. In both cases, I think I could tell what the writers were trying to do to the readers and I didn't appreciate it.

Perhaps other issues are better, or I just got unlucky in my story picks or something.

Mike Coombes · May 17, 2006

Night Train fills a literary niche.

If you like your stories to have a beginning, middle and end with clearly defined protagonists/antagonists, then it won't be for you.

Shweta · May 17, 2006

Mm, yeah, understood. There are certainly literary niches I don't understand at all.

But - I think - my objections aren't the ones you're responding to. There's a difference between having clear protagonists/antagonists, and having plausible (consistent and/or comprehensible) characterization and character motivation.

And there's a difference between having a clear beginning, middle, and end, and having some kind of plot arc. Or, y'know. Arc, loop, spiral, fractal, piano curve, I don't care; but I do like to think something is going on, beyond the writer jerking my chain.

Like I said, I may have picked bad examples. Or I may just not, philistine that I am, understand how avant-garde those stories were. (I have it on excellent authority that I'm a philistine <g>)

Literary Magazines to Buy

badducky

No Time For Chitchat, Kemosabe.

pdr

Jamesaritchie

blacbird

Jamesaritchie

badducky

No Time For Chitchat, Kemosabe.

Jamesaritchie

BlueTexas

Back from self-exile land.

rich

badducky

No Time For Chitchat, Kemosabe.

CaptainCanard

Ted

awayss

katrinka

pdr

Natasya

pdr

Natasya

kojled

Mike Coombes

Guru

bsolah

AW's Resident Commie

pdr

Shweta

gone

Mike Coombes

Guru

Shweta

gone