Journalism

Surveying New England's wealth of literary magazines

New England has a leg up on the rest of the nation when it comes to the literati. For one thing, the first literary magazine in the nation was founded here: the North American Review, born in Boston in 1815 in an effort, according to the review, to "rival the leading British magazines." The journal was started by William Tudor along with fellow members of his "Anthology Club" - which itself sounds a bit like an attempt to launch the social concept of an intellectual boys' night in. While there's no contemporary evidence that this male domestic-cum-scholarly tradition really took hold, Tudor and his crew clearly succeeded in establishing the trend of New England-bred literary journals. Today, our region produces more than 100 such titles, an outsize portion of the more than 500 American magazines devoted to the love of language, narrative, and poetry.

Partly, this is because New England boasts such a wealth of colleges and universities, the origin of support for many literary journals. It may also be because Greater Boston and its surrounding areas are home to so many aspiring - and tenacious - writers. As the Council of Literary Magazines and Presses explains, "Sympathetic editors at literary magazines" have historically been willing to print the work of "writers rejected by publishing houses."

And take heart. Those writers who couldn't get a publisher to give them an inch of ink before an editor at a literary journal helped launched their career include Robert Frost, T. S. Eliot, James Joyce, Ernest Hemingway, and William Faulkner, the council says.

THE TOP 10
AGNI
WHY IT'S FIRST: AGNI leads the top 10 both because it's great and because it begins with the letter "A." Says Elizabeth Searle, visiting writer at the University of Massachusetts in Boston and PEN/New England board member, AGNI "sets the gold standard for magazines in this part of the world, and for the literary world in general."
WHERE IT ORIGINATES: Boston University's graduate Creative Writing Program, under the editorship of Sven Birkerts.
WHOM IT PUBLISHES: Jhumpa Lahiri, Ha Jin, Seamus Heaney, Joyce Carol Oates, Derek Walcott, and other well- and lesser-known authors writing about "the important cultural questions that concern us." www.bu.edu/agni

PLOUGHSHARES
WHY IT'LL LAST: Because, as with AGNI, it's consistently recognized as among the best venues in the country. "Ploughshares, is of course, top-notch," says writer and literary journal contributor Tim Horvath. Moreover, "they take the interesting approach of having guest editors who are prominent writers, so the aesthetic of the magazine never gets stale."
WHERE IT ORIGINATES: Emerson College, under incoming editor Ladette Randolph (see "Shelf Life" for more information about Randolph).
WHOM IT PUBLISHES: John Irving, Russell Banks, Sue Miller, Mona Simpson, Tim O'Brien, Robert Pinsky, Jayne Anne Phillips.www.pshares.org

POST ROAD
WHY IT'S HOT: Because it's a relatively new journal that publishes a great mix of high-quality writing while maintaining its cutting-edge voice. Plus, as this writer can attest, they have the best new-issue-launch parties in town.
WHERE IT ORIGINATES: The magazine is published in Boston and New York (hence the name denoting the colonial road running between the two), under the direction of a hot trio: founding editors Jaime Clarke and David Ryan, and managing editor Mary Cotton of Newtonville Books.
WHOM IT PUBLISHES: Michael Lowenthal, Jonathan Ames, Edith Pearlman, Rick Moody, and Tom Perrotta, in addition to less well-known writers (like this author - who swears she admired the magazine, and its launch parties, long before snookering it into publishing her). www.postroadmag.com

QUICK FICTION
WHY IT'S COOL: Because Steve Almond, who's pretty cool himself, says it is. Almond, in addition to being a broadly known local fiction writer, authored the foreword to the 2008/09 edition of the Literary Press and Magazine Directory. Almond describes QF as "one super-cool little mag: It's all short shorts, great stories, great size, [and] lovely design. . . . It does what lit magazines should: provide a forum for the best up and coming writers."
WHERE IT ORIGINATES: In Salem, where it is put out semi-annually by publisher Adam Pieroni and editor in chief Jennifer Pieroni.
WHOM IT PUBLISHES: Kim Addonizio, Edgar Omar Avilés, Stace Budzko, Stephen Dixon, Tsipi Keller, and other authors producing "stories and narrative prose poems of 500 words or less." www.quickfiction.org

REDIVIDER
WHY IT'S HIP: Because it's published by all the trendy young things in the graduate program of Writing, Literature, and Publishing at Emerson College. Redivider volumes are sometimes slim, but they offer a strong sampling from emerging writers, in addition to stunning graphics (although usually only in black-and-white; the editors compensate for this on the website, using flash technology to display the artwork in an eye-catching way). Plus, it has a hip palindrome for its name.
WHERE IT ORIGINATES: Emerson College, under the direction of editor in chief Kirstin Chen.
WHOM IT PUBLISHES: Dan Gutstein, Bob Hicok, Dorianne Laux, David Lawrence, T. Cole Rachel, and Pauls Toutonghi, as well as interviews with Sam Hamill, Kelly Link, Antonya Nelson, and Richard Russo, among others. www.redividerjournal.org

NEW ENGLAND REVIEW
WHY WE READ IT: Because, like Ploughshares and AGNI, this is one of the journals most often mentioned by writers and readers - including editors of other journals, as among the nation's best. As Elizabeth Searle says, the review is a "high-class lit magazine that also happens to be secretly sexy." What's not to love about that?
WHERE IT ORIGINATES: Middlebury College, under the editorship of Stephen Donadio.
WHOM IT PUBLISHES: Suzanne Rivecca, Philip Gura, Bob Hicok, Christine Sneed, Chris Forhan, Laura Kasischke, Natasha Trethewey, and more. http://cat.middlebury.edu/~nereview/

NIGHT TRAIN
WHY WE BOOKMARK IT: Because it has a great online presence, offering each issue in full in e-format. We also love its "firebox fiction" feature, which lends itself particularly well to a quick read online, featuring what editor Rusty Barnes calls "short, punchy, and fiery" stories of 1,500 words and under.
WHERE IT ORIGINATES: Revere.
WHOM IT PUBLISHES: Robert Boswell, Timothy Gager, Jim Daniels, and other "established and emerging writers" producing works that are about "people in extreme situations," who "take a single moment and reveal its intricacies," or, explains Barnes, just happen to tap into the mood of the editors at the moment of reading. www.nighttrainmagazine.com

MASSACHUSETTS REVIEW
WHY WE BUY IT IN HARD COPY: Because the review has knockout graphics plus high-quality prose and poetry. Particularly noteworthy was its recent release titles "An Especially Queer Issue of the Massachusetts Review," offering an excellent range of pieces and tones. As for its artwork, even though in 2007 the Harvard Review was the journal recognized for cover art by the American Institute of Graphic Arts, we think the Massachusetts Review's covers are even more striking and original. Moreover, as Eric Grunwald, former managing editor of AGNI, puts it, with the MR, you get "a big bang for your buck."
WHERE IT ORIGINATES: Those five allied colleges out west: Amherst, Hampshire, Mount Holyoke, Smith, and the University of Massachusetts at Amherst.
WHOM IT PUBLISHES: Rafael Campo, Marilyn Hacker, Radwa Ashour, Frank Bidart, Jim Janko, and many others throughout its almost 50-year history. www.massreview.org

GREEN MOUNTAINS REVIEW
WHY WE ADMIRE IT: Because it's put out by a small college in Vermont without the resources of some of the others on this list but still consistently turns out the kind of prose and poetry that earns praise from the likes of Robert Atwan, founder and series editor of "Best American Essays." Atwan puts this review (as well as many others mentioned here) among the journals he sees every year when he's looking for items to include in his collection of greats.
WHERE IT ORIGINATES: Johnson State College, in Johnson, Vt., under the editorship of Neil Shepard.
WHOM IT PUBLISHES: Agha Shahid Ali, Robert Bly, Paul Hoover, Mary Oliver, Alicia Ostriker, and other "well-known authors and promising newcomers" writing poems, stories, and creative nonfiction. http://greenmountainsreview.jsc.vsc.edu

CONNECTICUT REVIEW
WHY WE CRAVE IT: Because each edition of the review offers over 200 pages of top-quality, high-impact poetry and fiction for a quite reasonable price. They also provide all of their content free online.
WHERE IT ORIGINATES: Connecticut State University, with editors "chosen from each of the four CSU campuses, in Danbury, New Britain, New Haven and Willimantic."
WHOM IT PUBLISHES: Such literary luminaries as Lucille Clifton, John Updike, Charles Simic, Denise Levertov, Ted Koose, Marge Piercy, Dorothy West, and others producing "cutting-edge work that is both thought-provoking and accessible." www.connecticutreview.com