Poets and Writers Picnic: Is That a Lit Mag in Your Stocking?

…indeed it is…@theReviewReview is in my mailbox-stocking, now in yours on the blog & Picnic FB page.

Is That a Lit Mag in Your Stocking?

I'm stupid and/or idealistic enough to stand my ground and keep reading every single poem that comes in. - Rob MacDonald, editor of Sixth Finch

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Greetings Lit Magi,

Yeah, yeah, we know today's a holiday. But we just can't quit you, lovely readers.

From around the lit mag'osphere, here is the week's news: Flavorwire has just posted "The Year's Coolest Literary Magazine Innovations".
We were delighted to see Submittable on the list, a service which has indeed made submitting to lit mags easier than ever. At Full Stop (an online journal "committed to a...rigorous discussion of literature and literary culture" with a focus on "young writers, works in translation, and books"), Barrett Hathcock has written about the future of reading and the shortcomings of print mags. Says Hathcock, "Currently only the bravest, most well-funded [print] magazines come out a whopping four times a year. And when they do come out, they're too big...They're magazines experiencing an obesity epidemic."

This holiday season is a great time to load up on free or discounted lit mag subscriptions.The Fiction Desk's Various Authors anthology (which we reviewed here), is available for free download on i-tunes. At Writer's Relief, you can now read an interview with The Summerset Review editors and then enter to win two free issues and some lovely bookmarks. And data-saving program Pocket has just introduced a site subscription feature, which allows users to save money when subscribing to various magazines. Among the magazines included are The New York Review of Books and Virginia Quarterly Review.

Speaking of Virginia Quarterly Review, the magazine is now "actively seeking contributors" for online content. Learn more here.

Other great finds this week: The Pilgrim, a journal based in Boston and edited by Atlantic columnist James Parker, publishes stories, poems and essays written by homeless men and women. The magazine got some well-deserved coverage on NPR. Tupelo Press has launched 30/30, a thirty-day poetry marathon which challenges one poet each month to write thirty poems in thirty days. Readers are encouraged to follow the poets' work on Twitter and to express "admiration and support" with a donation to the press. And Luna Park Review has alerted us to the "best lit mag news all year": the Council of Literary Magazines and Presses (CLMP) has put its directory of lit mags and presses up on its website. The content is all free.

From the lit mag blog-o'sphere, at Tin House Roxane Gay reacts to Flavorwire's recent list of New York's 100 Most Important Living Writers by creating her own list of fab writers from all over the U.S. At Gulf Coast Joseph Scapellato gives some great tips for reading one's writing in public. His advice: "Don't be bored with the work...that you're reading." And Ploughshares editors have posted a breakdown of the work published this past year. Good news, you eager emergers: the slush pile accounts for 50% of their material!

And now, there's us. We are traveling. We are eating. We are tickling the little ones and drinking with the big ones. We are looking at 2012 in the rear view mirror and wondering what in holy heaven will happen next. And we are, of course, reading literary magazines. This week, we've got a review of Southeast Review, a veritable genre feast of a magazine, fwriction: review, an online mag that "either melts faces or rocks waffles", and The Good Men Project, whose recent essays about rape have been stirring up considerable controversy. Our interview is with Rob MacDonald, editor of online poetry mag Sixth Finch (and that thoughtful chap up there to your right). Our publishing tip comes from indefatigable Flyway editor Chris Wiewiora: "Lit Mags From the South, Y'all." Our classifieds feature some hot contests with deadlines just around the corner. And there's only one week left to enter our lit mag trivia contest for a chance to win a subscription to that zaniest of all ponies, Crazyhorse.

And that, you four leaf clovers, you lucky charms, you fortune cookies delivering messages of hope, love, and well-managed expectations, is the news in lit mags.

Thank you all for a most wonderful year. Here's to a kickass 2013.

Fondly,
Becky

P.S. Next week's newsletter will arrive on Wednesday (one day after its usually scheduled time).

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Between Accessibility and Innovation in Visual Art and Poetry

Interview with Rob MacDonald—Editor of Sixth Finch

Rob MacDonald lives in Boston and is the editor of Sixth Finch. His poems can be found in Octopus, iO,notnostrums, Sink Review, H_NGM_N and other journals.

Interview by J.Y. Hopkins and Becky Tuch