Suspend Your Disbelief

Posts Tagged ‘lit magazines’

Shop Talk |

Thursday morning candy: failbetter.com

by Lee Thomas

failbetter.com has their Winter 2011 issue up and available. You can read fiction from Caren Beilin, Jimmy Chen, and Alexandra Chasin. Also featured: a story called “The Snowstorm as Romantic Accumulation,” written by Ryan Call and Christy Call, a brother and sister. The piece is an excerpt from their ongoing field guide to North American weather. I’m always intrigued by collaborations – especially in something as personal and finicky as fiction. The Calls’ approach to the story has several elements that draw me in: elemental musing, family, a dash of mystery. Their story begins: A snowstorm consists of an almost […]


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Book of the Week Giveaway: Glimmer Train–Winter 2011

by Anne Stameshkin

Each week we give away several free copies of a featured novel or story collection as part of our Book-of-the-Week program. Last week we featured Matt Bell’s How They Were Found, and we’re pleased to announce the winners: Joan Dempsey, Amy Hanridge, and Jarrid Deaton. Congratulations! Each will receive a copy of the book, signed by the author. This week we’re featuring the Winter 2011 Issue of Glimmer Train Stories. Editors (and sisters) Linda B. Swanson-Davies and Susan Burmeister-Brown have been editing the iconic literary journal for more than two decades. From its distinctive cover art to the longstanding tradition […]


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Glimmer Train Open

by Lee Thomas

Glimmer Train hosts several “Fiction Opens” each year, which provide an opportunity to submit to a terrific journal with a chance at some serious prizes: Open to ALL writers. First place has gone to beginners with no previous publications and to accomplished, established writers. All are welcome. Word count range: 2,000 – 20,000. (Yes, a 2,000 word piece can compete against a 20,000 word piece—it’s the story that counts.) First place wins $2,000 and publication in Issue 82 of Glimmer Train Stories. Second- and third-place winners receive $1,000/$600 (or if chosen for publication, $700). The December contest closes on January […]


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Thursday morning candy: Waccamaw

by Lee Thomas

It’s been out for a while, but I’ve been perusing Waccamaw: A Journal of Contemporary Literature, Vol. 6. The biannual, online journal out of Coastal Carolina University includes fiction by Julie Babcock, Sarah McCraw Crow, Billy O’Callaghan, Nick Ripatrazone, and Jennifer Spiegel, along with poetry, essay, and a long interview with poet Natasha Trethewey. There’s also a transcript of Trethewey’s Emory University Distinguished Faculty Lecture, which she delivered earlier this year. In it, she observes: It seems to me that all writers, at some point, must respond to a question—posed either by themselves or someone else—in order to answer, as […]


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Thursday morning candy: The Nashville Review

by Lee Thomas

The third issue of The Nashville Review – an online celebration of storytelling out of Vanderbilt University – is live, and it’s a doozy. You can read copious amounts of fiction, listen to musical/poetic mashups between the likes of composer Andrew Bird and poet Galway Kinnell (I always like a little music and poetry as a foil to fiction), straight-up poems, interviews, comics, experimental dance. I feel like here is where one of those Batman & Robin “Kabow!” graphics should just obliterate this blog post. The NR’s mission is also the kind of benevolent, gather round the campfire and tell […]


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Crazyhorse Prizes

by Lee Thomas

You’ve got about six weeks to polish up that story you’ve been laboring over for the past few months (years?), or start something brand new, to submit to The Crazyhorse Fiction Prize by January 15, 2011. Last year’s fiction judge was Aimee Bender, who selected the winning entry, “All Galaxies Moving” by Marjorie Celona (which is included in the current issue of Crazyhorse No. 78, pictured here). Recent fiction prize judges have included Ann Patchett, Ha Jin, Antonya Nelson, Dan Chaon, T. M. McNally, Diana Abu-Jaber, Michael Martone, and Charles Baxter. The winner of the prize will receive $2,000, and […]


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A little bird told me

by Lee Thomas

Every month, new and no-doubt worthy literary magazines are launched. Many seek to fill a particular niche in the literary landscape, a place to assemble writers concerned with, say, the intersection of the Southern Gothic and SciFi traditions in flash fiction (that actually sounds like a magazine I’d like to read). New on the scene this month is Carrier Pigeon Magazine (my initial search turned up trade magazines targeted to pigeon enthusiasts). The brainchild of a group of artists and illustrators, who view fiction as a natural partner to their visual work, Carrier Pigeon is a quarterly publication that seeks […]


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The new look of MQR

by Lee Thomas

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 […]


Interviews |

Sabotage and Subversion: An Interview with Joshua Furst

by Lee Thomas

Joshua Furst grapples with the human condition by creating characters on the edge. They inhabit the fringes of society, sanity and cultural norms, but remain incredibly grounded in a common American experience, with all its oddball rituals and quirks.


Interviews |

Talking with the Dead: An Interview with Yiyun Li

Yiyun Li (Gold Boy, Emerald Girl) discusses with Angela Watrous what it means to be an American writer; the elusive process of revision; the art of transforming stories into screenplays; and the act of talking aloud to famous dead writers.




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