Literary Magazines Today

Recently an article appeared in the Chronicle of Higher Education reporting that the Virginia Quarterly Review is on the edge of death. After ninety years of life it seems headed toward extinction. The process of going downhill began under Ted Genoways and continues apace. The VQR is a general quarterly of the kind also represented by the American Scholar and the New Criterion—both of which are in good health.

In general there are too many periodicals of all kinds in this country in a literary or at least quasi-literary vein. So many mediocre magazines are driving out the few good ones left. Lately the tendency to edit by committee has become rampant. The work in such magazines tends to be anything but distinguished, though occasionally one can find a first-rate story or poem or essay. Randall Jarrell never tired of saying, “read at random.” In my random reading of late, I found an excellent story by Michael Knight in the new issue of the Southern Review, and a first-rate essay by Caroline Osborne on ranching in Texas in the new Missouri Review.

Current issues of the Hudson Review and the New Criterion are particularly lively and worthwhile. Three cheers for the Hudson Review and everyone involved, especially its editor, Paula Deitz. Of particular interest in the winter issue are essays by Lyndall Gordon, Mark Jarman, Karen Wilkin, and needless to say, William H. Pritchard. Pritchard is the best literary reviewer in the country except for Michael Dirda and Sam Pickering.

Put your money into subscriptions to the Hudson Review, the New Criterion, the American Scholar, in addition to paying for the New York Review of Books, the London Review of Books, and the TLS. Support your magazines by not only reading them and writing for them, but by subscribing to them and donating money (not just manuscripts) to them. I have always believed the transaction between author and publisher should be two-way.