As I suspected would happen, professional obligations have swamped me this past week. So I don't have a proper diary. But even when there isn't time to dwell inside a novel, there are other ways of indulging in literary fiction.
While it may not be the cool new thing, I still like literary journals and magazines. In print. I'd like to discover more of the online ones, especially having had good luck with Narrative (http://www.narrativemagazine.com/), but I spend too much time at a computer keyboard as it is.
Multitudes of these journals exist, and one's mileage can certainly vary as to quality. But just the idea that people are trying to discover new ways to communicate about the human condition is something I take comfort in.
My favorite may well be the smallest. One Story (http://www.one-story.com/) is just that -- one story a month. They arrive in a hand-size pamphlet with a different pastel cover each month. The authors range from the well-known, to the just-about-to-be-discovered, to the this-is-it-for-their-publishing-career. The authors published in the past two years have included Megan Mayhew Bergman, Claire Vaye Watkins, A.M. Homes, Susanna Daniel, Aimee Bender and Emma Donoghue. This is where I first read the incredible Lauren Groff. Not knowing what's coming, and being thrilled by a discovery, make this one subscription I continue to renew gladly.
The venerable Paris Review remains a mainstay as well. The current issue includes interviews with Roberto Calasso and James Fenton, and multi-media work from Daniel Handler and Maira Kalman. The range of George Plimpton's journal continues to be wide, and it serves as a record of who matters in the world of letters.
Ploughshares (http://www.pshares.org/), published by Emerson College, is another journal I collect. The current issue features nonfiction, and was edited by Patricia Hampl with essays by Charles Baxter, Thomas Mallon and Dani Shapiro, among others.
The other journal I enjoy most often is TinHouse (http://www.tinhouse.com/...), based in Portland. How to not love a publication that features Ursula Le Guin and Charles D'Ambrosio on the cover of the latest issue, and has fiction from Hannah Tinti.
And, although it may not be in its glory days, I still will keep my subscription to The New Yorker. It has excerpts of upcoming important novels more often than new writers these days, but it's still my mainstay.
The other publications I subscribe to, more or less continually, are The New York Review of Books, The Times Literary Supplement and The London Review of Books.
Of course, keeping current on all of them is an entirely different subject.
What journals, in print and online, do you read?
Readers & Book Lovers Series Schedule
DAY |
TIME (EST/EDT) |
Series Name |
Editor(s) |
SUN |
6:00 PM |
Young Reader's Pavilion |
The Book Bear |
Sun (hiatus) |
9:30 PM |
SciFi/Fantasy Book Club |
quarkstomper |
Bi-Monthly Sun |
Midnight |
Reading Ramblings |
don mikulecky |
MON |
8:00 PM |
Monday Murder Mystery |
Susan from 29 |
Mon |
11:00 PM |
My Favorite Books/Authors |
edrie, MichiganChet |
alternate Tuesdays |
8:00AM |
LGBT Literature |
Texdude50, Dave in Northridge |
Tue |
10:00 PM |
Contemporary Fiction Views |
bookgirl |
WED |
7:30 AM |
WAYR? |
plf515 |
Wed |
8:00 PM |
Bookflurries Bookchat |
cfk |
THU |
8:00 PM |
Write On! |
SensibleShoes |
alternate Thu |
11:00 PM |
Audiobooks Club |
SoCaliana |
FRI |
8:00 AM |
Books That Changed My Life |
Diana in NoVa |
SAT (fourth each month) |
11:00 AM |
Windy City Bookworm |
Chitown Kev |
Sat |
4:00 PM |
Daily Kos Political Book Club |
Freshly Squeezed Cynic |
Sat |
9:00 PM |
Books So Bad They're Good |
Ellid |