Brick’s 100th issue celebrates forty years of nonfiction. An international journal published out of Toronto, Brick “prizes the personal voice and celebrates life, art, and the written word.” In issue 100, the authors look out into the world, to literature, to poetry and to nature for inspiration, while grounding their insights in the personal. Brick is a love letter to our artistic influences.
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AGNI – Number 86
Celebrating its 45th year in publication, AGNI, published out of Boston University, takes its name from the Vedic god of fire, the guardian of humankind. AGNI’s fiction, nonfiction, and poetry are a fire in the darkness, illuminating the corners of reality we do not see.
The Baltimore Review – 2017
I barely knew how to start with the 2017 edition of The Baltimore Review. It is huge. There are 325 pages of poetry and prose, a culmination of four online issues from Summer 2016 to Spring 2017. A little history in the Editor’s Note gave me a better sense of what I was delving into. The Baltimore Review has been around since 1996 and became an independent nonprofit organization in 2004. Though based in the Baltimore area, the journal accepts work from anywhere, and publishes online to a vast audience. There is such a wide variety of voices in the fiction pieces. There are stories about ballet dancers, dogs, gardeners, a young girl in Hawaii caring for her grandfather, an imagining of the future of online avatar use. The journal also feels current. The cover is a gorgeous painting by Sughra Hussainy featuring a self-portrait obscured by the zipped lip emoji, a statement about how women are often told to remain silent, even now. The Baltimore Review is not a place for silence. It’s a raucous collection of talented voices, passionate about a wide range of topics. It’s 325 pages of fresh new work.
PULP Literature – Autumn 2017
I absolutely loved the August 2017 issue of PULP Literature! If the quality of the short stories within this issue is any indication of the overall quality of the publication, then I cannot wait to pick up the next issues! PULP Literature contains everything I love in short stories and novellas from my favorite genres of fiction: science fiction, fantasy, mystery, history, thriller, and chiller.
Collateral Literary Journal – November 2017
I was fifteen-years-old when my brother enlisted in the Marine Corps and headed off to California for boot camp a few short weeks after his high school graduation. My cousin and then my aunt’s fiancé were the next to join, and before the three of them, it was my mother’s father and my great uncles. In a way, it has almost become a family affair to join the military, so reading online magazine Collateral Literary Journal felt like a welcoming and comforting experience—it is edited and filled with work by people who “get” the lifestyle. Each issue publishes voices from those touched by military service in poetry, prose, and art.
The fiction reads realistically, coming off almost as genuinely as nonfiction. “Homecoming” by E.M. Paulsen tackles the subject of PTSD when a soldier on leaves visits a laundromat and ends up frozen in fear when another patron’s child begins to choke on a cookie. Paulsen’s details put us in his shoes, stirring up the feelings of panic that can be triggered at any moment, even when you’re just innocently doing laundry.
After “The Ferry Back” by Morgan Crooks, Crooks reveals the fiction piece—featuring the complexities of a family relationship revolving around a military patch—”draws its conflict from personal experience: a war never truly ends, not within one lifetime or many.” Like Paulsen, Crooks writes with realism, the family interactions authentic.
With fiction so genuine and honest, one can expect the nonfiction to follow suit. Spoiler alert: it does. Kay Henry in “75 Years Later, What I Still Don’t Know” compares her life with her father’s seventy-five years earlier:
At 8:00 in the morning, I’m enjoying an ordinary breakfast outside on the front porch [ . . . ]. Except for a distant neighbor’s tractor, all is quiet.
Seventy-five years ago at this time of day, bombs began to fall on my father. Torpedoes began to hit his ship. [ . . . ] The U.S.S. Oklahoma, struck in the first minutes of the attack on Pearl Harbor, began to list. Young men began to die. My father was twenty-two.
She imagines him over and over, weaving between her life and his past: “Not to feel guilty or superior, nor to deepen my own sense of loss, but to see both days with more clarity. To know my young father. To bring him home.” By picturing this day and trying to put herself in his shoes, she is attempting to reach a greater understanding of the young man who experienced an incredible trauma, using writing to help achieve this.
Travis Burke utilizes a similar device in “Crawling Uphill,” the prose moving back and forth between present time in Portland and his past tour in Afghanistan. Burke repeatedly dreams of Massoud, an Afghan soldier friend who lost his life. Massoud and poppies haunt Burke, showing up again and again, in dreams and when awake. Massoud’s words stick with him: “An ant crawls uphill to go home.” And so Burke climbs a mountain as if climbing closer to home and the peace found there.
In “Dear Judith Wright” by Lisa Stice, the speaker wishes for peace for their daughter who keeps waking from nightmares, night after night. Stice gives her inspiration for the poem, explaining that she feels Judith Wright, who “wrote in support of the people with the least amount of power” would “empathize with the military children who are too young to really understand or express their feelings.” Stice’s speaker recycles Wright’s own words in an attempt to give some momentary peace and comfort: “it is only our past and future / troubling your sleep.” I remember my own nightmares from when I was a teen and my brother was overseas in Iraq. Much like the speaker’s child, I would wake up from dreams where I’d lose my brother in varying ways, unable to fully explain the fear and loss experienced in my dream world.
Tami Haaland’s “Noon Lockdown” is as timely as ever, especially after yesterday’s school walkouts protesting gun violence. A school is on lockdown, “men with guns / two floors down, swat teams, / nine police cars. We plan what to do.” Some students panic:
One is angry because
her mother failed to text love,
so I kiss her head as I would kiss
the heads of my own grown children.
The situation ends up being a misunderstanding. No one is in any real harm, and they’re all free to leave, the speaker visiting her own mother, “whose mind has turned / to lace.” The two sit together, the speaker not sharing the day’s events:
I hold her hand as if
there is nothing to say. [ . . . ]
I don’t
tell her a thing she will forget.
While the speaker offered comfort to her students when they needed it, she is left to quietly process on her own. Life goes on after the panic settles. Haaland has a new book coming out from Lost Horse Press next month: What Does Not Return. The distributor’s website says the collection “examines dementia and caregiving,” and if “Noon Lockdown” is any indication of the type of work one might find in the forthcoming book, it promises to be a thoughtful, skillfully written collection.
Art by Laura BenAmots accompanies the issue, pieces from “The Battle Portraits” collection staring out with emotive eyes. Readers can close out the issue with an interview with the artist along with full portraits from the series.
Collateral gives a personal, inside look into military and military-adjacent life. The journal offers community and comfort to those connected to military service, and for those living completely outside this lifestyle, Collateral still offers a welcoming, enlightening experience.
[www.collateraljournal.com]
Swamp Ape Review – March 2018
Founded last year at Florida Atlantic University, Swamp Ape Review has just dropped its second online issue. Issues are split into two sections, one featuring work by writers from South Florida, and the other featuring work from elsewhere. With the name Swamp Ape Review, one can’t help thinking of the weird and wild, and the editors don’t disappoint with their choices.
Glimmer Train – Winter 2018
Glimmer Train is one of those lit mags, making frequent appearances on “best of” lists and respected by readers and critics alike. Its stories have been selected numerous times for the Pushcart Prize and The Best American Series, as well as the O. Henry Prize. This issue continues providing evidence for these honors.
A Public Space – 2017
Founded in 2006 by Brigid Hughes, A Public Space is considered one of the finest literary journals in the country; its stories frequently grace the pages of The Best American Series and The Pushcart Prize, and its editor has won the PEN/Nora Magid Award for Magazine Editing. The mission of the journal is to “seek out overlooked and unclassifiable work, and to publish writing from beyond established confines,” which it certainly meets in Issue Number 26. This current issue features a syllabus for an architecture studio, an art manifesto, the transcript of a deliberately unreadable speech by editor and writer Gordon Lish, letters to Saul Bellow, an essay on audience and performance, a proposal for a new means of displaying art in museums, notes on Main Streets across the country, and a travel journal, among the usual fiction and poetry contributions.
Crab Fat Magazine – February 2018
I was more than excited to dive into the February 2018 edition of Crab Fat Magazine. This journal is available online for free, making it super accessible, and much to my elation upon entering the website, I was greeted by a welcoming little gif sticker that flashes between statements of inclusivity like “This journal is queer positive” and “This journal is asexual positive.” The journal actively seeks out the writing of marginalized folks.
Ekphrasis – Fall/Winter 2017
I will be first to admit that I can’t remember the amount of times I’ve gone into an art museum, looked at a brilliant or famous painting and thought, “I have no idea what to pay attention to.” As much as I wanted to make a connection, my knowledge of the nuances in lighting and space are more than limited. As the name suggests, Ekphrasis features poetry exclusively about other works of art of any genre. These poems attach a personal narrative or wild description to the work in such a way that I was able to get my bearings when I looked at the original piece. During a reading of this journal, it was helpful to have a device with internet access available so I could look at the paintings and sculptures as I read the ekphrastic poem. This journal helped me to slow down and think about art a little differently.
Prime Number Magazine – January/February 2018
The phrase “prime number” is one that generally gives me the chills, reminding me of past days of math classes and the frustration tied to them. However, Prime Number Magazine manages to have the opposite effect: it’s a fun and quirky online journal with a lot to offer readers.
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Geist – Fall 2017
I was pleasantly intrigued looking through this Fall 2017 issue of the Canadian literary magazine, Geist. Between the unique artwork and photographs, I found interesting poems, anecdotes of encounters with native peoples, and unique short stories, culminating in a cryptic crossword puzzle that I am compulsively returning to.
The Healing Muse – Fall 2017
As a journal published by the Center for Bioethics and Humanities, The Healing Muse has a commitment to encouraging healthcare that is personal and compassionate. In a time when our access to healthcare in America is being regularly threatened, the work done by this journal is essential as ever. Featuring work that centers exclusively on the body and illness, The Healing Muse is a shining example of the power of medical humanities.
Hiram Poetry Review – Spring 2017
The cover of Hiram Poetry Review’s 78th issue features a photo of two young men who look like they are turn of the century bohemians, one holding a mandolin in his hands, the other with an open book, neither looking into the camera or at each other. They look kind of baffled by their own existence, like they’re thinking about the passage of time. Maybe I’m projecting a little, but regardless, I felt it captured the themes of this edition nicely. The pieces in this edition seemed particularly interested in growing older and how we change or fail to change.
Eleven Eleven – 2017
Issue 23 is notable for a number of reasons, including the departure of longtime Faculty Editor Hugh Behm-Steinberg—and what an exit it is. The current issue of Eleven Eleven (8” x 8” if you’re curious) is large, daring, fun, and occasionally a hot mess. Consistency is hard to achieve with student-run publications; editors are cycling out each year as new staff comes whirling in, and errors occasionally slip through the cracks. In most cases, the missed edits are those spellcheck would ignore—e.g. a “bowl” movement or a phrase in Latin “hat” translates—but others, like “Dega’s painting” (it should be Degas’ or Degas’s), remain unchanged too, unfortunate blemishes on otherwise pristine pages. Viewed separately, these missed edits are minor blips, but piled together (and there are plenty more), the issue is cheapened, and even the best pieces, impeccably written and edited as they may be, are done a disservice.
Blink-Ink – 2017
I have a soft spot in my heart for diners. I’ve spent countless nights at 24-hour restaurants, sipping bad coffee and shoveling down greasy food. At diners, you can sit and write as you study the cast of characters around you, you can escape responsibilities for a while, you can blend in and cease to exist in your sticky booth. The writers in Issue 30 of the pocket-sized Blink-Ink explore the different aspects of diners, all in 50-words or less.
The American Poetry Journal – December 2017
With 2017 over and two weeks into the new year, it kind of feels like getting through last year was surviving something. Reading the December 2017 issue of The American Poetry Journal, I found myself drawn to poems that consider different types of survival.
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From the Depths – 2017
Sometimes one feels the need to explore the darkness bubbling below the surface. From the Depths from Haunted Waters Press provides such an experience with poetry and prose that raises goosebumps. This issue features the winners and runners-up of the Haunted Waters Press Fiction & Poetry Open, and the Haunted Waters Press Short Shorts Competition for an added treat.
Poetry – December 2017
Harriet Monroe founded Poetry magazine in 1912 with the aim to “print the best English verse which is being written today, regardless of where, by whom, or under what theory of art it is written.” Now, over a hundred years since its inception, Poetry has stayed true to Monroe’s vision, following the art in whatever form it takes, lending pages to the words that need them most. Far from blindly crashing into the future, though, Poetry remembers its history. Volume 211 begins with a tribute to Richard Wilbur, who passed this past year.
Vallum – 2017
This literary magazine is excellent for anyone who enjoys thought provoking poems. In this issue of Vallum, the focus is on “Lies and Duplicity,” and features a number of great poets, a collection of visual art, a conversation with poet Rae Armantrout, and book reviews by various authors.
Foliate Oak – December 2017
If there were a word to define the December issue of Foliate Oak Literary Magazine, it’d have to be “eclectic.” There truly is no other word I could think of that would adequately describe the nature of the pieces here. The writing ranges widely in style and tone from family-drama fantasy “Vengeance is Born” by Ashley Crisler to “Blister,” Eric Obame’s stark and sobering poem about drug addiction. To be as explicit as possible: eclectic is always a welcome thing in my book.
The Tishman Review – October 2017
The Tishman Review is a literary magazine chock-full of the literary goods. I mean, the thing is stacked with a stunning array of quality writing.
Terrain.org – December 2017
Terrain.org exists at the meeting place of natural and manmade, an online magazine on human nature and our place within the natural the world. Work is added to the website on a rolling basis, so there is always a chance for readers to encounter something new upon each visit. So far, this month provides new poetry, fiction, and nonfiction for exploration, as well as a guest editorial: “Letter to America” by Barbara Hurd.
The Boiler – Fall 2017
The art in the latest issue of The Boiler features paintings by Gloria Ceren and photography by Klara Feenstra. Ceren’s work evokes feelings of chaos and smoldering heat with warm colors and layered textures. Feenstra’s photography gives the sense of looking in from the outside, the overlaid image appearing like a reflection on glass as if the photographer took photos from the other side of a window. The writing in this issue of The Boiler echoes this: although we’re taking in the poetry and prose in this issue from the outside, the colors and chaos draw us in to examine it closer.
Carve – Fall 2017
Reading Carve, named for Raymond Carver, is a unique experience. The cover of the Fall 2017 issue is freshly-styled and modern, and the magazine format is a nice contrast to standard lit journal dimensions. This issue features the winners and Editor’s Choices of the 2017 Raymond Carver Short Story Contest, as well as an author interview following each piece. Though the interviews might disrupt the flow of the magazine for some readers, most of them are engaging and reveal important details about writing methods and inspiration. Carver fans will likely be delighted to discover that each interview is titled “What We Talk About.”
Able Muse – Summer 2017
Where to start. The fans of Able Muse look forward to each issue’s featured poet and featured artist, and the Summer 2017 issue does not disappoint. The issue notably holds the attention with distinct content that varies from what one usually finds in a multi-genre journal.
New England Review – 2017
Volume 38 Number 3 of the New England Review is a multifaceted issue, covering life in the army (Austrian, WWI and American, Iraq) as well as family, identity, and adventure.
Lyric Voice, Politics and Difficulty in Poetry
In the Fall 2017 issue of The Hampden-Sydney Poetry Review, the regular feature 4X4, in which four of the contributor’s answer the same four questions, addresses questions about the concept of lyric voice, what the most “productive relationship” is between poems and politics, and the inherent (or not) difficulty of poems. James Longenbach, Sarah Gridley, Jonathan Moody, and Jennifer Moxley all weigh in, responding in turn to the four questions.
Gravel – November 2017
The November 2017 issue of Gravel presents readers with a delicious tapestry of literary treats. The pieces in this issue stood out for the complexity they exhibited and for the strong characterizations they possessed.
Mud Season Review – October 2017
Issue 33, the latest from online Mud Season Review, promises something unique this month: instead of their usual format of three writers, one in each genre, the editors provide readers with a poetry-only issue. Fourteen poems from twelve poets tackle varying subjects, though it is the poetry that dealt with familial themes which stuck with me the longest.
The Slag Review – Fall 2017
In the “About Us” section of The Slag Review, the editors describe how the journal is “a little off-kilter,” and how the work they “accept will reflect that.” Readers can be thankful that the credo really shines forth in the Fall 2017 issue of the journal. There’s fiction, nonfiction, and poetry and they all, in their own ways, exhibit an off-kilter and unique sensibility.
Ploughshares – Summer 2017
I was delightfully surprised as I delved into this 2017 Summer issue of Ploughshares, a journal filled with fiction and nonfiction stories and essays from a variety of writers. While I recognized the names of several of the authors here, I was also introduced to other writers that I found very interesting.
Gulf Coast – Summer/Fall 2017
Gulf Coast, published out of the University of Houston’s CWP, focuses this issue on transformation. Strangeness slithers through these pages as bodies, ideas, and objects transform. In Gulf Coast, the fluidity highlights what is most stable: the search for human intimacy and connection.
Prairie Schooner – Fall 2017
The Fall 2017 issue of Prairie Schooner is both slim and muscular, like the wrestlers in Sean Prentiss’s “Pantheon of Loss,” an essay about self-torture (high school athletics), discipline, and the drive to win despite the consequences. Twenty-two years after his wrestling career ended, when family members ask whether the starvation, pain, and risk of death were worth it, Prentiss still says, “Yes.” Wrestlers, he argues, are driven not by health and common sense, but by the desire to be the last man standing. He writes, “We starve to win.”
Bennington Review – Summer 2017
“Cultural Landscape,” the cover image by Jakub Geltner that kicks off Issue Three: Threat, is a special kind of eye-catcher. A slice of pizza hangs precariously over a table’s edge, its cheese replaced by grass, its toppings swapped for uprooted trees and tumbling cars caught up in some unfamiliar landslide, slipping toward an undefined kind of doom.
Apple Valley Review – Fall 2017
Looking at the cover of the Fall 2017 issue of Apple Valley Review, I had the chills. A photo by Nicholas A. Tonelli of a town corner in winter, sun setting, and ice lining the road greets readers at the Apple Valley Review website, foreshadowing the Michigan winter waiting for me around the corner.
TriQuarterly – Summer/Fall 2017
TriQuarterly’s Summer/Fall 2017 issue is rife with writing of a high literary caliber. The pieces in this issue are all exciting in their own way, and I found myself quite taken by a number of them. Many of the fiction pieces in this issue are stellar. Though the stories range in style from straight-up literary realism to magical realism with a touch of the surreal, the one thing they share in common is a strong emotional core.
Brevity – September 2017
Celebrating their 20th anniversary, Brevity is a staple in both concise writing, and skillful nonfiction. An assignment in my first creative nonfiction class years ago was to browse the online journal’s website and pick out pieces we admired, and since then, Brevity is a magazine I revisit often, knowing I will never be disappointed by what I find there. As one might expect out of an anniversary issue, the September 2017 edition contains masterful nonfiction, exemplary of the quality work readers have come to expect.
The Southampton Review – Summer/Fall 2017
When is a treat too rich? The Summer/Fall 2017 issue of The Southampton Review is an overwhelming collection of multi-genre pieces, and it is definitely no exaggeration that it is hard to find a starting point. This tenth anniversary edition is a fine tribute to the vision and efforts of its editors.
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The Arkansas International – Spring 2017
The second issue of The Arkansas International contains an impressive range of eclectic writing. But what caught my eye first was the collection of six-panel comics excerpt from the Notes Mésopotamiennes by French comic book writer François Ayroles, translated by Edward Gauvin.
Tin House – Fall 2017
Volume 19 Number 1 is the “True Crime” issue of Tin House, designed, according to Editor Rob Spillman, “as a way to engage our country’s voyeuristic obsession with rogues and outlaws.” While vintage scraps of American morbidity do feature in this issue—the Starkweather murders, the Kansas village made famous by Truman Capote’s In Cold Blood—social justice and the criminal state share equal billing. In the latter poems and stories, black and brown lives are pulled apart by oppressive forces emboldened by a complicit public. The gateway to the issue, Sean Lewis’s portrait of record producer Phil Spector, is dark and almost whimsical, a perfect point of entry. Lewis replaces Spector’s head with tangled tape, evoking a wig worn at his trial, as well as the “confused mind” that would lead him to murder actress Lana Clarkson in 2003.
Post Road – 2017
Post Road Number 32 is a complex mix of storytelling that bobs and weaves, delights, and, in some moments, disappoints. The cover piece, a bland, semi-abstract digital drawing by Henry Samelson, is one such low moment, contrasted, incredibly, by the remarkable work of Charles McGill, which sits just inside the issue, seventeen pages away. McGill, who repurposes vintage golf bags to critique class inequality and racial injustice, exhibits a powerful aesthetic that would have made for a much stronger point of entry.
Still Point Arts Quarterly – Fall 2017
Still Point Arts Quarterly recently announced their switch from print issues to free, online issues delivered directly to readers’ email inboxes. The Fall 2017 issue is the first readers can access online, the current exhibition feature containing works based on “The Art of Structure.”
Lime Hawk – August 2017
Connecticut-based, online Lime Hawk provides readers with “creative works that muse on environment, culture, and sustainability.” Issue 12 contains 15 pieces of poetry, prose, art, and filmography, and the website has a calm and quiet theme, gray text boxes floating over a mountain scene, which further sets the mood for the new work.
Basalt – 2017
“Dark-colored, fine-grained,” reads the subtitle to basalt, the Oregonian journal named after the volcanic rock with those same dark, fine properties. Basalt is formed from surface lava cooling, and the poetry and art within the 2017 issue mimics its namesake, rising up as a strong finished product built from an eruption of words.
Into the Void – Summer 2017
Published out of Dublin, Ireland, Into the Void pushes the boundaries of comfort and vulnerability. Nothing is safe or simple. Through fiction, creative nonfiction, poetry, and art, this issue doesn’t try to clean up the rough edges of literature. Into the Void refuses to apologize for the imperfections, and vulnerabilities.
BOMB Magazine – Summer 2017
BOMB puts artists in conversation with each other. In the Summer 2017 issue, art is broadly defined and equally celebrated: poets and directors and architects, all are welcome at the table to open up the discussion on art, its legacy, history, and future. Particularly through reviews and interviews, BOMB lays bare artists’ inspiration, where creators and their creations speak to each other across time.
Nimrod International Journal – Spring/Summer 2017
In this issue of Nimrod International Journal, the theme of “Leaving Home, Finding Home” pulled at my heart strings, reminding me of homes I have found and homes I have left. I spent days pouring over the pages of this journal, unwilling to set it down, each piece reaching out to me in happiness or in sadness, painting stories I could dive into.
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Driftwood Press – Summer 2017
Some of my favorite literary magazines are those that introduce and connect me to artists and writers I was unfamiliar with prior to reading. While it’s definitely nice to read work by favorites, I am always open to finding something new. The latest issue of Driftwood Press accomplishes this twofold. First, it introduced me to a cover artist I was unfamiliar with. Second, it connected me to writers, each piece accompanied by an interview with its creator.
Fiction Southeast – 2017
Fiction Southeast has a tagline that reads, “An online journal dedicated to short fiction.” The dedication is readily apparent with one look at their site; there are loads of stories stacked as far down as you can scroll. Short fiction almost literally as far as the eye can see! The more recent fiction pieces have a lot to offer in terms of subject matter and character.