it's january so of course i am thinking about death . . .
in this case i'm thinking about the death of literary magazines as bemoaned in a recent article in Salon.com. funding is being cut everywhere and so many lit mags have folded and i'm wondering in some ways is this not a good thing? certainly in the last 30 years there has been a surfeit of short fiction that only other grads of mfa programs care to read. maybe short fiction might become something less self-indulgent, something more satisfying to read.
anyway. the world of print is a-changing. all the venues i've published in--newspapers, magazines, whatever. will they even be around in ten years?
i'm trying to see this as opportunity somehow.
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I feel like a churl and also, perhaps, like an envious person, but when I receive in the mail any one of the lovely publications I have earned by failing to win a contest (see "envious" above), I look at them and feel an utter lack of motivation to read them. Fiction, poetry, creative non-fiction . . . meh.
Unless, somehow, there is a teensy bit of juicy gossip about one of the authors, so that I can read their poem/story/essay as a palimpsest for their behavior? Then I'm all over it.
I wish the current crisis in print could lead to literary publications that only publish juicy-gossip-palimpsests? Is that possible? Am I a bad person for wishing that, basically, literary publications would have the same appeal as People, but with slightly better writing?
Without death, we would not cherish birth.
You are a wonderful and extremely talented lady. No matter the venue now, or ten years from now, you will still be touching us all.
I've been dreaming of crocus.
I've been reading Progressive magazines from the 1910s for a history project I'm doing - Everybody's, Pearsons, McClure's, Cosmopolitan (that's right, it used to be a bit different than today) and each published some great short fiction, by Jack London, O. Henry, even Emily Post. I'm not sure if anybody does that anymore. I think the changes in the publishing world are not good, but maybe they haven't been good for a long time.
Lisa B. Palimsest? I had to look it up. I knew pentimento but not palimsest. They're similar.
I still like reading The New Yorker. I've never liked those precious little literary journals, except the one that took one of my stories.
Although occasionally, I'll buy a couple and read through them. It's like keeping in touch with a childhood friend you have nothing to say to, or taking fish oil.
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