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Before you call out this Los Angeles–based writer for Hollywood-style gloating and name-dropping, allow me to point out that A Public Space not only published Jesmyn Ward a full year before our interview, the Brooklyn-based literary journal published her debut story in only its fifth issue. The editors recently repeated their feat of foresight by including Jesmyn’s work in their latest issue, their announcement coming a full month before the National Book Award’s. But returning to Jesmyn’s work in Issue 14 wasn’t about maximizing coverage or marketing savvy. It was about recognizing great storytelling by bringing it to the masses, something we try to do here with the Journal of the Week series and something A Public Space has been doing since 2006.

Jesmyn Ward, author of Salvage the Bones

A Public Space began with a simple goal: to support a new generation of writers and to “give voice to the twenty-first century.” In every issue the editorial team tries to answer the questions posed by Marilynne Robinson’s essay in their debut issue: Why write fiction? Why read it? What does fiction mean and what does it matter?

On its way to answering these questions (and discovering National Book Award winners), A Public Space has developed a track record of success, with its stories earning recognition from Best American Short Stories, O. Henry Prize Stories, and Pushcart Prize anthologies, and its authors receiving honors from the Whiting Writers’, Rona Jaffe, and Lannan Awards as well as MacArthur Fellowships.  And while A Public Space is dedicated to capturing this century’s voice, it isn’t shy about trying to capture the century’s many different mediums as well. Issues include poetry, nonfiction, essays, art, photography, and more, with fiction as the carefully-curated crux binding it all together.

Walt Whitman. Image: Library of Congress.

And in this department, Issue 14 grabs you with its very first story, “Is That You, Walt Whitman?” by Therese Stanton.  A narrative on poetry, the story inserts you into the mind of Whitman, providing readers with a peek into the actual creative “spark” for the first edition of Leaves of Grass, the 12-poem collection that so thoroughly astonished Ralph Waldo Emmerson. In Stanton’s story, a chorus of muses unlock Whitman’s mind for the endeavor ahead while doing the same for the readers contemplating the rest of the issue. It’s good advice for Whitman and good advice for us: “Be ceaseless.”

Next, readers find themselves thrust toward the second and third pieces in the issue, an illustrated guide of New York post-9/11 and a prison memoir from none other than Eva Zeisel. I loved this trifecta for its range alone, but it was the memoir from Zeisel that hit home, illustrating the dark communistic cloud of distrust that my parents and grandparents spoke of in hushed tones, even here in America. Tossing us with her into the cat-and-mouse game of prison interrogation, Zeisel alternates dry humor at her treatment with the story of how she survived it all, a tale as unconventional as the tone in which she addresses her five-plus years in Russia:

What were my feelings? First of all, you are in a cage, in a dark gray-green cage, without any books, without anything to do. You cannot survive if you say, “This is a mistake. I must be released!” You can only survive by saying, “I have closed my life. I have had a wonderful time, but I have nowhere to go from here.” You cannot think of your mother, you cannot think of a pussycat, you cannot think of a child, you cannot think of anything in your recent past. And there is no future. I was twenty-nine and a half. You can think of your long-ago past, or speak French to yourself.

“Karate Chop,” by Dorthe Nors, and “The Runner,” by Justin Tussing, explore relationships and personal failures, lifting readers with laughter before crushing them under heartbreak. In “Karate Chop,” the female narrator muses on the male anatomy: “In her view it was about little more than the instrumental power of the male organ. Because it could be inserted into openings, it had to be inserted into openings.” Then, not unlike in Zeisel’s memoir, the reader learns what lies hidden behind the humor, beginning with bruises and accelerating into sexual abuse before ending on the image of the narrator “lay[ing] there in a mess of blood and comforter…anything else but alive.”

Fittingly, the issue’s slate of fiction ends on Jesmyn Ward’s story, “Barefoot,” a relentless piece that explores a spectrum of hopelessness: its cast hopelessly wasting life working the graveyard shift at a gas station, hopelessly gay while in love with straight men, hopelessly accepting of those who physically abuse them, hopelessly unable to help those who can’t help themselves.

Assistant Editor Ashley Martin recently answered our Journal of the Week question set, giving additional insights into how A Public Space evolved and how it plans to evolve online and off in the years ahead:

What is the role of A Public Space in today’s literary community, be it for readers or writers?

APS is wonderful because I think that it speaks to writers as well as those who do not write.  APS Focus portfolios, each of which showcases writing from a different country (we’ve had Peru, Japan, Italy, and Antarctica, to name a few), are opportunities for editor and reader both to get out into the world.  Brigid Hughes says it best in her Welcome in the debut issue:  ”A literary forum for the stories behind the news, a fragment of an overheard conversation, a peek at the novel the person next to you on the subway is reading, the life you invent for the man in front of you at the supermarket checkout line.  Ideas and stories about the things that confront us, amuse us, confound us, intrigue us.”

How do you see A Public Space’s mission and tastes evolving in the next two years? Will the rise of digital publishing impact the composition of A Public Space?

We use our website to showcase additional projects that A Public Space is involved in, though the printed magazine stands by itself. For example, when we co-published Monkey Business: New Writing from Japan this spring, we had a series of posts by Monkey Business authors, editors, and translators in conversation.  I expect that we will continue to use the website in this manner over the next couple of years—to let our interested readers know what we are up to outside of the physical magazine they receive, but also to, for a moment, dissolve the barrier between the reader and the physical object that is the magazine.  The features on the website (our Stet? column, for example, in which Anne McPeak, the managing editor, shares an interesting remark/conversation/story that she came upon while editing the current issue) tend to reveal what our authors, editors, and collaborators are thinking, and their unique processes, and may be seen as a sort of cross-section of the living organism—a glimpse of the moving parts.

If you could put three items in a time capsule (or USB drive), to be opened in 1,000 years, that would provide a snapshot of A Public Space’s aesthetic today, what would they be?

1. Michael Thomas’s essay “Who’s Your Daddy?  A Modified Journal Entry” in APS 4, because it does a fine job of revealing what it is like to live now. – Brigid Hughes, Founding Editor
2. “Double Happiness,” by Mary-Beth Hughes in APS 7 – Anne McPeak, Managing Editor
3. Salvatore Scibona’s story “The Woman Who Lived in the House” in APS 10.  - Ashley Martin, Assistant Editor

What album is playing on the A Public Space stereo these days?

There’s a peculiar set of noises that commingle in our office.  We’re located in a revamped carriage house, and in fair weather we open up the huge doors to the street, so we get delivery trucks, shouting schoolchildren, snippets of dramatic cell phone conversations, the patter of flip-flops… Inside, Brigid usually has NPR streaming from her computer, and I’ve been playing mellow stuff that jives well with the radio (M. Ward, Sufjan Stevens, Beirut).

Head over to the snazzy A Public Space website to read archived stories, order back issues, and subscribe. And don’t forget to follow and friend them. There’s no reason to keep your love of Public private.

~

As a special bonus to readers of Fiction Writers Review, we’ll be giving away three free subscriptions to A Public Space! If you’d like to be eligible for this week’s drawing (and all future ones), please visit our Twitter Page and “follow” us.

For those of you already in the FWR Twitter family, you know our presence there exists in part to inform followers of what’s happening here on the site, as well as to update the community on literary trends, worthwhile links, etc. We couldn’t be happier to see this role expand in a way that allows us to put journals we love in the hands of readers who will love them too.

Think of them as the literary equivalent of beer-of-the-month clubs. For less than the price of a hardback book, you can send an entire year’s worth of brand-new literature straight to a friend or loved one’s mailbox. And you’ll be supporting organizations that, in turn, support emerging and established writers alike.

But which magazine to pick? It’s hard to go wrong with lit mags, but here are some of our favorites (click on any title to learn more):

• Old stalwarts like Ploughshares, The Paris Review, and Glimmer Train offer a buffet of treats to the omnivorous reader.
• Got a friend with quirky tastes? How about AGNI, PANK, or Hobart, all of which pride themselves on pushing the boundaries of fiction?
• For the reader-on-the-go, One Story offers a single short story in each issue—perfect for tucking into a purse or briefcase.
• For your trendsetting friend, journals like Slice and BOMB champion up-and-coming new talent.
• For the attentionally challenged, perhaps a flash-fiction journal like NanoFiction would hit the spot.
• Or think locally: see if the university or college nearest your reader-friend has a journal. Connecting readers to the local writing scene—now there’s a gift that keeps on giving.

Check back every day in December for another bookish gift idea from FWR!

In truth, success is not always such a mean, linear progression. Those who do get ahead – in writing and publishing, not to mention less-literary pursuits – get there with a little help from their peers. That’s the idea behind Slice, the Brooklyn-based literary magazine where new voices get a boost when printed alongside interviews by more famous ones.

Slice was founded in 2006 when two Random House editorial assistants, Maria Gagliano and Celia Johnson, were disappointed that publishing didn’t focus more on helping up-and-comers. Even from their entry-level vantage points, they could see that too much attention was focused on existing platforms. In founding Slice, the pair hoped to create their own platform for identifying bright new voices and ushering them towards future publication and praise. They do this by featuring stories, poems, and essays by new writers next to interviews by legendary authors like Salman Rushdie and Ray Bradbury.

These side-by-side pairings of famous writers with less famous ones sets the tone for the magazine. Like its subtitle, “A Room Full of Voices,” the magazine reads like a fabulous dinner party where Pulitzer Prize winner Junot Diaz shares his stories while sitting beside a previously unpublished author from Mexico City. Slice is a journal with a spirit of collaboration more than competition.

While its readership crosses the nation, Slice frequently makes reference to its own literary community: Brooklyn. Interviews with literary borough ambassadors Paul Auster and Jonathan Lethem offer insights into the local culture, and a playful “Literary Tour of Brooklyn” on the back pages of Issue 8 tells you that the best place to stalk famous writers is certainly the Brooklyn Flea. Slice’s sense of community is an expansive one, though. They are just as likely to print a startling short story about the Great Plains (Rob Roensch’s wonderful “Oklahoma City”) as they are to discuss the trees growing in Brooklyn during Maurice Sendak’s childhood (from a not-to-be-missed interview in the recently released Issue 9!).

Taking the camaraderie off the page, the editors also maintain a Twitter/Tumblr feed, called CoverSpy, of what folks are reading on the subway, and they host events where they foster the book-loving community. The magazine comes to life during these unique, live interactions between emerging and established writers.  Slice events range from literary game shows, readings, and parties to a recent writers’ conference. At each event, new readers discover Slice and not only subscribe to the journal, but also take part in the community they have helped cultivate.

Now in its fourth year of publication, Slice has seen some of the young writers they publish progress in their careers. The first issue of Slice contained work by Patricia Engel, for example, whose first book, Vida, was later a New York Times Notable Book of the Year, a finalist for the PEN/Hemingway Fiction Award, and Barnes & Noble’s “Best Book of the Year.”  And in the years since its first issue, Slice itself has thrived, too. Issue 9 (theme: “Into the Wild”) is on newsstands now, and Issue 10 is on the way in March.

Between her duties at Slice and those as an editor with the Hachette Book Group, Celia Johnson took a moment to answer our questions:

What is the role of Slice in today’s literary community, be it for readers or writers?

Slice is designed to bridge the gap between emerging and established writers, to spark a dialogue between the two groups, and to help new voices find an audience, both in our magazine and beyond.

How do you see Slice’s mission and tastes evolving in the next two years?  Will the rise of digital publishing impact the composition of Slice?

We are excited about all of the new opportunities that are evolving from the digital growth of publishing.  We do plan to publish the magazine online (in addition to print) at some point in the near future.  Right now, we feature excerpts using Issuu on our website (if you haven’t checked out Issuu yet, we suggest taking a look–they’re at the forefront of online publishing!).  We are posting more unique content on our website (story and interview excerpts, a literary calendar for events in New York, newsy items about the book world, blog posts).

We also have a Twitter/Tumblr feed called CoverSpy that has received rave reviews from the press.  A team of undercover Slice spies hit the New York City streets and post the covers that they spot, in addition to brief descriptions of the people they see reading them. CoverSpy offers a unique blend of old (featuring print covers) and new (featuring them via an online outlet).

If you could put three items in a time capsule (or USB drive) to be opened in 1,000 years that would provide a snapshot of Slice’s aesthetic today, what would they be?

Junot Diaz. Photo by Christopher Peterson.

Our interview with New York Times–bestselling and award-winning author Junot Diaz from Issue 1. Junot supported Slice from the very beginning, simply because he believed in the cause. Since that point, a large number of renowned authors have jumped on the bandwagon, from one issue to the next, but he was our first heavy-hitter.

Any of our published work—fiction, nonfiction, or poetry—from new voices would capture the spirit of the magazine. They’re an eclectic bunch of pieces, but they all share one common thread: we couldn’t put them down. From our most recent issue, we’d pick “Her Own Special Touch” by Jackie Shannon Hollis, “Country Miles” by Colin Fleming, and “Winter Harbor” by Elizabeth Bevilacqua.

A recent cover of Slice. Our covers feature artwork by local Brooklyn artists. Amy Sly, our art director, has made Slice a standout visual magazine, with a two-color design and stunning illustrations from local artists that compliment the poetry and prose.

What album is playing on the Slice stereo these days?

The Band has recently taken over Explosions in the Sky.

To see a preview of Issue 9, visit Slice’s website, or better yet, consider subscribing to the journal to receive a bi-annual treat in your mailbox. Back issues are also available in bundles. Writers just starting out or those more established can submit stories, essays, or poems.

Image via Housing Works website

And proving yet again that camaraderie beats ladder-climbing any day, Slice is teaming up with Housing Works Bookstore this December to host a “Literary Magazine Office Party” for their fellow journal editors and interns. Since most literary magazines don’t have their own offices and thus lack office holiday parties, the generous folks at Slice and Housing Works are bringing out the karaoke machine and a white elephant gift exchange for their peers to enjoy. For details, keep an eye on Slice’s website in the next few weeks.

A successful magazine that doesn’t kick the competition? That’s a
“Room Full of Voices” that both readers and writers will want to join.

As a special bonus to readers of Fiction Writers Review, we’ll be giving away three free subscriptions to Slice! If you’d like to be eligible for this week’s drawing (and all future ones), please visit our Twitter Page and “follow” us.

One positive during that experience, however, was that a story of mine received an honorable mention from Glimmer Train’s Very Short Fiction Contest. And over the years, a few other stories placed as finalists as well. Sometimes we forget how much these small victories and near misses sustain a writer, but they sure meant the world to me. And perhaps because of that encouragement I continued to submit to the publication.

Finally, twelve years later, in the late winter of 2009, I learned that my story “What We Can” had won their Family Matters contest and would be published the following year. But in the meantime, the editors asked if I’d submit an 800-word piece on the writing process for one of their upcoming Bulletins. Once a month, Glimmer Train sends out a digital newsletter to their nearly 60,000 subscribers, which announces upcoming contests and includes several, original micro-essays on writing and craft. I knew exactly what I would write on: workshop.

Because, as it so happened, that very day I’d been in my office talking with a frustrated student. All semester she’d been diligently reading the work of her peers and offering thoughtful feedback on their work. Yet when her workshop day came, she’d gotten little in return. Week after week she’d typed up commentary with the understanding that the “payoff” of this work would be a pile of comments and feedback on her own story, and so she felt cheated and hurt when this didn’t materialize. The social contract had been broken.

“Workshop is not for you,” I told her. And that phrase would become the title of my essay. In my office with that angry student, and to readers of this piece, I tried to articulate that the real learning in workshop often comes from writing critiques, not receiving them:

Being forced to analyze the effectiveness of other writers’ stories and to then provide them with clear, concise, specific suggestions for improvement will do more to develop a writer’s craft than almost anything else. Through this process writers develop a stronger objectivity about their own work, sharpen their critical thinking skills, and hone their language. A writer can’t always recognize flat dialogue or abrupt scenes or uneven pacing in her own work, but she can sure as hell see it in someone else’s. And the more adept she becomes at identifying it elsewhere, the more easily that skill becomes adapted into her own writing–it becomes second nature.

Now, this idea is not exactly news to those of us who’ve participated in workshops over the years. But it was some consolation to this student, I am happy to say. And in the years since the essay’s publication, I’ve heard from other instructors who’ve told me they’ve used the piece successfully in their classrooms as well.

So I wanted to take just a moment to make a pitch for the excellent resource that Glimmer Train’s Bulletin is for both writers and teachers of writing, and to highlight just a few of the essays that speak to or intersect with both our teaching and our writing lives.

• “On Writing, Not Writing, and the Writing Life,” by Kathryne Young

I’d like to think that my writing self is different from the self who stands in front of sociology undergraduates and dutifully lectures them about qualitative research methods. I’d like to believe she is wiser, wistful, more creative, and that she comes out of hiding on certain early mornings when the time is right and the coffee is rich and hot, that she writes a few stunning pages and slips back into bed while my other self drives into Palo Alto to make a living. Perhaps this division appeals to me because it makes me feel less guilty when I haven’t written anything in a month: only my writing self can write, and she’s moody. If the conditions aren’t perfect, she can’t be expected to emerge.

But in the end, there is only me and my busy, imperfect life. The days that I write are victories. And even after the most discouraging, least productive sessions, I never regret writing. I learn over and over that time spent writing is time well spent.

• “On Revision,” by Christopher Bundy

Writing happens in revision, where a story’s subtleties and calculated strategies develop. The hallucination that begins most stories is just that: a fantasy that may or may not find solid ground or truth. The rush of whimsy that begins a story is bliss, the first taste of writing as addiction—we return to the desk praying for another taste of that heaven. For me, however, revision is bliss. There is the possibility to make things right, a chance to find and craft truth out of fantasy. Revision separates wannabes from writers. Every writer has had someone—friend, family, stranger—offer a “wonderful idea” for a story bouncing around in his head for years but one he just couldn’t realize. Every writing teacher knows that students are busloads of fabulous ideas. Few embrace revision.

• “Why I Wanted To Kill My Instructor and How He Got Me Published,” by Michael Schiavone

When I was twenty-five, I took a fiction writing workshop in Boston. The thirty-something instructor’s debut story had just been published in the Atlantic Monthly, back when they printed fiction on a regular basis. This was not the type of man who held hands and wiped noses when it came time for critiques. While today I call him an honest and insightful mentor, eight years ago I wanted to kick his ass all over the Boston Common.

• The Bulletin is free. You can sign up here.
• You can also search the Bulletin Archives for previously published essays in this series.
• Editor’s Note: We feature a complimentary ad for Glimmer Train on our site as a “Thank You” for the tremendous work they’ve done on behalf of writers over the last twenty years. It is not a paid ad. Few publications support and nurture emerging writers like their organization. We hope you’ll consider subscribing.

Kittens get adopted because they’re cute and fuzzy, with big eyes and adorable faces. (And those wee paws! Those little whiskers! Those tiny noses! Ahem.) But what about lit mags? No big eyes, no fuzzy paws—but they, too, deserve to be adopted.

Enter the Council of Literary Magazines and Presses’ Lit Mag Adoption Program, which offers discounted subscriptions to literary journals in exchange for insider access for the students. Says the program’s website:

Most poetry, short fiction, and creative non-fiction by emerging writers first finds its way into print through literary magazines, yet few student writers actively engage with the spectrum of magazines published today. By integrating literary magazines into course curricula and providing opportunities for one-on-one interaction between literary magazine publishers and creative writing students (a key component of the program), the Lit Mag Adoption Program promotes a generation of new writers that are also active readers and productive members of the larger literary community. [...]

Each participating class will receive at least two issues of the magazine during the semester. In addition, classes will have direct interaction with the magazine publisher/editor through a virtual (or in-person where local) “One-on-One” chat session.

Participating journals include Ploughshares, Electric Lit, A Public Space, TinHouse, ZYZZVA, and many others. Longtime FWR readers may remember that we blogged about this program when it launched in 2010, but since we’re focusing on teaching and writing this month, we wanted to draw your attention to it again as a great resource for teachers and students alike.

Check back here at Fiction Writers Review for more teaching-related essays and interviews, as well as teaching-focused content on the blog every day in September!

Big Fiction Magazine is a new literary journal dedicated to the long story. From their website:

Big Fiction was created with the goal of providing a beautiful home for long fiction that otherwise would not find a place in traditional literary magazines. We are a new journal for literature at leisure—stories to curl up with for an afternoon (or pack along on your next journey), proudly housed in covers made the old-fashioned way, using foundry type set by hand and printed on a vintage press.

The long story is pure magic: It meanders. It accumulates. It hangs out and makes a (good) mess. It can encompass entire lifetimes—marriages, deaths, betrayals, redemption—in its sweep. The familiar short story and novel are much loved, but we want to turn you on to everything in between: “big” fiction with big ideas, drama, character, and vision. Great entertainment in just the right generous dose.

Their first issue is forthcoming this summer and can be ordered through their website. (Thanks to Derek Mong for the tip!)

The Magathon: Saturday, June 11th, 4-6:30 PM
New York Public Library’s DeWitt Wallace Periodical Room, 5th Ave. at 42nd St.

In this “marathon” reading, editors of lit journals will present selections from their first issues.

The GIANT Lit Mag Fair at Housing Works: Sunday, June 12th, 11-4PM
Housing Works Used Book Café, 126 Crosby Street in Soho

Lucky you, New Yorkers—you can pick up tons of lit mags for only $2 a copy! Magazines from all over the country will be represented, and many of their editors will be there to meet and greet as well. Says the newsletter, “Proceeds go to Housing Works, a nonprofit organization serving homeless people living with AIDS, and to The Council of Literary Magazines and Presses, a nonprofit organization serving independent literary publishers.”

Both events are free and open to the public.

Thankfully we can read stories year round, but I still feel the urge (while they’re center stage) to list two recommendations this week. They both come from Narrative magazine, which does require (free) registration. But I promise, these stories are so good, it’s worth filling out a quick form to read them. And Narrative offers a huge, inspiring, and ever-growing archive of fiction from emerging writers to authors as well known as Margaret Atwood and T. C. Boyle; if I weren’t headed to a wedding this afternoon, I might curl up with this site all day.

“At the Wrong Time, to the Wrong People,” by Cara Blue Adams

Here are the first two paragraphs. [Editor's Note: Do not read this without a box of tissues within reach.]

She and her sister work together silently. They no longer need to speak. They focus on the dog, moving him as they would a mattress. Half collie, half German shepherd, he weighs a good eighty pounds. Together they prop his forelegs on the stairs that lead to the second floor of the house. He whines softly as they raise his legs so that his body stretches toward the sky.

She holds the dog’s bowl to his mouth. Seven. This is the seventh day that he has not been able to eat properly, that his esophagus has refused to function, that she and her sister have needed to hold him in such a way that gravity pulls the food from his throat to his stomach, so that he starves more slowly than he would otherwise. A rich, meaty smell rises from the dish she holds to his nose. The dog laps weakly, pants, grins at her.

Go here to reach the rest.

If these stories inspire you to get typing, visit this page to learn more about Narrative’s Spring 2011 Short Story Contest. The deadline is July 31.

]]> http://fictionwritersreview.com/blog/curl-up-with-some-good-stories-from-narrative/feed 0 http://fictionwritersreview.com/blog/journal-of-the-week-american-short-fiction http://fictionwritersreview.com/blog/journal-of-the-week-american-short-fiction#comments Tue, 24 May 2011 13:00:15 +0000 Michael Rudin http://fictionwritersreview.com/?p=22775 In the end, I don’t have many literary magazines because I give most away. Leaving them at coffee shops and airports, with friends and family, I pay my journals forward, margin notes and all.

But I kept American Short Fiction Volume 13, Issue 47.

My experience with #47 began with its second-to-last-story—a sin the editors must forgive me, for I had not yet learned of the careful strategy with which they assemble every issue’s order. I started there because the story, “Walker, Wallace, Warren” had been written by Matt Bell, and his was the first name I recognized in the issue’s table of contents; I’d been prepping a review of Best of the Web 2010, for which he is Series Editor.

Up to that point, I’d read plenty of Bell’s work—How They Were Found, “Wolf Parts,” “An Index of How Our Family Was Killed”—but the piece he’d submitted to American Short Fiction was something else entirely. Gorgeous, compact, haunting, but most of all: different. Pretty good descriptions for the journal itself, I’d realize two hours later, my first issue behind me.

Top to bottom, #47 serves as a perfect microcosm for everything you might want from a literary journal. The first story comes from Laura van den Berg, an author American Short Fiction’s supportive editors showed no hesitation publishing for a second time. The second, “Shantera,” is about a brick-carrying babysitter. The third is told from the perspective of a giraffe. The fourth, Susan Steinberg’s “Cowboys,” went on to win a Pushcart. The fifth, Matt Bell’s, is only the first half of a one-two punch that ends with Marie-Helene Bertino’s “Carry Me Home, Sisters of Saint Joseph,” a hilarious story you don’t want to stop reading for the way it unearths the secret lives of nuns—for the way, as ASF’s editor Jill Meyers put it, their “teaching order has a deep, triumphant lust for life—and for Led Zeppelin.”

In one issue, the journal championed one of its own and took risk after risk after risk, ultimately winning a Pushcart for the trouble.

Four issues later, we have arrived at #51, a new spring issue that lives up to big sister’s lofty success. Not only does it boast a debut author—Michael Fauver’s story “Fancier”—it provides us with a story told from the perspective of a reality TV star, Bravo-TV fiction deserving of a bravo itself. And once again saving best for last, the issue ends with Matthew Baker’s “The Wrong Chemicals,” a story that not only echoes Bell’s as haunting and different but may well win awards like Steinberg’s. Equal parts unbalancing and consuming, it is speculative fiction at its best and possibly a thesis for the issue, summed up by Meyers in the Editor’s Note:

Many of the stories in this issue could not have been written ten years ago. And not because they feature iPads or cloud computing or are composed in neat aphorisms of 140 characters. No, it’s neither the technology nor the new forms that make them of the moment—these stories capture the way we live now. Our sensibilities and obsessions. Our drive to share what we know and what we feel with others, even with the world at large—and how this drive can conflict with our need for privacy and deeper intimacy.

As its name suggests, American Short Fiction is a melting pot of what makes today’s literary scene so exciting. Reality TV and giraffes beside Pushcarts and speculative fiction? This is fun, vibrant, challenging literature. But American Short Fiction can also be a label, a promise of quality—a suggestion of iconic, confident storytelling. And again, American Short Fiction delivers, while still infusing its pages with a bit of its indie Austin spirit.

That spirit began in the early ’90s when Laura Furman founded American Short Fiction at the University of Texas Press. Before closing down in 1998, American Short Fiction was anthologized in Best American Short Stories, the O. Henry Prize Stories, and the Pushcart Prize: Best of the Small Presses anthology. After a temporary step out of the limelight, the journal relaunched in 2006 as an independent literary magazine.

Since then, the editors have maintained the magazine’s original mission—to publish emerging authors alongside established authors—while stretching to publish truly innovative work. Although they’re always thrilled to be someone’s debut publication, they’re just as thrilled to work closely with them through the editing process. And yes, they’re just as thrilled to celebrate after publication at quarterly launch parties.

At this point, it’s wise to pass the baton to Associate Editor Callie Collins, who was kind enough to share answers to our “Journal of the Week” questions:

What is the role of American Short Fiction in today’s literary community, be it for readers or writers?

American Short Fiction wants to do many, many things. But mostly we think that our role is to curate—really curate—the best magazine we possibly can. That means we spend a ton of time thinking about each issue, playing around with the order of stories in it, really considering how the stories relate to one another, jump off and settle into one another—all in order to craft a literary magazine that people actually enjoy reading. We mean, a magazine that someone will read by the pool, or on a plane, or out loud to their friends, even if their friends aren’t writers.

Supporting our writers is something we consider a huge priority. We want to help propel them to success on as large a level as possible. We pay our authors well and work with them through a rigorous editorial process. We keep up with them and do all we can to support them as they build careers and publish remarkable collections and win all sorts of prizes.

We’re also proud to be in Austin and to be a part of a new, exciting, thriving lit scene. This is our tangible community—the faces we see at our launch parties and the writers that are working at our coffeeshops—and we couldn’t love it more.

How do you see American Short Fiction’s mission and tastes evolving in the next two years? Will the rise of digital publishing impact the composition of American Short Fiction?

We’re excited to observe and to be a part of this shift to digital publishing—and to us, it seems to be making short fiction and lit mags more relevant and successful. Who isn’t drooling over Electric Lit’s app?

ASF’s tastes are constantly evolving, but we’ll always look for stories that take risks with language and with character—stories that explore in a new way what it’s like to be a human being in this same old crazy world. I think digital publishing can help us find these stories, and can help us get them to the people that want to read them. We’re publishing a story a month online right now, and we look forward to having our own fancy app and a Kindle edition of the magazine as soon as possible.

But ASF is always going to be a print magazine. It’s important to us that readers are able to hold this thing that we’ve come together to make, to feel the weight of it. To dog-ear pages or to cuddle with it.

If you could put three items in a time capsule (or USB drive) to be opened in 1,000 years, that would provide a snapshot of American Short Fiction’s aesthetic today, what would they be?

1. The Greenwich Village Bookshop Door. The Ransom Center has in its archive—and is featuring in an upcoming exhibition—a door from Frank Shay’s Village bookstore that was signed by 238 writers, artists, and publishers between the years of 1921 and 1925. This is a strange thing to pick and the time capsule would have to be damn big, but it’s important because the door actively demonstrates a real literary community when everything was exploding… as well as the fierce connection between publishers and writers and readers. ASF’s interior layout was designed to reflect the aesthetic of the wonderful small magazines of this time period. Also, we’re head over heels for the Ransom Center, so this seems appropriate.

2. The giant Post-it notes—I’m talking 2×3 feet—that we use to take notes when we discuss stories at editorial meetings. We can talk about a single story for over an hour, fill up two Post-its, and hang them up in the office while we’re making the final decision. Talking about short fiction is the heart of what we do. Also, having them stuck to the office walls makes us look like crazies, which we enjoy.

3. A bourbon Manhattan from The Tigress or a double Americano in a little cup from Houndstooth Coffee. ASF runs on these two things. Really.

What album is playing on American Short Fiction stereo these days?

The best of Otis Redding. The entire catalogs of Explosions in the Sky and Neko Case. The new Bill Callahan! (He read at our fall launch party last year and our love for him increased exponentially.) Plus, we’re in Texas, so old country music reigns supreme. If I’m reading your story and “Mamas Don’t Let Your Babies Grow Up To Be Cowboys” comes on, you’re golden.

Since this past March, when American Short Fiction celebrated the five-year anniversary of their relaunch, the editors remain busy. Besides publishing the Spring Issue, they’ve also updated their site with a new, site-exclusive story, Jenson Beach’s “Not a Prayer but a Song.” Check back often for more stories and back issue access, and don’t forget to join the follower-ranks on Twitter, which ASF updates with everything you’re hungry for, from lit links to submission reminders.

In the end, I suppose tweets and URLs are a bit easier to share than issue #47. But with #51 firmly on my mantel, I hereby pledge to give away #47 to a random Twitter fan later this week.

Of course, no pressure to pay it forward.

As a special bonus to readers of Fiction Writers Review, we’ll be giving away three free subscriptions to American Short Fiction! If you’d like to be eligible for this week’s drawing (and all future ones), please visit our Twitter page and “follow” us.

For those of you already in the FWR Twitter family, you know our presence there exists in part to inform followers of what’s happening here on the site, as well as to update the community on literary trends, worthwhile links, etc. We couldn’t be happier to see this role expand in a way that allows us to put journals we love in the hands of readers who will love them too.

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