Why Don't Aspiring Writers Read More Literary Magazines?
Posted by Jessi | October 2nd, 2009 | 18 Comments »
I have a confession to make, and I hope the editors of _______ Review and _____ Quarterly are not listening.
I, holder of an MFA in creative writing, aspiring writer and former fiction editor of a well-respected literary journal, do not subscribe to a single literary magazine.
Yesterday, I submitted several of my short stories to 35 literary magazines across a broad spectrum of prestige, from The Paris Review to the We’ll Publish Your Adolescent Diary Review. Ten of my submissions were sent electronically and 25 were submitted via hard copy in the mail, which, considering I am no longer near my former university’s computer lab and do not currently own a printer, cost me as much as at least one night out at the bar (if I did that sort of thing). This process is one I will engage in a few times a year until I am 99 and become a famous writer and editors actually start soliciting my work.
It’s a little depressing, therefore, to realize that most of the magazines I am submitting to are not even read by my friends, even my writerly friends, on a regular basis. If I am accepted by one of these publications, I expect that a few of my friends will buy a copy as some sort of memento, but that’s about it.
I know I should also feel guilty for not avidly reading the magazines I’m submitting to, but in truth, I am probably more familiar with these magazines than the average person who submits. During my former tenure with a literary magazine, I was able to peruse our “lit mag library” and read new issues of most of these magazines for free; if I hadn’t had that opportunity, I probably wouldn’t know what most of them even look like. But even though I took many issues home, I rarely read one cover to cover; I read names I’d heard of and stories or poems that grabbed me on the first line. Even my flexible graduate student schedule did not allow me to read much more than that.
Editors are well aware of the gap between the number of people submitting and the number subscribing—and you can tell they are (rightly) annoyed by it. During my recent frenzied submission process, I noticed that most literary magazines print the following sort of phrase in their guidelines for submission:
“Before you submit, we encourage you to read one of our issues to familiarize yourself with the kind of work we publish.”
This phrase is the lit mag equivalent of the “Deaf Child Area” sign; for all you know, the deaf child is an old man by now or moved away with his family 10 years ago. It’s one of those pleas you probably won’t listen to, a plea for you to slow down and please spend 12 dollars on the magazine before it folds and finds itself buried in the lit mag graveyard next to Story, New American Review, and, the most recently deceased classic, TriQuarterly. There are many other casualties, of course, but those three heavyweights published the likes of Philip Roth, Charles Baxter, Amy Hempel, John Cheever, J.D. Salinger, Tennessee Williams, Tom Robbins, Susan Sontag, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Donald Barthelme, Grace Paley—before they were famous. Where is that magazine now, the one that every young writer subscribes to for the newest, freshest, we-have-our-ear-to-the-ground thing?
The truth is, the only magazine most of my literary friends subscribe to is The New Yorker. For the $30 professional rate, you get an issue almost every week, each which includes a story and a few poems, whereas a subscription to Ninth Letter, which includes two issues a year, is $21.95. Is it worth every penny? Probably. But how many of us can afford that at the moment?
In truth, I think it’s terrible that MFA programs, which are churning out hundreds of aspiring writers, are not producing avid readers and consumers of literature. What’s even worse is that non-writers do not buy these magazines either and most people have not even heard of one besides The Paris Review. A few months ago, I was lucky enough to have a short story accepted by a very good literary magazine, and it was a real run down the street with your fist pumping, maybe feel like your debt was worth it experience. But most of my non-writer friends have no idea that this magazine with the silly-sounding name is actually a pretty big deal. In fact, getting in almost any print literary magazine is a big deal. I don’t know the rate of acceptance for the most esteemed literary magazines, but I know that the one I worked on rejected a few hundred stories for every one it took. You should feel proud to be a part of any one of them; thousands of people want to get in and never will.
These magazines are important and they are struggling and I encourage all of us to try to subscribe to at least a few. But I don’t think it’s entirely our fault for not doing so. As I illustrated above, many of them are prohibitively expensive. You can subscribe to Harper’s for around $17, which includes 12 issues; a subscription to Crazyhorse, one of my favorite lit mags, is $16 and includes two issues. Most of the editors of these magazines work for little or free, so I understand the cost. I just worked on an arts and culture magazine that we are trying to sell for $10 an issue, though I hope we can find advertisers and eventually bring the cost down. I just can’t personally afford to buy very many of these magazines, and neither can most of my friends. This is why I pick up Poetry magazine fairly often even though I’m not a poet—it’s under $5, it’s high quality, and it fits really well into my purse.
Furthermore, even if I could afford to subscribe to all the magazines I submit to, who realistically has time to read all of them? Ideally, I would divide my reading time as follows: ¼ classic fiction, ¼ new literature, ¼ literary magazines, ¼ poetry, drama, and essays. If I was a kept woman, one week might consist of the following possible reading: one copy of Gulf Coast magazine, one Dostoevsky, the Lynda Hull I’ve been carrying around for a month but haven’t finished, and maybe one of the new books of fiction by Dave Eggers or Tracy Kidder, both of which I’d like to read but may never get to. Since I have to work for living, it might take me a month to read these four publications, and guess what? The literary magazine is the first to go when I run out of time.
One last possible reason for my lack of commitment to these magazines is that I garner much more satisfaction from reading an entire collection by one author than a bunch of different stories by various writers. I like to let a writer’s voice and prose style really soak in; moving from one writer to the next in the course of a half-hour is jarring. When I do buy a literary magazine, I read it little by little, consuming it a piece at a time like the dark chocolate bar in my freezer. Maybe I let it last a little too long.
We all know these magazines are expensive and their cover art is sometimes bad and there are too many to keep track of. But their importance cannot be underestimated. They are the only way for a new writer to have her work seen, if only by a few hundred eyes. They nurture a community of passionate writers like myself who are in it for the right reasons. That’s why I feel so guilty. As creative writing programs continue to proliferate, there is no doubt that these magazines will see an abundance of submissions in the upcoming years. But without adequate readership and funding, who knows how many of these magazines will even be around to reject our submissions a decade from now.
Related posts:
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- How to Act Well Read
- Should High School Students Be Allowed to Choose the Books They Read?
- John Cheever… have you heard of this guy?
October 2nd, 2009 at 6:52 am
you should submit this blog post to some journals. it’s honest and well written. bukowski wrote something kind of similar, about the trails and tribulations of submitting to literary journals, and that and that was his first publication ever.
October 2nd, 2009 at 10:52 am
I think there are a few things in here to consider. The most looming and evident is the internet. With the huge proliferation of blogs like this, where talented, passionate individuals can espouse their ideals, in an easy to read FREE format it is no wonder we are seeing a death of all things print. This trend is going to continue and grow as web browsing tech like the iphone, and the forth coming apple tablet, or microsoft Courier become more ubiquitous in our everyday life. Why carry a book or magazine when you can carry the worlds largest, easily searchable, library ever conceived? I think the cost prohibitive argument is only valid in the context I have stated. If someone really loves the printed medium (which actually, having cut my teeth in print design I do) paying something like $30 for a couple of issues a year isn’t all that big of deal. I buy Print Magazine at the news stand from time to time (because I am a moron and never get the subscription) and I pay $25 for one issue. It is worth every penny to me. The other argument I would have is that I imagine most of the reason most literary types no longer read the journals, its that is tread more like an award now than something some one actually reads. I would be willing to bet that most of what drives the subscriptions to these types of journals are the academic circles. Libraries collect them, students and their families buy them as you describe as mementos, and I would be willing to bet that other office type places buy them to have lobby reading materials that are more cost effective than purchasing 20 magazines. I think I wrote too much here. Great post either way, I think with all the crying over the death of newspapers, this is an area that is sorely lacking in attention. Periodicals and journals are a solid repository of writers, and trends in writing. If we loose that institution, we will all have to sift through a million crappy blogs to find one good one like this…I hope there is an app for that.
October 3rd, 2009 at 11:53 am
I’m with you, Jessi, on wishing more people read literary magazines, and similarly with me the truth is that I don’t read them. They’re just too expensive and generally, at least with the journals I used to subscribe to, I find the content to be pretty standard and boring. If I’m receiving a quarterly journal and can hardly make it through a single story, maybe it’s a fault of my own… but it could also be that the editors are out of touch. The entire proposition of “Before you submit, we encourage you to read one of our issues to familiarize yourself with the kind of work we publish,” is, as you say, an utter farce. I think any journal that continues to use that phrase really has no idea how reality actually works. Ultimately, I understand, they’re trying to make less work for themselves by advising people to submit only the kind of work they typically publish, but to think that one person can afford or has the time to read all the journals that are currently out there is completely disingenuous. Outlining the genres you publish is more than enough. If you want people to buy your journal, to subscribe, publish more worthwhile stuff. Content, content, content.
But I think if this article has done anything for me, it’s made me realize that print journals are essentially dead. It would be great if people bought and read journals, just as it would be great if people bought and read newspapers, but the medium is in its last throes. It’s a waste of trees. Sure, I love physical books, I love books-as-ephemera, but they are done for. The internet has changed how media is consumed. There is no going back and it’s foolish to think if you grip tightly enough to the past it will remain. We need to look forward. There is plenty to be done in the virtual world to promote literature. There’s just so much more a blog can do that a print journal can’t even touch. We’ll see how the next handful of years treat the print journals; I really don’t think most of them stand a chance.
October 4th, 2009 at 12:49 am
This entire article can be boiled down to the last sentence, “But without adequate readership and funding, who knows how many of these magazines will even be around to reject our submissions a decade from now.” Magazines need readers to survive or writers will lose an important outlet for their work. A writer doesn’t need to subscribe to every magazine they submit to, but they should do their part to support literary magazines. I understand that for most writers subscribing to even a handful of magazines a year is cost prohibitive. But subscribing to even one or two could make a big difference. I subscribe to three or four a year. I have two favorites I subscribe to every year and rotate the other two spots. If you subscribe to a magazine and don’t like the contents, pick another one. Don’t give up on all literary magazines. Sure, print magazines need to adapt to the challenges/opportunities presented by new media, but they will only die if readers let them.
And I could be biased since I’m part of the editorial staff, but Ninth Letter is worth every penny!
October 4th, 2009 at 12:58 am
I wasn’t actually trying to imply that print magazines are dead. Not at all. As much as I enjoy reading online, having your stuff online just doesn’t carry as much weight as having your work published in a literary magazine. I mean, they’re are a gazillion blogs, and though it seems there are a lot of literary magazines, there are only a few hundred, and maybe 50 solid ones. I have heard of a few people getting agents from having a well-read blog; I have heard of many, many more people who found agents from having their work in a good literary magazine.
I turn to Dave Eggers for ideas on why print isn’t dead and why his lit mag, McSweeney’s, will prevail:
http://gawker.com/5277281/dave-eggers-reassures-us-that-print-lives-via-email
October 4th, 2009 at 10:52 am
Jessi, I didn’t mean to imply that you said print magazines are dead… I’m just saying that’s what I got out of your article. Of course, having your stuff online doesn’t carry the same weight as having it in a printed journal. But I argue that that won’t be the case for much longer. If a website has 100,000 monthly readers, and a journal has 1000 or even 10,000 subscribers, where is a writer going to get more exposure? As much as we don’t want things to change from what we know, they most certainly will. The internet makes it so easy to spread information; it just doesn’t make sense to not use it for spreading the good word about writing.
I read the letter from Dave Eggers and I appreciate his dedication, but it feels a little naive. Of course print in general isn’t dead. Plenty of people love printed books. But it will come down to money in the future. When the masses are reading all their books on a Kindle, if you still want to buy the physical book it is going to be much more expensive than either the ebook or what a physical book costs right now. You could read some online journals for free, buy an ebook for cheap, or buy the real thing for double that. Less printed copies means smaller runs means higher prices.
And while I do advocate continuing to print books, objects that you can get enjoyment from over and over again, I think continuing to print newspapers is a complete waste of resources. Dave Eggers, in his letter, talks about printing beautiful, well-written newspapers and (somehow) selling them for $1. What he doesn’t address is that by the time you get a newspaper in your hand, the news within is already a day old. He says: “We believe that if you use the hell out of the medium, if you give investigative journalism space, if you give photojournalists space, if you give graphic artists and cartoonists space— if you really truly give readers an experience that can’t be duplicated on the web— then they will spend $1 for a copy. And that $1 per copy, plus the revenue from some (but not all that many) ads, will keep the enterprise afloat.”
But what he forgets is that many newspapers actually lose money on their newsstand/delivery costs and make most of their money from ads. Newspapers are dying because sites like craigslist came along and offered a free service that used to be only available in printed newspapers. Newspaper readership went down because of internet news, thus less advertising money is going toward the printed paper. If Eggers can somehow break even on selling some high end newspaper for $1, he should be put in charge of the New York Times and solve the problem the newspaper industry has been dealing with for a decade. My guess is that he’s just being an idealist (nothing wrong with that) and trying to stay positive in the face of reality’s negativity.
October 4th, 2009 at 11:47 am
I agree, Brian, that most of us should subscribe to at least a few lit mags. Your strategy was appealing. I was trying to figure out why none of us do when we know we should. I end up subscribing to some magazines when I enter contests that include a subscription. I think this is a really smart move; If I like the mag, I’ll continue to read it. I should’ve focused more on why MFA programs aren’t creating readers in general. I mean, some of us spend $50,000 on a degree; we can’t spend $100 subscribing to some magazines? It doesn’t really make sense.
I also think Ninth Letter sets itself apart with its visual appeal; you could not have the same experience reading it online. I think the ones that do survive will be the ones that strive to be interesting visually and physically.
October 6th, 2009 at 8:03 am
[...] Interesting polemic on the lit blog Bookish Us: “Why Don’t Aspiring Writers Read More Literary Magazines.” [...]
October 9th, 2009 at 12:03 am
[...] Why Don’t Aspiring Writers Read More Literary Magazines? [...]
October 12th, 2009 at 10:08 am
Fascinating, timely piece and responses. I took off, more or less, five years from writing (late 03 – late 08). The entire landscape changed. Then, maybe 1/5 places took online subs. Now it’s 4/5. Most of my subs, even to print journals, allow online subs.
I can’t help but think that as much as I like holding a book (and I continue buying them)…in 3-4 years the print lit world will be even more marginalized. I hope I’m wrong. I know I get a lot more responses from online pieces (after pimping them on facebook, twitter, my blog, fictionaut, etc) than I”ve ever gotten from print publications.
October 14th, 2009 at 7:07 am
“I mean, some of us spend $50,000 on a degree; we can’t spend $100 subscribing to some magazines? It doesn’t really make sense.”
I think it makes perfect sense. Few people who spend, or borrow, that $50K are independently wealthy or part of the Hilton clan. $25 was 2 weeks’ grocery when I was getting my MFA. I was pressured to submit to magazines but living on $6K/year didn’t leave much money for postage and printing when I had to pay rent, utilities, gas, etc. Doesn’t explain all but it’s hard to tell people what their financial priorities should be. There are ideals and then there are kids to feed.
October 15th, 2009 at 12:04 am
[...] Another great link courtesy of Ray Shea, “Why Don’t Aspiring Writers Read More Literary Magazines?” from Bookish.Us. This piece shamed me into subscribing to a year of the journal Sentence [...]
October 15th, 2009 at 12:01 pm
Dedra: I agree with you. Especially since people are not exactly clamoring to hire MFA graduates. Most libraries subscribe to these journals; we can read them there for free. Maybe if we were at least reading them regularly, that would be enough.
October 23rd, 2009 at 2:48 pm
I think the gap speaks to the need for literary magazines to evolve in a new direction, solicit new readership – outside of the several thousand that are mostly shared among the vast numbers of magazines – find them where they don’t expected (twitter, you tube, etc) and grab them with a good story.
October 27th, 2009 at 7:02 pm
TriQuarterly is alive and well!
January 5th, 2010 at 12:20 pm
This is a great article. Our website, TheReviewReview, tries to help writers sort through the wealth of literary magazines to find out which journals are doing what. We also enlist a group of reviewers which, at least, gets more people reading and discussing journals. Still, I agree with everything you’ve said.
One question is why MFA programs don’t adopt more journals as their texts? CLMP is doing this now with high schools, giving students a year subscription for half price. MFA students, in my opinion, should all be required to subscribe to one journal and then give presentations to each other. This would help them get familiarized with at least some journals. Discussing 12-15 out of ~400 would be a good start.
February 14th, 2010 at 1:53 pm
[...] talk of Writer’s Poverty reminded me of Jessi’s post from a few months back questioning why aspiring writers don’t read more literary journals. This was quite a popular essay and even got us linked on the Huffington Post. In her entry Jessi [...]
February 22nd, 2010 at 12:58 pm
Everybody knows that literary magazines are irrelevant. You’re not going to read something *good* in them. They exist only for college profs to network and beef up their CV’s with. They are not to be actually *read* are you kidding?
That’s the whole problem. The college/univserity “journals” are an insider’s game (if you’re not a player, ie a college prof, you’re not wanted there). The mainstream commercial media pretty much got rid of poetry and fiction too, so there’s nowhere to go. That is also why literature has lost its cachet in society. Writers of literary fiction or poetry can never really become public figures because they have no mainstream outlet in society. But these literary magazines (technically, “journals”) are a huge part of the problem. They all need to just disappear.