As JSC Creative Writing students rewrite and revise the short stories, poems, and essays they've been working on all year, some are beginning to think about sending their work out to literary journals for possible publication.
The world of literary journals is a vast one (you'll find a fairly comprehensive list of the literary journals out there, with links to their sites, on NewPages.com). Yet, as a way to help connect writers with journals that fit them best, this blog will begin to feature a multi-part series of literary journal reviews by current JSC writers.
The first batch, below, comes from students in Jacob White's Monday night fiction workshop.
The Iowa Review
Reviewed by Victoria Von Hessert
The first story I read from this publication, “In the Dark” by Tricia Springstubb, was the 2009 winner of The Iowa Review fiction award. It is something of a coming-of-age story in which the narrator recounts her love affair with a boy headed off to college, her alcoholic, but well-intentioned if out-of-touch father, and the night wanderings of her mother. Her mother spends her evenings exploring the homes of her neighbors, only to be confronted one night by the wife of a policeman carrying his gun. We never really find out for sure if it is the narrator’s mother whom the wife shoots at (and misses) but the “prowler’s” night activity ceases after the encounter. Ultimately, the narrator loses her virginity to Dave, her father to cirrhosis, and her mother to heart disease, but it is her relationship to her mother that she adheres to and tries to reclaim at the end.
The second story, “The McGugle Account” by Sharma Shields, recounts the narrator’s work at a PR firm and her brief love affair with an unusual coworker, a Cyclops. He is a lover of Proust, whom she pretends to have read but hasn’t. Ultimately, he is fired for murdering the entire McGugle clan, clients of the firm, and eating them. The narrator later receives a crate full of Proust with a note that provides her with an enduring insight into her own self, both the lies she tells and her goodness.
Based on these two stories, I would say The Iowa Review is primarily a publisher of “serious” fiction, although certainly open to the slightly offbeat, as evidenced by the Cyclops story. I don’t think I’d call this experimental in any way, but really more of an openness to publishing authors who explore some deeper issues of human nature with slightly unconventional stories or characters.
Gulf Coast
Reviewed by Andrew Ledbetter
I read fiction pieces from Gulf Coast journal of literature and fine arts. This included three works by one author, that I guess could be considered flash fiction, but as they shared similar themes and were focused on daily family life with a new child, they seemed almost like chapters than individual stories. They mirrored Abbott Awaits by Chris Bachelder, but were much simpler. These were written by Christopher Merkner, and their length did not exceed two pages each. I found another flash fiction piece just after that was even shorter, and it was merely about taking a drug I believe and walking around town. There is a relationship depicted in this short work, but it is only barely exposed to the reader. The piece has moments of stream of consciousness, but because of its length does not really capture anything except the blur of moving around a town.
I also read a story called “The Naked Hours,” which was like twelve pages long. This is a story of a brother and sister, who are not blood related, but despite that get into a sexual relationship. This helped me better understand what the editors might be looking for. The literary journal is mostly compiled of poetry, but in all the fiction I found a similar theme. Relationships seem to be their point of interest; because there is something complex in relationships that are hard to define, yet when done well can captivate readers. Most people have relationships at some point that are weird or complex, and this is what can be exciting about reading about them. The reader can draw from personal experiences to feel more a part in the story than just a reader. It is a puzzle of how morals and conventions fit together to form either a love story, but in these cases it ranges on experiences of sexuality.
This literary journal publishes realistic fiction, meaning not sci-fi, or horror, but stories of realistic relationships.
Glimmer Train Stories
Reviewed by Crysty Boucher
The first story I read was “Silenced Voiced: Liu Xiaobo” by Sara Whyatt. This was a non-fiction story which begins with a Czech playwright and the former president of his country trying to deliver a letter to the embassy in China and not succeeding. He is trying to free a fellow writer and anti-communist activist. The story continues with the history of both of the playwrights and their political connection and goals. To finish, the story gives an address which readers can write to in order to help try and free Liu Xiaobo. The second piece I skimmed through only, as it turned out to be another non-fiction article. It was called “Interview with Nam Le” by Jennifer Levasseur and Kevin Rabalais. It was specifically what the title claimed: an interview with the award-winning writer Nam Le concerning his literary works.
The third story I chose was a first person limited point of view story called “The Grief Ministry” by Matthew Salesses. This story concerns a man, Carl, who, after the loss of his wife and daughter, created a church program called the Grief Ministry. He is praying for guidance when his next door neighbor, Ed, someone who has helped him through the grieving process, informs him that Ed’s wife, Gertie is dying of cancer. When she dies, Carl tries to use Ministry protocol to help Ed and finds that it isn’t helping. Ed drives a car through Carl’s living room instead. When Carl finds Ed, Ed is digging in the front yard, intent on burying Gertie, instead of having the funeral his daughter had planned out. The daughter and father grief in the front yard after a fight concerning the wife; they ignore Carl as he tries to get an answer as to whether Ed drove his car through the living room. Finally, Carl goes home, realizing that his work with the Ministry hadn’t been the selfless helping of people through the years which he always thought it was. It was his way of saying “Look at me. My family died. Pay attention to me.” He climbs into Ed’s car and drives it further into the living room.
Glimmer Train appears to be a literary magazine which accepts well-written stories of fiction, stories of non-fiction, and articles concerning writers. It feels like this journal would appeal to writers and readers who are interested in emotional stories, but also readers and writers who are interested in their peers in the literary world. I would need to read more stories to understand fully what the direction is that this journal favors; however, I get the feeling that it is a magazine which is on “the cutting edge” of writing, with an eclectic sampling of many styles and even genres.
The Southern Review
Reviewed by Doug Bliss
I read the summer 2010 issue of The Southern Review, specifically three fiction pieces: “The Singers,” by Rick Bass; “Miss Indian Chicago,” by Susan Power; and “Koi,” by Edward Falco. All three authors are previously published and established—Rick Bass, in particular, is well known and widely published. The Bass and Power stories were solidly conventional in their construction, the Falco piece was short and lyrical. To summarize:
“The Singers” is excerpted from Nashville Chrome. The excerpt—told in third person limited, past tense—takes place during lunchtime at a rural sawmill. The sawmill’s owner insists that the saw blades be sharpened and tuned every day after lunch. He uses his children, who have the gift of perfect pitch, to determine whether or not a blade is properly tuned by listening for a particular frequency as the blade is spun on an arbor.
“Miss Indian Chicago” is a short story told in first person, past tense. The story follows Jude Reynolds, a teenage Potawatomi girl in 1971 Chicago, as she attends ceremonial Native American dance competitions in a quest to seduce young braves and “…screw herself Indian.” Jude, the product of a white father and an Indian mother, is confused about her identity and her mother, who “…slept herself white.” The story outlines several failed seductions and ends with Jude coming to terms with her heritage.
“Koi” is a super-short story—almost a still life—of a blue heron catching a koi from a backyard pond as an old woman watches from her wheelchair. The episode presents an opportunity for reflection on her late husband and their life together, ending with the heron flying off with the fish.
My sense of the “editorial personality” of The Southern Review is one of semi-conventionality. The stories, even though one is excerpted and one is wicked short, seem to have beginning, middle, and end. They are structured in a way that I can understand and am comfortable with—I don’t detect any attempt to have a “conversation” with any cutting edge component of the literary world—which suits me just fine.
Mid-American Review
Reviewed by Steph Girard
The Mid-American Review is the sort of literary Journal that seems to be “Happy-go-lucky,” with a mix of a darker image hidden. I loved it. What that means is that the fiction stories in it are nothing like I’ve ever read before, and it actually surprises me that stories like these actually got published. They are not genre fiction, and are very short. Roughly being about four to ten pages each. One of the stories is about a man who joins a place called the “Ministry of Laughter” and what that is, is a place where all jokes are created. Outside sources, who are known as storytellers, get captured to work for the ministry. People who work here have to destroy all connections to their previous life, (a letter is sent to the family stating that the new worker died in a factory fire and no body was found) and give their full attention to their new jobs. The story is richly filled with details, and leaves the reader curious about where the story is going to take them next. I recommend submitting to this review if one, you are not a genre fiction writer, and two, have writing with a darker undertone blended into it.
The Gettysburg Review
Reviewed by Nicole Dumaine
The Gettysburg Review is a journal that appears to focus in on poetry, essays, and novella. There is only one short story, a novella, which counts in at fifty-four pages. The novella, “Summer Avenue” is in first person point of view about owning a trailer park around Memphis: “My granddad started this trailer part sixty years ago, and for a while it was a classy place” (521 Schottenfeld). The story talks about how “I” took over the place, what it has become, and what it hopefully will be like under his ownership. The poems throughout this journal focus in on the quirky thoughts of characters: “At forty, I peel away the first layer/ of bark where gray and kidney-bean red rings/ of my addictions move like inner tubes down a conveyor/belt. I strip off the next layer and hold it to the light” (530 “How about Daphne”). Another peculiar concern of the character comes from the poem “You can never step into the same aubade”: “There’s a spot behind where I stand/wanting a cigarette, to roll tobacco in paper/ and light it with a wooden math / a I did a century ago / three or four times a day, / where if you kneel and lick dew / from grass, it tastes / sweet, like the inside wrapper / from a Tootsie Pop” (584).
Black Warrior Review
Reviewed by Benjamin Algar
Philip Tate’s story “Dam,” featured in the Black Warrior Review Spring/Summer 2011 )issue, deals with the mysteries of a dirty, muddy river that claims innocent victims of drowning every year. The protagonist in Tate’s story is a misunderstood boy named Boyd; the antagonists are a group of four girls who are swimming in the grimy river. Boyd tries to impress the girls by proving to them that he knows who they all are, that he has a new scooter on top of the hill, and that he can swim even with his jeans still on. Boyd is presented in a lowbrow fashion, his grammar is flawed and his cognitive response to insults is pathetic. We watch as the girls humiliate Boyd for being pathetically moronic, and perverted. They call him names, which he resents, but seems to absorb as if he’s been used to it. Towards the ending of the story Body has visions of both saving the girls from the drowning, and watching them being picked out of the water after having drowned. The story ends with the girls speeding by while he’s riding his scooter, and after the dust cloud from the girl’s car settles Boyd envisions swimming in the grimy water, swimming elegantly like the girls had just ten minutes earlier.
Tate writes with a lot of very poetic and lyrical descriptions. He is very in tune with nature, the nature of the environment and the nature of teenagers. The stories narrative is develops nicely inside of the grounding specifics of the natural habitat that the teenagers inhabit (i.e. the river bank and the tall elm tree.) The editorial staff seems to enjoy a plot that involves a strong sense of realism, specific and lyrical descriptions, and quick plot development. The lyrical style that Tate’s story uses is so well done; the specifics are repeated in order to remind the reader of the world’s legitimacy. Again, it seems like, in my opinion, that the Black Warrior Review editorial staff prefers highly lyrical, yet grounded works of fiction, which, in the case of Tate’s story, sheds light on issues that are prevalent for our generation.
Aaron Kunin”s “Cumulative portrait. Or overdrawn characters. Or buyer’s remorse,” is a highly lyrical, Dybekian story that reuses the term “some” when describing a stereotype of people that are likely to do as Kunin suggests. Kunin’s work of fiction fails to stand alone as a work of fiction. Basically Kunin makes authoritatively specific and in-depth assumptions about a group of individuals that he is stereotyping. In every paragraph, there are thirty-six in all, Kunin describes the affect that money has on a certain demographic of money spenders, savers, or stealers. It’s all very funny and somewhat lighthearted, yet, again, it is not fiction. Some paragraphs consisted of a single sentence, while other paragraphs consist of three or four. It varies on how specific Kunin wants to be. On the whole, Kunin’s work of fiction seems to be acting like a work of nonfiction, an observational piece, grounded in specifics and lyricized or meant to be sung.
This selection confuses me the most, out of the entire short fiction feature in this literary magazine. It doesn’t involve conflict; it tells and does not show, there’s not complex plot or dynamic characters. The people involved are casted as shadows from the beginning and tend to, throughout the story, build up a stereotype that Kunin is shooting for. This tells me that the Black Warrior Review editorial staff looks for works that challenge the art of fiction, that contain highly lyricized works of fiction, and that work well because of the author’s tonal personality and great syntax.
Epoch
Reviewed by Liz Glasser
The literary magazine I read is called Epoch and it is published three times a year by Cornell University. This magazine seems to focus more on the fiction pieces with eight pieces of fiction, one essay and three pieces of poetry. The pieces were on average about twenty pages long. However, one was three pages and the longest was twenty-six pages. So they don’t seem to care about length but more about the quality. . I read through some of the magazine’s fiction pieces and noticed that all of them were regular fiction pieces, there were no fantasy pieces or anything that couldn’t have been believable in real life. So if you write fiction pieces where nothing crazy happens and that could be just another day in the life piece, Epoch is the magazine for you to submit to.
The Paris Review
Reviewed by Lit Tyler
The Paris Review was founded in Paris, in the 1950's, by American expatriates, with what was felt by the editors to be a rather daring goal: to publish moving and relevant contemporary fiction and poetry in a climate that was less than enthusiastic about such things. In the course of the past 1/2 century, the Paris Review (now headquartered in New York) has stayed at least true enough to this mission to have published original fiction by Jack Kerouac, Dennis Johnson, Joseph Heller, and David Foster Wallace, to name a few. (The magazine also scores some heavy-hitters for its interviews).
The three stories and one interview that I read from the Fall 2010 issue very much seemed consistent with the Paris Review editorial self image. The stories are (mostly) tightly written and deal with material of contemporary interest: a marriage imploding under the weight of its own baggage, a hapless junkie and his ambitions, and a playful fictionalization of a great author's life. And, surprisingly, I found the interview, especially, (subject: the mesmerizingly pretentious Michel Houellebecq) to be a very strange and interesting read.
"Art of Fiction #206"
An interview with Michel Houellebecq, a provocative and controversial French novelist whose first novel, Whatever (1994), depicting the "crushingly boring lives of two computer programmers", inspired the movement known as "depressionism." Houellebecq is every bit the French contrarian, sparring playfully (but bitingly) with his interviewer as he chain smokes cigarettes unceasingly (the author is reportedly in the middle of an attempt to cut down to four packs a day). The topics discussed range from a discussion of the author's work, which is influenced by Romanticism and Science Fiction and seeks to capture contemporary truth in an intense and beautiful fashion, to the author's acrimonious relationship with the French literary establishment, to punk rock, to the unique challenges of contemporary life. An intriguing portrait of a rude and interesting man.
"Virgin"
By April Ayers Lawson. A young man in a deeply unsatisfying marriage attends a fundraising party with his wife. Wandering through the halls of the mansion, the man encounters his hostess, with whom he begins an affair.
"Ten Stories from Flaubert"
American author and notorious Francophile Lydia Davis has apparently taken it upon herself to fictionalize a journal belonging to Gustave Flaubert. The journal is organized into 10 very short stories which have probably been scrupulously researched and tend to be primarily anecdotal in nature.
“The Worm in Philly"
By Sam Lipsyte. Tells the tale of a cash hungry junkie who arrives at the fantastic idea of writing a children's book about a famous boxer in order to generate cash. When his plans don't quite pan out as expected, the junkie finds himself caught in an uncomfortable misunderstanding with his supplier.
Sycamore Review
Reviewed by Katrina Aligata
In “Bomb” by Laura van den Berg, in the Sycamore Review, a lady is sharing a cab ride with her ex-husband. They both came from the lawyer’s office. She is going to meet up with her lover at Regent’s Park and he is taking the day off. They are stopped in traffic near an office building. A police officer comes and tells them that there might be something in the building, but they don’t know. The lady starts to have a panic attack and tries to get out of the car. She sticks her head out the window and asks the cop if there is something wrong in the building. And that is the end of the story. In other story “A Story for Mr. Pena” by Diana Lopez, a female middle school teacher is telling of her unpopularity with her fellow colleagues and teachers. She says they never invite her to go drink margaritas with them and they never remember her name. And the kids that she teaches are bored with her style and teaching plan. It seems like she can’t get a break anywhere. But she becomes a hero in the end when a big storm approaches and she has to get all the kids back inside. One girl didn’t hear her instructions and was too close to the tree, but when the limbs have reached the ground she crawls out of them unscathed. She’s taken inside with scratches and no other serious injury.
It feels like this journal publishes a kind of real life story. Both stories felt like they were from a real person’s life, like the events in each story could, or did, actually happen. And as far as the editorial personality, I feel that it is looking for a story that involves real life events and stories that could be believable. I feel like the editorial personality would be that it wants the readers to be engaged and connected with the stories they read in the journal.
