Clifford Garstang's Blog, page 143
November 17, 2010
National Book Awards Announced!
The National Book Awards were announced this evening:Kathryn Erskine wins in young people's literature for Mockingbird
Patti Smith wins in non-fiction for her memoir, Just Kids
Terrance Hayes wins in poetry for Lighthead
Jaimy Gordon wins in fiction for Lord of Misrule
Congratulations to the winners!
Pushcart Prize Litmag Rankings -- Debate and experiment
As always, my ranking of literary magazines based on the number of Pushcart Prizes and Special Mentions they've won (see 2011 Pushcart Prize Ranking) has attracted some attention and some detractors who object to the list on one ground or another. Some people just don't like rankings, it would seem, and I understand that--usually there is some unavoidable subjectivity in a ranking that may render it valueless, or not of general applicability. I've tried to avoid this criticism by being as objective as I can based on data, understanding that the Pushcart Prize itself is the subjective judgment of the editors.
A respectful commenter on the above-linked ranking (I emphasize the respectful part because critics of the list aren't always so respectful) doesn't care for the list because, among other things, it encourages careerism in writers. (I don't think that's necessarily a bad thing, although I don't think the list encourages anything.) You can read his comments for yourself and judge whether you find them valid. I don't, particularly. A writer must always take into account whether the work he or she is producing FITS into a particular journal, and whether the writer LIKES the work in a journal. One shouldn't submit to Ploughshares solely on the basis of its standing in my list. This seems to me to be understood. Perhaps I need to make a bigger point of emphasizing that. On the other hand, if Ploughshares is recognized in the industry as winning the most prizes (as evidenced by its place in my ranking), and I think my work would fit its aesthetic, then that would be a place I'd want to submit.
The commenter seems to think that there is no way to measure "quality" in a literary journal, and I would disagree with that.
Now, methodology in the list is a different matter. The commenter objects to the ten-year time period I use in my calculations. Fair enough. I like ten years maybe because I'm older and think a decade is a good amount of time to achieve some perspective. Yes, the industry is changing rapidly and there are new, high-quality magazines that don't show up very high on the list. On the other hand, a couple of years isn't much of a track record. Anyone can go out and buy this year's Pushcart Prize
Anthology and see what's winning prizes and special mentions this year. In fact, you should do that. But one year isn't a lot to go on. What's the right number of years?
So I plan to stick with my ten-year list, but as an experiment I ran the list based on five years, and I've included below the top fifty magazines based on that period. Maybe you'll like this better.
I few observations. Ploughshares is still No. 1, but only barely, just ahead of Conjunctions, the No. 2 on both lists. One Story leaps to No. 3. Paris Review drops. Narrative, the only online journal on this shortened list, climbing a few spots from its ranking of 53 on the ten-year list.
2011 (5-years) Magazine 1 Ploughshares 2 Conjunctions 3 One Story 4 Tin House 5 Zoetrope: All Story 5 Southern Review 5 Threepenny Review 5 A Public Space 9 Noon 10 Georgia Review 10 New Letters 12 Ontario Review © 12 McSweeney's 12 Shenandoah 12 Mississippi Review 16 New England Review 16 Kenyon Review 16 Missouri Review 16 Boulevard 20 Virginia Quarterly Review 21 Agni 21 Antioch Review 21 Sun 24 Epoch 25 Paris Review 26 TriQuarterly 26 Ecotone 28 Iowa Review 28 Michigan Quarterly Review 28 Glimmer Train 31 Witness 31 Crazyhorse 31 American Scholar 34 Five Points 34 Narrative 35 Colorado Review 36 Prairie Schooner 36 Oxford American 36 ZYZZYVA 36 Post Road 41 Yale Review 41 Bellevue Literary Review 41 Image 41 Cincinnati Review 41 Pen America 46 Idaho Review 46 Third Coast 46 Willow Springs 46 New Orleans Review 46 Sonora Review
A respectful commenter on the above-linked ranking (I emphasize the respectful part because critics of the list aren't always so respectful) doesn't care for the list because, among other things, it encourages careerism in writers. (I don't think that's necessarily a bad thing, although I don't think the list encourages anything.) You can read his comments for yourself and judge whether you find them valid. I don't, particularly. A writer must always take into account whether the work he or she is producing FITS into a particular journal, and whether the writer LIKES the work in a journal. One shouldn't submit to Ploughshares solely on the basis of its standing in my list. This seems to me to be understood. Perhaps I need to make a bigger point of emphasizing that. On the other hand, if Ploughshares is recognized in the industry as winning the most prizes (as evidenced by its place in my ranking), and I think my work would fit its aesthetic, then that would be a place I'd want to submit.
The commenter seems to think that there is no way to measure "quality" in a literary journal, and I would disagree with that.
Now, methodology in the list is a different matter. The commenter objects to the ten-year time period I use in my calculations. Fair enough. I like ten years maybe because I'm older and think a decade is a good amount of time to achieve some perspective. Yes, the industry is changing rapidly and there are new, high-quality magazines that don't show up very high on the list. On the other hand, a couple of years isn't much of a track record. Anyone can go out and buy this year's Pushcart Prize
Anthology and see what's winning prizes and special mentions this year. In fact, you should do that. But one year isn't a lot to go on. What's the right number of years?So I plan to stick with my ten-year list, but as an experiment I ran the list based on five years, and I've included below the top fifty magazines based on that period. Maybe you'll like this better.
I few observations. Ploughshares is still No. 1, but only barely, just ahead of Conjunctions, the No. 2 on both lists. One Story leaps to No. 3. Paris Review drops. Narrative, the only online journal on this shortened list, climbing a few spots from its ranking of 53 on the ten-year list.
2011 (5-years) Magazine 1 Ploughshares 2 Conjunctions 3 One Story 4 Tin House 5 Zoetrope: All Story 5 Southern Review 5 Threepenny Review 5 A Public Space 9 Noon 10 Georgia Review 10 New Letters 12 Ontario Review © 12 McSweeney's 12 Shenandoah 12 Mississippi Review 16 New England Review 16 Kenyon Review 16 Missouri Review 16 Boulevard 20 Virginia Quarterly Review 21 Agni 21 Antioch Review 21 Sun 24 Epoch 25 Paris Review 26 TriQuarterly 26 Ecotone 28 Iowa Review 28 Michigan Quarterly Review 28 Glimmer Train 31 Witness 31 Crazyhorse 31 American Scholar 34 Five Points 34 Narrative 35 Colorado Review 36 Prairie Schooner 36 Oxford American 36 ZYZZYVA 36 Post Road 41 Yale Review 41 Bellevue Literary Review 41 Image 41 Cincinnati Review 41 Pen America 46 Idaho Review 46 Third Coast 46 Willow Springs 46 New Orleans Review 46 Sonora Review
November 15, 2010
The New Yorker: "The Trojan Prince" by Tessa Hadley
Sorry, non-subscribers, you can't read this one either. No great loss, however.
Tessa Hadley has a novel coming out next year, and I thought at first this was an excerpt, but it doesn't seem to be. First, the descriptions of the novel that I was able to find seem completely unrelated to this story. And second, the online feature that I've only just discovered—a short interview with the author—makes no mention that it's an excerpt. See: This Week in Fiction: Tessa Hadley.
So, I suppose it isn't an excerpt.
But if sure does feel like one. This story feels very told, as if it is background material for something that is about to happen. (We even get a flash-forward, as if the author is confirming this very idea.)
It's the 1920s, ambitious young James is hanging around with his rich cousin Ellen and their other cousin Connie. He think he's interested in Ellen, although there are clues that he begins to lose interest—he doesn't like the way her hair smells, for example. He then goes off to work for a shipping company and survives a shipwreck in Canada. When he writes home to announce his survival it is to Connie. And it's Connie who meets him when he comes back.
End of story. Not much here that I like, although James has potential—for the novel that this feels like it wants to be.
November 15, 2010: "The Trojan Prince" by Tessa Hadley
Tessa Hadley has a novel coming out next year, and I thought at first this was an excerpt, but it doesn't seem to be. First, the descriptions of the novel that I was able to find seem completely unrelated to this story. And second, the online feature that I've only just discovered—a short interview with the author—makes no mention that it's an excerpt. See: This Week in Fiction: Tessa Hadley.
So, I suppose it isn't an excerpt.
But if sure does feel like one. This story feels very told, as if it is background material for something that is about to happen. (We even get a flash-forward, as if the author is confirming this very idea.)
It's the 1920s, ambitious young James is hanging around with his rich cousin Ellen and their other cousin Connie. He think he's interested in Ellen, although there are clues that he begins to lose interest—he doesn't like the way her hair smells, for example. He then goes off to work for a shipping company and survives a shipwreck in Canada. When he writes home to announce his survival it is to Connie. And it's Connie who meets him when he comes back.
End of story. Not much here that I like, although James has potential—for the novel that this feels like it wants to be.
November 15, 2010: "The Trojan Prince" by Tessa Hadley
November 12, 2010
The New Yorker: "Boys Town" by Jim Shepard
Here's another story that's only available to subscribers. Next week is the same. It looks like The New Yorker is pulling the plug on free fiction. (My comments are late because my issue still hasn't arrived and I really didn't want to log onto the eNewYorker site to read it that way; now I have no choice.)
So if you don't have access to this story, that's a shame. It's excellent, mostly because of the voice of Martin, the first person narrator. Martin is a loser and probably disturbed. His mother, with whom he lives, thinks he has post-traumatic stress disorder, but there are no mentions of deployments to Iraq or Afghanistan, although he was in the Army for four years and the reserves for another 4. He's got some problems, though, that's certain. He abused his wife and so has limited time with his son. He blames everyone else for his problems. And when he visits a woman he's interested in and finds her ex-husband at her home he fires a gun through their window. He hears the police coming after him—he's holed up in a tent in the woods—and he knows it's not going to end well (fulfilling a prophecy that had been made about him years earlier).
His mother is no prize either, and it's not hard to understand Martin. But lots of people have lousy mothers and don't turn out to be the losers Martin is. And that's why the title—a reference to the great movie with Mickey Rooney and Spencer Tracy—is significant.If anyone ever tells you that you can't write a story with an unsympathetic main character, point to this story as evidence that you sure as hell can.
November 8, 2010: "Boys Town" by Jim Shepard
So if you don't have access to this story, that's a shame. It's excellent, mostly because of the voice of Martin, the first person narrator. Martin is a loser and probably disturbed. His mother, with whom he lives, thinks he has post-traumatic stress disorder, but there are no mentions of deployments to Iraq or Afghanistan, although he was in the Army for four years and the reserves for another 4. He's got some problems, though, that's certain. He abused his wife and so has limited time with his son. He blames everyone else for his problems. And when he visits a woman he's interested in and finds her ex-husband at her home he fires a gun through their window. He hears the police coming after him—he's holed up in a tent in the woods—and he knows it's not going to end well (fulfilling a prophecy that had been made about him years earlier).
His mother is no prize either, and it's not hard to understand Martin. But lots of people have lousy mothers and don't turn out to be the losers Martin is. And that's why the title—a reference to the great movie with Mickey Rooney and Spencer Tracy—is significant.If anyone ever tells you that you can't write a story with an unsympathetic main character, point to this story as evidence that you sure as hell can.
November 8, 2010: "Boys Town" by Jim Shepard
November 9, 2010
2011 Pushcart Prize Rankings
It's that time of year again. The 2011 volume of the Pushcart Prizes arrived in my mailbox today, and I'm pleased to present for the sixth year my Literary Magazine Rankings. (All previous years' rankings are linked in the sidebar, should you want to compare.) There are several developments this year that I want to point out, but first I need to make my customary disclaimer. Rankings of literary magazines are of questionable value. Most such rankings are subjective. Others depend on data that may not be available for all magazines, such as circulation or payment to authors, or response time. These are important factors to some and I don't discount them. It's just that diversity in these areas, and the advent of high-quality online magazines, make such factors problematic.
This ranking, on the other hand, is extremely simple. I look at the annual volume of Pushcart Prize winners and the list of Special Mentions included in the back of the volume. I award a certain number of points for a winner and fewer points for a special mention. I add up the points and make a list.
There are two important factors to note. I began this list six years ago using data from the volumes beginning with 2001. My theory was that older volumes included too many defunct magazines and, perhaps more importantly, most magazines have evolved along with literary tastes, so that the most relevant recognitions would be the most recent. This year, for the first time, I am shifting forward in time and have dropped the points awarded for 2001. This year's ranking, then, includes 2002-2011, and I plan to keep using a ten-year rolling system. Next year I'll drop 2002. As a result of this shift, a few magazines and presses that have been on the list thanks to points earned in 2001 have now dropped out. So that readers will know which those magazines those are, I've left them on the bottom of the list with zero points and designated them with a "DO".
The second factor, as I've noted in the past, is that my ranking uses only the Pushcart Prize—not BASS, not O. Henry. The reason for this is that there is overlap among these different anthologies, so that some stories may appear in all of them or two of them. The "glossy" magazines are considered for BASS, but not Pushcart. Online magazines are not considered for O. Henry but are beginning to be recognized by Pushcart. While I admire both BASS and O. Henry, the Pushcart Prize anthology seems to me to best reflect the literary magazine world in which I participate.
Which brings me to the purpose of this list. I began the rankings as a way of prioritizing my submissions of short stories to magazines. I still use it that way, and I think many other writers do also. If Ploughshares wins the most Pushcart Prizes and Special Mentions, then that's the magazine I want to publish my stories. If One Story is on the rise, I might target them before a magazine that is lower on the list. It's as simple as that.
Note that I've referred to short stories. This ranking is only about the fiction prizes and special mentions. It would be a productive exercise to look at Poetry and Nonfiction, but I have not yet done so. I think these would need to be separate lists, since not all magazines publish in all three genres, and then it would be interesting to see where a particular magazine sits on each of the lists. Maybe soon I'll get to that.
Now, what observations can I make about this year's list?Ploughshares lost ground, having earned only one Special Mention this year, but still holds a commanding lead.Online magazines are more evident this year — notably Narrative, but there are several others on the list, as well. Kenyon Review is represented by both its print and online components, although I've combined them here.Tin House jumped into 4th spot and Paris Review slipped to 6thOntario Review, which is defunct, actually moved UP in the rankings because Georgia Review lost points when I dropped 2001One Story leaped from 23rd to 15th on the strength of two Pushcarts and two Special Mentions, the most of any magazine this yearA Public Space also made a nice move, entering the top twenty.
For more comparisons, take a look at last year's rankings: 2010 Pushcart Prize Rankings
Now, for some other innovations. This year, the list is hyperlinked to the magazines' websites, which I hope will be helpful.I have again used the symbol © to indicate that a magazine is closed, but I think I've been more diligent this time around in discovering which magazines have disappeared. Two of the dead magazines are actually making their first appearance on the list.I've also used a question mark (?) where I'm unsure about a magazine—if I can't find a website, for example.
I welcome feedback. Do you have a correction? An updated web address? News of a dead (or resurrected) magazine? Send me an email or leave a comment below.
And now for the list:
2011 Magazine 2011 Score 1 Ploughshares 113 2 Conjunctions 82 3 Zoetrope: All Story 77 4 Tin House 74 5 Southern Review 69 6 Paris Review 56 7 Threepenny Review 55 8 New England Review 48 8 Ontario Review © 48 10 Epoch 47 11 Georgia Review 45 12 TriQuarterly 40 13 Kenyon Review 39 13 Missouri Review 39 15 One Story 38 16 McSweeney's 37 17 Five Points 36 17 Shenandoah 36 19 Witness 35 20 A Public Space 31 20 Boulevard 31 22 New Letters 30 23 Agni 29 23 Noon 29 25 Antioch Review 28 26 Virginia Quarterly Review 27 27 StoryQuarterly 25 28 Mississippi Review 24 29 Iowa Review 21 30 Gettysburg Review 20 31 Idaho Review 18 31 Sun 18 33 Chelsea © 16 33 Michigan Quarterly Review 16 33 Prairie Schooner 16 36 Colorado Review 15 37 Crazyhorse 14 37 Glimmer Train 14 37 Third Coast 14 37 Yale Review 14 41 Doubletake © 13 41 Ecotone 13 41 Oxford American 13 41 Willow Springs 13 41 ZYZZYVA 13 46 Alaska Quarterly Review 12 46 Manoa 12 48 American Scholar 11 48 Bellevue Literary Review 11 48 Harvard Review 11 48 Hudson Review 11 48 Salmagundi 11 53 Narrative 10 54 Image 9 55 Calyx 8 55 Cincinnati Review 8 55 Post Road 8 58 Graywolf Press 7 58 Massachusetts Review 7 58 Pen America 7 58 Speakeasy © 7 58 Water-Stone Review 7 63 Caribbean Writer 6 63 Fence 6 63 Fiction International 6 63 New Orleans Review 6 63 News from the Republic of Letters 6 63 North American Review 6 63 Sonora Review 6 63 Southwest Review 6 71 American Short Fiction 5 71 Black Renaissance Noire 5 71 Black Warrior Review 5 71 Bridge © 5 71 Coffee House Press 5 71 Dalkey Archive Press 5 71 Grand Street © 5 71 Indiana Review 5 71 Mid American Review 5 71 Other Voices © 5 71 Parkett 5 71 Pleiades 5 71 Univ. of Georgia Press 5 84 Another Chicago Magazine 4 84 Beloit Fiction 4 84 Daedalus 4 84 Gulf Coast 4 84 Hopkins Review 4 84 Northwest Review 4 84 Raritan 4 91 Appalachian Heritage 3 91 Event 3 91 failbetter.com 3 91 Fiction 3 91 New York Tyrant 3 91 Ninth Letter 3 91 Pinch 3 91 River Styx 3 91 Sewanee Review 3 91 West Branch 3 91 Western Humanities Review 3 102 [sic] 2 102 American Letters & Commentary 2 102 American Literary Review 2 102 Bamboo Ridge 2 102 Bellingham Review 2 102 BkMk Press 2 102 Blackbird 2 102 Bomb 2 102 Boston Review 2 102 Briar Cliff Review 2 102 Brooklyn Rail 2 102 Brooklyn Review 2 102 Carve 2 102 Chautauqua 2 102 Columbia Review 2 102 Crab Orchard Review 2 102 Faultline 2 102 Fifth Wednesday 2 102 Fourteen Hills 2 102 Hotel Amerika 2 102 Inkwell 2 102 J Journal 2 102 Lit 2 102 Literal Latte 2 102 Meridian 2 102 Paper Street © (?) 2 102 Passages North 2 102 Redivider 2 102 Sarabande Books 2 102 Sou'wester 2 102 The Journal 2 102 Timber Creek Review (?) 2 102 Turnrow 2 102 University Press of New England 2 136 Amazon Shorts © 1 136 Antietam Review © 1 136 Art and Understanding 1 136 Artful Dodge 1 136 Arts & Letters 1 136 Ascent 1 136 At Length 1 136 Ballyhoo Stories 1 136 Baltimore Review 1 136 Blue Earth Review 1 136 Blue Mesa Review 1 136 Brain, Child 1 136 Callaloo 1 136 Canio's Editions (?) 1 136 Carnegie Mellon Univ. Press 1 136 Carpe Articulum 1 136 Chariton Review 1 136 Chattahoochee Review 1 136 Cimarron Review 1 136 Confrontation 1 136 Contemporary West 1 136 Copper Nickel 1 136 Cutbank 1 136 Denver Quarterly 1 136 Descant 1 136 Dos Passos Review 1 136 Dossier Journal 1 136 Eggemoggin Reach Review (?) 1 136 Epiphany 1 136 EWU Press © 1 136 Exile 1 136 Florida Review 1 136 Folio 1 136 Frank 1 136 Frieght Stories 1 136 Fugue 1 136 Gray's Sporting Journal 1 136 Green Mountains Review 1 136 Grist 1 136 Hampton Shorts (?) 1 136 Happy (?) 1 136 Healing Muse 1 136 Helicon Nine Editions 1 136 High Plains Literary Review (?) 1 136 Hunger Mountain 1 136 Iron Horse Literary Review 1 136 Isotope © 1 136 Jabberwock Review 1 136 Kelsey Review 1 136 King's English © 1 136 Kyoto Journal 1 136 Lake Effect 1 136 Laughing Fire Press 1 136 Laurel Review 1 136 Lynx Eye © 1 136 Maggid 1 136 Margin (?) 1 136 McSweeney's Books 1 136 Mid-List Press 1 136 Minnesota Review 1 136 Momotombo Press 1 136 Mythium 1 136 Natural Bridge 1 136 Nebraska Review © 1 136 Nerve.com 1 136 New Ohio Review 1 136 New Renaissance 1 136 Night Train 1 136 Nimrod 1 136 Northern Lights (?) 1 136 Notre Dame Review 1 136 Open City 1 136 Orion 1 136 Partisan Review © 1 136 Pearl 1 136 Per Contra 1 136 Phoebe 1 136 Pindeldyboz © 1 136 Prism 1 136 Puckerbush Press 1 136 Puerto del Sol 1 136 Quarter After Eight 1 136 Quarterly West 1 136 Quick Fiction 1 136 RBS Gazette (?) 1 136 Relief 1 136 Rivendell © 1 136 Rosebud 1 136 Salamander 1 136 Seems 1 136 Slice 1 136 Small Town (?) 1 136 Smoke Long Quarterly 1 136 Soft Skull Press 1 136 South Carolina Review 1 136 Southampton Review 1 136 Southern California Review 1 136 Spork 1 136 Stolen Time Press (?) 1 136 Stone Canoe 1 136 Subtropics 1 136 Sycamore Review 1 136 Tampa Review 1 136 Tiferet 1 136 Transformation (?) 1 136 Underground Voices 1 136 University of Pittsburgh Press 1 136 Upstreet 1 136 War, Literature and The Arts 1 136 West Wind 1 136 Worcester Review 1 136 Words of Wisdom (?) 1 136 World Literature Today 1 136 Xconnect (?) 1 DO American Fiction (New Rivers Press) 0 DO American Voice (?) 0 DO APA Journal (?) 0 DO Clackamas Literary Review 0 DO Flyway 0 DO Heart (?) 0 DO Joe © 0 DO Larcom Review (?) 0 DO Lilith 0 DO Louisville Review 0 DO Milkweed Editions - Press 0 DO North Atlantic Review 0 DO Oasis © 0 DO Press (?) 0 DO SMU Press 0 DO Story © 0 DO Two Girls Review (?) 0 DO WordWrights (?) 0
November 8, 2010
LitMags on Kindle
I gave in to the Kindle because I love gadgets and I love reading and because I've run out of bookshelf space. I know that I won't stop buying books from Indie bookstores because I also love them. But anything I would have ordered from Amazon or B&N is now most likely headed for my Kindle (sorry about that, B&N--the Nook looks nice, but in the end I thought the Kindle would work better for me).It turns out, though, that I may be using the Kindle even more than I thought I would. Newspapers! Magazines! I haven't yet ordered the New York Times but I'm sure I will. Many of the magazines that are delivered to me now are on Kindle and I love the idea of not having stacks of magazines lying around.
Plus litmags! I have just ordered One Story for Kindle. I used to subscribe and then I didn't, but this seems a good reason to start again. I see that Narrative is available on Kindle also, but I'm not sure if the content is any different from what I see online for free, so I haven't ordered that. Are other litmags on Kindle?
November 6, 2010
I'm reading at Over the Moon Bookstore in Crozet
I'm excited that I'll be reading from In an Uncharted Country at Over the Moon Bookstore & Artisan Gallery on Friday, November 12, at 7pm.
This is a great little bookstore (located just two doors down from the famous Crozet Pizza on Three Notch'd Road in "downtown" Crozet). If you haven't been there, you should definitely check it out.
Hope to see you on Friday!
Writerday for November, at Mockingbird
SWAG Writers is organizing another Writerday celebration at the Mockingbird on Wednesday November 10 from 6-8pm. Come talk about writing, about your successes, your frustrations, or anything else. And let's also talk about next steps for SWAG Writers.See you on the 10th
Second Wednesdays are Writerdays . . .
November 1, 2010
Prime Number Magazine: Prime Decimals 3.2
Issue No. 3 of Prime Number Magazine came out on October 19. I'm pretty please with it and I hope you've had a chance to take a look at the stories and essays and poems and interviews. But time goes on and today we posted the first of 4 updates--Prime Decimals 3.2. Whereas the main issues contain longer stories and suites of poems, the updates have flash fiction and nonfiction plus single poems.So please take a look at this update. We've got poems by Alan King, J.P. Dancing Bear, and Samuel Day Wharton, plus a flash fiction piece by Daniel Hudon, and a flash memoir by Ray Scanlon.
We've also updated our submission guidelines. We've been hearing that a word limit for prose of 3,000 was too tight, so we've loosened up a bit. We now will consider prose up to 4,000 words. That doesn't mean you have be wordy, though! Concise is good. You've just got a little more room to work with now. Check out the new Submission Guidelines.
