Small Press Literature and Publishing is a course in the literature, philosophy and practice of literary magazines. The intent is to learn by participating in the ongoing conversation that is small press publishing. Throughout the course, the class will serve as editorial assistants to the Notre Dame Review as well as define, run, and publish its own web-based literary magazine. We will also be reading a number of literary magazines with an emphasis on literature as a contemporary art form and the literary magazine as its gallery. While recognizing the issues raised by contemporary theory and scholarship, our study of this segment of literature will be from the perspective of writers and editors, rather than academic scholars. Other discussion topics will include: The Purpose(s) of Literary Magazines; Some Magazines of Note from the Past; The Small Press Landscape Today: Commercial, Academic, Independent and Web Publishing; The Economics of Small Press Publishing; Submitting or What Do Literary Magazines Want?; Editors/Boards/Slush Piles; Editing and Proofreading; Book Reviewing; Authors and Interviews; Writing the Literary Essay. Activities will include: close reading of the essays, poetry and fiction in a variety of literary magazines; defining the class’s magazine; reading manuscript submissions; editing and proofreading work to be published. Students will be required to lead a discussion on a literary magazine of their choice. They will also write for class discussion and possible publication: a short rant, manifesto, narralogue, review, elegy, prose-poem, interview, editorial, hypertext or otherwise discursive piece; a more developed essay/review; and a literary essay.

Reading List
Course packet (will be distributed in class as needed)
 "Of Living Belfry and Rampart: On American Literary Magazines since 1950," Michael Anania.
 "Academia and the Little Magazine," Charles Robinson.
"Felix Pollak, An Interview on Little Magazines," Mark Olson, John Judson and Richard
       Boudreau.
 "The Economics of the Small Press: Poetry Publishing," Charles Berstein.
"The Value of Sulfur," Charles Berstein.
 "The Culture of Everyday Venality: or A Life in the Book Industry," Curtis White.
 "Symposium: The State of the Literary Magazine" from Boulevard.
"Hard Times in Poetry Land," Alissa Quart.
"The Story of Fence," (www.jacket.zip.com.au/jacket12) Rebecca Wolff.
Selections from the Literary Magazine Review.
 Others TBA
 

• Sulfur
• Conjunctions
• Timothy McSweeney’s Quarterly Concern
• Fence
• The Pushcart Prize: Best of the Small Presses
• Granta
• Literal Latte
• Northwest Edge

• American Book Review
• Context
• Rain Taxi

Magazines on the Web
Alt-X  (www.altx.com)
Conjunctions  (www.conjunctions.com/)
The Iowa Review (www.uiowa.edu/~iareview/)
Electronic Poetry Center (http://wings.buffalo.edu/epc/)
Web del Sol (http://webdelsol.com)

Be sure to visit American Oral (www.nd.edu/~ameroral/), the magazine created by members of this class in its last incarnation.

Also see LitLine (http://www.litline.org) for a pretty good list of other magazines and resources on the web, though some of these only offer tables of contents or subscription information.

On Reserve
Tri-Quarterly 43
Gravitational Intrigue: The Little Magazine on CD-ROM
Digitas: The New York Digital Review of Arts and Literature (CD-ROM)
International Directory of Little Magazines

American Magazines in Hesburgh Library
Americas Review PS 508.M4
Another Chicago Magazine PS 501
Antioch Review AP2.Am87
Beloit Poetry Journal PS 301.B43
Calyx PS508.W7C35
Chicago Review AP2.C532
Chelsea AP2.C506
Cimmarron Review AP2.C5
Colorado Review PN 6010.5
Conjunctions PN6010.5C66
Connecticut Review AP2.C63
Denver Quarterly AP 2.U582
Fiction PN 6010.5.F53
Field PS 301.F5
Flyway PS S01.FS9
Georgia Review AP2.6352
Glimmer Train PS 642. G57
Grand Street PN 6010.5.G68
Granta PN2.G68
Hawaii Review
Indiana Review PN 2.I6
Iowa Review PN2.I69
Kenyon Review AP2.K133
Literary Review AP2.L776
Massachusetts Review AP2.M414
Michigan Quarterly Review AP2.M624
Minnesota Review AP2.M665
Mississippi Review A501. M57
New England Review PN2.N48
New Letters AP2.K133
Nimrod International Journal PN2.N5
North American Review AP2.N612
Northwest Review AP2.N855
Ohio Review AP2.037
Paris Review AP4.P218
Parnassus: Poetry in Review PN 6099.6 P36
Partisian Review AP2.P258
Ploughshares NX1. P57
Poem PS 301.P6
Poet Lore PN2.P745
Poetry PS 301.P752
Poetry East PN 1271.PG
Poetry Northwest PS 301.P745
Poetry Review PN 1010.P7
Prairie Schooner AP2.P898
Riverside Quarterly PN2. R54
Salamungundi: A Quarterly of the Humanities and Social Sciences AP2.S171
Sewanee Review AP2.Se86
Shenandoah AP2.S546
Short Story PS648.S5S567
South Dakota Review AP2.S726
Southern Humanities Review AP2.S727
Southern Poetry Review PS 580 S66
Southern Review AP2.So881
Southwest Review AP2.S728
Sulfur PS501.S84
Talisman PS 325.T34
Thirteenth Moon PS508.W7T45
TriQuarterly AP2.T836
Western Humanities Review AP2. W525
Virginia Quarterly AP2.V819
Xavier Review PS501.X385
Yale Review AP2.Y12
ZYZZYVA PS561.Z98
 
 

Other Magazines of Note (see me on these)

• Alaska Quarterly Review
• The Baffler
• Black Ice
• Fiction International
• Chain
• Crayon
• Fourteen Hills
• Lusitania
• Ribot

Review Sections

• American Book Review Z1219.A43
• Book Forum
• Electronic Book Review (www.altx.com/ebr)
• New York Times Book Review Z1035.A1 N532
• New York Review of Books Z1035.A1 N534
• Review of Contemporary Fiction PN 3503.R45
• Times Literary Supplement Z1035. T583

Course Outline
Basically, we will take up the issues listed in the course description above by reading in the  magazines and selections of critical prose. Simultaneously we will organize ourselves to conduct the business of the class’s literary magazine, which will include the writing and editing assignments listed above. During the course, we will make time for student presentations and reading of work written for publication. A rough chronology looks like this:

What Good are Literary Magazines?
Magazines of Note from the Past
The Landscape Today
The Review of Literary Magazines
Readers’ Reports of Literary Magazines (An exercise in reverse engineering)

Commercial Magazines
Academic Magazines
Independent Magazines and Zines
Web-based Magazines

 New York Times Book Review
 Times Literary Supplement
 American Book Review
 Rain Taxi
 Review of Contemporary Fiction
 Book Forum