Suspend Your Disbelief

Posts Tagged ‘lit journals’

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Journal of the Week: Flyway

by Carolyn Gan

I recently moved back to Los Angeles after many, many years away. Having left soon after my high school graduation for places beyond, I am pretty much a newcomer to my own hometown.  More than once, I’ve thought I was lost only to come across something startlingly familiar: a beloved restaurant, an old friend’s driveway, the cemetery where my grandmother was buried. Lucky for me, one of the first boxes I unpacked included the Spring 2010 issue of Flyway: Journal of Writing and Environment.  Founded in 1993 at Iowa State University by Stephen Pett, Flyway showcases writing that considers how […]


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Journal of the Week subscription winners: American Short Fiction

by Celeste Ng

We’re delighted to announce the winners of our American Short Fiction Journal of the Week giveaway, chosen at random from our Twitter followers. Congratulations to: Stella MacLean (@Stella__MacLean) J.P. Cunningham (@jpcauthor) Rosemary O’Connor (@RosNovelIdeas) You’ll each receive a complimentary one-year subscription to American Short Fiction! Please contact us at winners [at] fictionwritersreview.com with your contact information and we’ll coordinate the rest. If you missed the profile of American Short Fiction and the exclusive interview with Assoiate Editor Callie Collins, you can read the whole thing in our blog archives. And remember: if you’d like to be eligible for future journal […]


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Journal of the Week subscription winners: The Missouri Review

by Michael Rudin

We’re delighted to announce the winners of our Missouri Review Journal of the Week giveaway, chosen at random from our Twitter followers. Congratulations to: Nathan Golden (@nathgolden) Robert Yune (@robertyune) Spirit Authors (@SpiritAuthors) You’ll each receive a complimentary one-year subscription to The Missouri Review! Please contact us at winners [at] fictionwritersreview.com with your contact information and we’ll coordinate the rest. If you missed the profile of The Missouri Review and the exclusive interview with Managing Editor Michael Nye, you can read the whole thing in our blog archives. And remember: if you’d like to be eligible for future journal giveaways, […]


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Five Ways to Celebrate Short Stories

by Erika Dreifus

Here at FWR, we’re certainly doing our collective best to honor the art and craft of the short story this month. But there are lots of ways that each fiction writer can celebrate short stories individually. Here are five possibilities: Participate in #StorySunday: Reminded each Sunday by @TaniaHershman, short-story fans are encouraged to share a link via Twitter to someone else’s short story using the hashtag #StorySunday. Quick. Painless. Free. Click here to see the latest #StorySunday tweets. Listen to Selected Shorts: As its brand-new website explains, Selected Shorts “is a weekly public radio show broadcast on over 130 stations […]


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Journal of the Week subscription winners: BOMB

by Celeste Ng

We’re delighted to announce the winners of our BOMB Journal of the Week giveaway, chosen at random from our Twitter followers. Congratulations to: Sonia Rumzi (@SRumzi) Fic Addict (@fic_addict) Alice Tasman (@AliceTasman) You’ll each receive a complimentary one-year subscription to BOMB! Please contact us at winners [at] fictionwritersreview.com with your contact information and we’ll coordinate the rest. If you missed the profile of BOMB and the exclusive interview with General Manager, Digital Strategy Paul Morris, you can read the whole thing in our blog archives. And remember: if you’d like to be eligible for future journal giveaways, please visit our […]


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Journal of the Week: BOMB

by Michael Rudin

In May of 1981, a bomb went off. At the time, a tribe of Tribeca artists thought their newly minted BOMB magazine would do just that: bomb. Tank. Fail miserably. They had the courage to print an ambitious first run of 1,000 issues but expected to sell just a fraction of them. Reader reaction was, to their surprise, explosive. BOMB’s hope for a forum in which artists could speak about their work in the same ways they spoke about it amongst themselves wasn’t just well received, it was rallied behind. For the first time, a journal pinned artists together regardless […]


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Journal of the Week: Gulf Coast

by Michael Rudin

To the uninitiated, a group to which I belong and will forever remain, the literary journal circuit can be a daunting index of titles backed by an even more daunting list of founding universities, non-profits, and artistic heroes—a collage of mastheads and mission statements boasting achievements and honors that, after a while, blend into one giant ecosystem: The lit journal. Unless you subscribe to and read each one—yes, a brave few have tried—you’ll find yourself relying on friends and fellow readers, anthologies, and posts like these to learn about a particular journal’s taste and aesthetics, its history and goals for […]


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Journal of the Week: Ploughshares

by Michael Rudin

Rebecca Makkai’s Professor Alex Moore is one of the most memorable characters in 2010’s Best American Short Stories. Not just because she accidentally kills an albatross while hunting ducks in Australia, or because as a teacher of “Rime of the Ancient Mariner” she becomes a minor celebrity on campus due to the ironic crime, but because that one pull of the trigger sets forth a steady unraveling of her personal and professional lives—so thorough a deconstruction that the reader soon joins Moore in doubting its authenticity. The conclusion to Makkai’s “Painted Ocean, Painted Ship” does what you would expect a […]


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The new look of MQR

Sometimes a fresh coat of paint and general sprucing up is all that’s needed to reinvigorate a literary journal’s true offering: knockout writing. Michigan Quarterly Review (MQR) has done just that with their website – redesigned as a clean, sleek affair in easy-on-the-eyes serifs and shades of charcoal and leafy green. Check out their new aesthetic here: michiganquarterlyreview.com Last year Jonathan Freedman assumed the role of Editor, taking over for Larry Goldstein, who ran MQR for more than three decades. In addition to welcoming on several Associate Editors – Michael Byers, who is on sabbatical this year, as well as […]




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